Same Time Next Summer by Annabel Monaghan EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available For Free Download
- Authors: Annabel Monaghan
- Language: English
- Genre: Coming of Age Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
You can’t turn around once you’re in the tunnel. There’s no U-turn, no offramp. You’re literally stuck under the East River. This fact exhilarated me
as a kid. Next stop, Long Island. At the first sight of sunlight at the end of
the tunnel, I felt the city melt away. I cracked the window, popped a juice
box, kicked off my shoes, and stretched my legs across the backseat. As an
adult, entering the Midtown Tunnel makes me feel sort of trapped.
The traffic slows to a standstill as we merge onto the Long Island
Expressway. “And this is why we don’t come to Long Island,” I say,
swatting the steering wheel like it’s responsible. I’m not sure what I was
expecting on a Friday afternoon in August.
“We both know that’s not why,” says Jack, scrolling through his phone.
I can handle Long Island once a summer for a long weekend, never a
week. Three days at the beach is enough to warm you up but not enough to
turn you into mush. For three days in a row, my sister, Gracie, drags me into
the ocean, and for three days in a row, I swim. I count my strokes as I cut
through the water and long for the constraints of the YMCA pool, where
you can track how far you’ve gone based on how many times you’ve turned
around. The ocean is a full mile long on the stretch of beach between the
jetty and the wooded cove in front of our house. There’s just too much room
for error.
It’s been fourteen years since I’ve spent a whole summer at the beach—
since Wyatt and I broke up, and I broke apart. Putting a person back
together isn’t easy, but if you’re smart about it you can reassemble yourself
in a totally different, better way. Turn carefree into careful; bandage up your
heart and double-check the adhesive. Bit by bit, I have left my childhood
behind, replacing my impulsiveness with deliberate decisions and plans.
Jack calls it being buttoned up, and I don’t know why anyone would want
to walk around unbuttoned. I know what each day is going to look like even
before I open my eyes, and there’s so much strength in that knowing. If I
stay at the beach for too long, I get pulled back. My old self is there and she
wants to drag me out through the rusty chinks in my armor. I blame the salt
air.
This is the first time I’ve brought Jack with me in the entire four years
we’ve been together. Travis likes to say that I’ve been protecting him from
our parents, which is ridiculous because we see them in Manhattan all the
time. Part of me has wanted to show Jack the front-yard hydrangea
explosion and the delicate way the dunes blow in parallel to the ocean.
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