Page 32 of Cruel Summer


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That her body belonged to her, and she had to choose to be nice to it—to herself—and not let herself pick apart every lump and curve that didn’t fall right where she wanted it to. Not pick apart the stretch marks and other imperfections that made her a human being and not an ad, airbrushed to impossible smoothness.

She put on the bikini and bent over, watching the shape of her body change. A shape that she would have called unflattering an hour ago but was trying to see differently now.

She decided against the bikini. Her liberation might not be found in showing her whole stomach and half her ass in public. Maybe eventually it would be. Right now it felt like it would just make her self-conscious, and she didn’t need to heap difficulty onto her situation.

It felt like a win to choose a skirt and two dresses without asking anyone else’s opinion, though. She did the same at the makeup store she went to—she really did love makeup—where she chose the kinds of lipstick colors she normally would have thought were too bold.

When Chloe texted her to say they were finished with lunch, Sam went out to wait for them on the sidewalk, and hurriedly got into the back seat again when they pulled up, dragging her bags in behind her.

“Good thing we off-loaded Chloe’s care package. But remember, you have to fly everything you buy back with you.”

“I’ll manage,” she said.

She knew she sounded a little snappish, but honestly. She was used to managing space and travel for four other people. It wasn’t like she didn’t know how it all worked.

She listened to Logan and Chloe chat all the way back to the college and then shifted her position to the front seat and waited in the car while he walked her to the door and gave her a hug. Sam looked down at her phone.

He got back into the car and put it in Reverse.

“It’s hard,” she said, not really knowing she was going to say it out loud until she did. “Leaving them.”

“I’m proud of her,” he said.

“I’m proud of my kids too. It doesn’t mean it isn’t hard that they moved away. Jude met a girl going to school on the East Coast, and right now they’re planning on staying there after graduation. I’m proud of him. But it doesn’t mean it isn’t hard. They…they’re your whole life. Until they go have lives of their own. Which is exactly what you raise them to do, but…”

“Did you write this into one of your parenting articles?”

“Ouch. And yes. I believe I did.” She would be more offended if it weren’t true. But she was trying to be nice.

“I think I read that one.”

She paused. “You…read one of my articles?”

“I read all your articles, Sam. It would be weird not to, wouldn’t it?”

“I… No. I don’t think anyone else reads all my…or they don’t talk to me about them, anyway. They’re just…little pieces that go on to whatever different news aggregate or blog. They’re not anything major.” She blinked. “Why do you think it would be weird not to?”

“We’re friends.”

Logan thought they were friends.

She had never thought of him as her friend.

He wastheirfriend. A family friend. Who was bonded to them in the context of that. Him with Chloe, with all of them.

She looked at his profile as he took them back onto I-5.

“I don’t think any of my friends read all of my articles.”

“Well, I’ve found them useful, actually. I’ve been a single dad for ten years. Your meal planning and organization stuff is good.”

He’d used her tips. They’d helped him.

It made her feel…disoriented. Profoundly so.

“I’m… I’m glad.” She cleared her throat. “I didn’t mean to be trite by…quoting myself. It’s just…anything like that I write is me processing my own stuff. It was hard when the boys moved out.” She laughed. “I didn’t think I’d be moving out.”

“Life is a series of surprises. More often than not, kind of terrible ones.”