Trusting You & Other Lies by Nicole Williams

Author:Nicole Williams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2017-06-20T07:00:00+00:00

“You’ve been gone for almost a month and my life has shriveled into nothingness. When are you escaping that place?” Emerson whined on the other end of the phone.

“It’s not that bad. Plus, I’m making decent money, so I’ll definitely have a set of wheels by the end of the summer.”

“ ‘It’s not that bad,’ ” Emerson repeated. “Okay, where the hell is my best friend, Phoenix, and who are you?”

I rolled my eyes as I stepped outside the cabin. Harry had had a busy day canoeing and learning how to make a tepee, so he’d crashed after dinner. Dad and Mom were locked behind their bedroom door, arguing, so I’d dropped my fancy sound-canceling headphones over his ears before snagging my backpack and bolting for the door.

“You should come visit sometime if you want. That way you can see for yourself why this place doesn’t blow like I thought it would. Really.”

“Yeah, not happening.” Emerson sounded like she was cringing. “Bugs, dirt, snakes, families, singing around a campfire, and a serious shortage of cute boys. There is nothing about that equation that says summer vacation.”

“Who said there weren’t any cute boys up here?”

Emerson was quiet just long enough that I realized I’d made a fumble. So far, I’d managed to steer clear of the Callum topic with her since I wasn’t sure how to explain him to her when I couldn’t explain him to myself. Or, at least, I couldn’t explain him and me. Did we have something? Did he recognize it or was it pathetically one-sided? If we had something, would anything even become of it? If something did become of it, what would happen at the end of summer? And if, against all the high school romance odds, we managed to make it past senior year, what would happen after? I was off to college; he was deep in undecided land.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” Emerson hissed. “There’s a boy who’s come into the picture. Right?”

I winced. I couldn’t lie to my best friend, but I wasn’t eager to try to explain Callum and me. “Maybe?”

“I knew it,” Emerson squealed. “What’s his name? How old is he? Where does he live when he’s not camped out in some rustic, rodent-ridden cabin in Arizona?”

“The cabins aren’t rodent-ridden. They aren’t presidential suites, but they’re not that bad.” I crossed my fingers, hoping she’d roll with the living-space topic detour, but I doubted it.

“And there’s that term again. ‘Not that bad…’ ” I could almost picture her tapping her chin. “You’re not turning into one of those hippies who want to live off the land and go join some wacky cult that makes them eat hemp and kale and brainwashing at every meal before chasing it down with a spiked cup of Kool-Aid, are you?”

I’d held back the other sighs, but not this one. “I don’t even like Kool-Aid.”

“They don’t really care if you like it so long as it goes down the hatch and shuts off all major internal organs.”

“Emerson…” I’d had a long day.

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