Now that Avery knows the truth about Skip, Marissa can finally tell her the full story about the summer she kissed Skip but ended up as Matthew’s girl.
Marissa closes her eyes, getting the narrative straight in her head. The details remain so vivid that the scenes spring forward, fully formed.
The rhythms of that season had shifted: Her parents deemed her old enough to close up Conner’s, so several nights a week Marissa ate dinner early at the kitchen table, then went to relieve her father. After she locked up the store, she would sometimes wander down to the shore to meet up with the other teens.
The night she saw Skip with new eyes began as just another warm, languid evening. The moon was tucked behind clouds, so she used the small flashlight on her key chain to make her way down to the water, her flip-flops squeaking slightly with every step. Once she got closer to the beach, the light of the bonfire helped guide her, and she could hear the Red Hot Chili Peppers blaring from a boom box.
There was often alcohol—pilfered from parents’ liquor cabinets or bought from the bored clerk at the Stop ’n Save—and sometimes a little pot, too. Marissa occasionally sipped a wine cooler, but never drank more than one.
“Hey, Marissa,” Tina called out. “C’mere, we’re about to start Truth or Dare.” Tina’s speech was slurred, the way it always got when she was buzzed, something she’d been doing a lot more of that summer.
“Seems like the party started early tonight,” Marissa called back, but by then Tina’s attention was on twisting another can of Bud Light out of the plastic six-pack ring. Marissa and Tina had been best friends through eighth grade, sharing clothes and makeup, stickers and secrets. But right before high school began, Tina’s father moved away and Tina’s mom seemed to completely check out of parenting. Tina appeared to grow up overnight. Instead of wanting to be with Marissa, Tina started cutting classes, partying, and hanging out with some of the older kids. She already had a reputation, although no one knew how true the rumors were.
As Marissa drew closer, she saw Skip standing there, a smile curling the edges of his mouth, holding firewood logs. His arms were flexed under the weight, and she could see the outline of his biceps beneath his old T-shirt. His face being partly in the golden firelight and partly in shadows made him look both familiar and somehow brand-new.
She smiled back, feeling a strange flutter in her stomach.
Skip lifted up a log and tossed it on the fire, sending up a shower of sparks, then used a big stick to pull apart two pieces of wood, allowing more air to mix with the flames.
Out of the corner of her eye Marissa watched him work, struck by his physicality, his strong shoulders and biceps flexing as he lifted and pulled. Then he’d turned and smiled at her with a boyish grin that let her know he’d caught her watching.
When she claimed a seat, she felt another flutter when Skip came to sit beside her.
“I’ll go first,” Tina cried, jumping to her feet. “Someone give me a dare!”
The game progressed predictably: kids usually accepted dares—running into the surf fully clothed, shotgunning beers—but a few selected truths.
Then it was Marissa’s turn. Usually Marissa picked truth, partly because she didn’t have any big secrets, and partly because the dares got edgier as the game wore on.
But tonight, something pushed her to say, “Dare.”
“Kiss one of the guys next to you,” a girl giggled.
Marissa pretended to hesitate, as if she were considering which boy to choose. She took another sip of her wine cooler for courage, then turned toward Skip. She leaned forward and closed her eyes. His lips were soft and he smelled like suntan lotion and the Wintergreen Life Savers he always carried in his pocket.
The whole interaction lasted less than five seconds, but for Marissa, it changed everything.
As the game continued, she was acutely aware of Skip—Skip, the boy she’d known forever!—just inches away. She swore she felt his awareness of her, too.
Tina also seemed to sense it.
Marissa detected the heat of Tina’s glare. Marissa had a hunch Tina liked Skip, but Tina seemed to like lots of guys. Skip wasn’t hers to claim.
Besides, the sting of Tina’s abrupt withdrawal from Marissa’s life hadn’t abated.
Tina abruptly stood up, even though it wasn’t her turn. “I dare myself to take off my shirt!” Guys hooted and cheered as Tina slowly lifted her top, first revealing her pale, soft stomach and then her bright pink bra.
Marissa could barely fill out an A cup, and for a moment she was as awestruck as the boys by Tina’s lush body. It hadn’t been that long ago that Tina and she had stuffed socks in their training bras, giggling as they admired themselves in Marissa’s bedroom mirror.