Summer Days and Summer Nights by Stephanie Perkins

but I know that it’s true.
    Hope’s singing another love song, though, just as she promised. She strums a little clumsily, but her voice is clear and sweet, and she knows all the songs by heart. When she finishes, she announces that she’s going to bed, and soon after, she and Travis disappear.
    Mimi leans in close. I can smell mint on her breath—not like toothpaste or gum, like something real that’s from the earth—and then her lips are on my ear and she’s whispering, “I don’t really snore.”
    I’m smiling.
    Our heads pivot, until it’s my mouth against her ear, and I say, “I know.”
    We’re alone by the fire now, and the wind is picking up, and she takes my hand, and we walk together to her tent. I can hear everything: The pounding of my pulse. The crunch underneath our feet. The rustle of her clothes when she bends over to reach the tent’s zipper. And then it begins: the sound of unzipping, from the ground on one side, and up, and up, and down again. I close my eyes even though it’s already dark, because of this sound . It’s like my life opening up.
    And then it stops.
    And we climb in.

 

    On the last night of the Cinegore, the sky looked like it needed to call in sick, all yellow-green going dark around the edges like an infected cut, a summer storm heading in hard. Across the highway, bulldozers sat waiting like an army that had the advantage. Come Monday morning, they’d advance to pulverize the old Cinegore Theater into dust, and in its place would be new condos, a phone store, and a Starbucks. Oh, yay.
    â€œKevin! Just in time.”
    As I shimmied under the concessions counter, my best friend, Dave, reached over and dragged me to him into selfie position, his phone held high above our faces.
    I sighed. “Don’t do this.”
    â€œC’mon, dude. We should record this moment.”
    â€œCan’t the moment just be a moment?”
    â€œSh-h-h. Try to look pretty.” Dave pursed his lips coyly. I wore my usual expression, something between resignation and disdain—resigdain. The camera blinked, and Dave released me so he could type. “Hashtag: LastNightAtTheCinegore.”
    â€œYeah,” I said, checking the pressure in the soda jets. “Going out with a bang.”
    â€œExactly. Last night ,” Dave said meaningfully. He jerked his head in the direction of the lobby’s far end, where the object of my unrequited affections, Dani García, had positioned the yellow DO NOT FALL ON YOUR ASS AND SUE US cone in front of the ladies’ lounge while she mopped. Her aqua-dyed hair had been cut into a Bettie Page do, then shaved on one side, above an ear that sported an array of earrings stacked like tiny silver vertebrae. For months, I’d been making a movie in my head starring the two of us. In that movie, we fought off a variety of monsters and saved the free world. Then we had celebratory sex. Which meant that there was a narrative in which we had also had a date. Which we hadn’t. Not even close.
    â€œYou do the deed yet?” Dave asked around a mouthful of half-chewed gummi bears. Rainbow spit dribbled down his chin.
    I grimaced and handed him a napkin.
    Dave moaned, “Aw, you pussied out, didn’t you?”
    â€œâ€˜Pussied out’ is sexist. I prefer ‘made a strong choice for cowardice.’”
    â€œKeva-a-a-an—”
    â€œDude. Shut up.” I glanced over at the bathroom. Dani had moved inside with her mop. The door was closed. “I’m gonna do it,” I said quietly, pushing my glasses up on my nose. “Just … not tonight.”
    Dave tossed two gummi bears at me in rapid succession. “Why? Not?”
    â€œOw?”
    Dave threatened a third attack-gummi. I put up my hand. “It’s … just not the right moment.”
    â€œDude. Did Lincoln wait for the right moment to make the Gettysburg