Enemies & Lovers - Christine Zolendz
Prologue
When you’re fifteen, life-defining moments aren’t very obvious, especially the ones we never see coming. There are no bright flashing signs warning you to proceed through the situation with caution, that the very instance will somehow mark you, change you, maybe enough to shatter you into two broken pieces—the before-you and the after-you pieces.
It’s not until after the dust settles and time passes that you look back, remembering those moments, more slowly, with every last detail, and realize your heart and brain have been diseased for so long by your own memory. This is when you see nothing has defined you more than that one small moment you allowed to last a lifetime.
My moment was on the kind of summer night your clothes stuck to your skin and everything melted with sweat and heat. The four of us were out in the stone garden, under an ink-black sky. We sat around the fire pit, the heat from the flames adding to the sweat slicking my skin, trickling droplets down my spine.
The adults were all busy, we last saw them at dinner, flushed and bug-eyed, swirling dark red wine around in their glasses and laughing too loudly. Vaughn had his friends over earlier, so did Chloe. A mishmash of filthy-rich, trust-fund kids boasting about their summer plans—some of Chloe’s friends only acknowledged me to snicker about the short hem of my dress, while Vaughn’s friends stared me down with wolf eyes until he told them all to leave. I stood on the outside for almost an hour, quietly watching, plucking out blades of their beautifully manicured grass from where I sat on the lawn, building up enough courage to speak. Matteo hung back too, in the outskirts until all the twins’ end-of-school friends left and it was just the four of us: Me, the twins—Vaughn and Chloe—and Matteo.
The way it was every summer I could remember.
The way we survived every endless summer day of our childhood since we were born. Long hot summers, lifetimes ago, back when I once believed in love. I can remember those summers were full of Vaughn, and the innocent euphoria and giddiness that penetrated everything around me. It smelled like fresh-turned earth and pungent wildflowers when we picnicked in the fields behind the stables. It sounded like heavy gasping breaths, teasing laughter, and the splash of water as our bodies sliced through the surface of the lake.
We’d spend mornings in their country club’s playground, clambering up the slides and tumbling down the hot metal, ending tangled up in each other’s arms. Afternoons sharing a hot fudge sundae in the small ice cream parlor in town. Lying side by side by the lake soaking in the sun, our skin sticky with lotion.
At night when the parents all went to their rooms, we’d camp out together, huddled under the covers, gripping sheets, trying to quiet each other’s gasps and moans.
“I’m glad everyone finally left,” Vaughn murmured, sipping at the bottle of champagne Matteo swiped stealthily from the dinner table. “Chloe and I couldn’t wait until you got here.” He leaned forward, almost touching the small flames of the fire, to hand me the bottle.
I took a quick swig, savoring the icy sweetness until the aftertaste made my stomach curl. Somewhere deep inside the enormous house laughter rang out. “I couldn’t wait to get here either,” I said, glad for the fire in front of me so I could easily blame it for my sudden blush. The four of us kept in touch always, through emails and social media all year long, but it was Vaughn I missed the most, it was Vaughn that filled my every thought in the long winter months away from him.
On the other side of the fire, he raised an eyebrow and smiled at me.
Was he thinking of the things we’d each written to each other about? The thing I was to him? The things he wanted me to be? The thoughts we secretly shared that made my heart race and my stomach clench so tightly I had to press my balled fists between my legs to ease the ache?
The fire crackled between us, shooting sparks up into the night sky, and somewhere off in the distance thunder growled low.
My hair whipped across my vision by a sudden warm breeze, and the hem of my white linen dress fluttered up away from me. The instant drop of Vaughn’s eyes against my bare legs made me shiver. Beads of sweat formed at his temple. I watched