We'll Always Have Summer Read Free Page B

his feet unsteadily. “Wait!”
    I pushed past him and grabbed my bag from his bed.
    Then I was out the door, running down the stairs and outside. I ran all the way to the bus stop, my bag banging against my shoulder, my heels clacking against the pave-ment. I almost tripped and fell, but I made it. I caught the bus just as the last person was getting on, and we drove off. I didn’t look back to see if Jeremiah had followed me.
    My roommate, Jillian, had gone home for the summer earlier that day, so at least I had the room to myself and could cry alone. Jeremiah kept calling and texting, so I turned my phone off. But before I went to bed, I turned it back on again so I could see what he wrote me.
    I’m so ashamed of myself.
    Please talk to me.
    I love you and I always will.
    I cried harder.
    we’ll always have summer · 21

Chapter Five
    When we broke up in April, it really did come out of nowhere. Yes, we’d had little fights here and there, but you could hardly even call them fights.
    Like, there was this time Shay was having a party at her godmother’s country house. She invited a ton of people, and she said I could bring Jeremiah, too. We were gonna get dressed up and dance outside all night long. We’d all just crash there for the weekend, Shay said—it would be a blast. I was just happy to be included. I told Jeremiah about it, and he said he had an intramural soccer game but I should go anyway. I said, “Can’t you just miss it? It’s not like it’s a real game.” It was a bitchy thing to say, but I said it, and I meant it.
    That was our first fight. Not a real fight, not like yelling or anything, but he was mad and so was I.
    We always hung out with his friends. In a way it made sense. He already had them, and I was still forming mine.
    It took time to get close to people, and with me at his frat house all the time, the girls on my hall were bonding without me.
    And there were other things, too, that annoyed me.
    Things I’d never known about Jeremiah, things I couldn’t have known from only seeing him in the summer at the beach house. Like how obnoxious he was when he smoked weed with his suitemates and they ate pineapple-and-ham pizza and listened to “Gangsta’s Paradise” by Coolio and they would laugh for, like, an hour.
    Also his seasonal allergies. I’d never seen him in the springtime, so I didn’t know he had them.
    He called me, sneezing like crazy, all stuffed up and pitiful. “Can you come over and hang out with me?”
    he asked, blowing his nose. “And can you bring more Kleenex? And orange juice?”
    I bit my lip to keep from saying, You have allergies, not swine flu.
    I’d gone over to his frat house the day before. He and his roommate played video games while I did my homework. Then we watched a Kung Fu movie and ordered Indian food, even though I didn’t really like to eat Indian food because it gave me an upset stomach after. Jeremiah said that when his allergies got really bad, Indian food was the only thing that would make him feel better. I ate we’ll always have summer · 23
    naan and rice and felt pissed while Jeremiah scarfed down chicken tikka masala and watched his movie. He could be really oblivious sometimes, and I had to wonder if it was on purpose.
    “I really want to come over, but I have a paper that’s due tomorrow,” I said, trying to sound conflicted about it. “So I probably shouldn’t. Sorry.”
    “Well, I guess I could go there,” he said. “I’ll take a ton of Benedryl and sleep while you write. Then maybe we can order Indian food again.”
    “Yeah,” I said, sourly. “We could do that.” At least I wouldn’t have to take the bus. But I would have to go to the hall bathroom and get a roll of toilet paper, because Jillian would be pissed if Jeremiah used all her Kleenex again.
    I didn’t know then that all of that was setting the stage for our first real fight. We had one of those screaming and crying kind of fights, the kind I promised