Sunkissed, Kasie West [best authors to read TXT] 📗

at the bathrooms and twisted back onto itself. The majority of line occupants were kids under ten. As I took in the attraction, I realized this was not just a piece of plastic with a cheap pool at the end. This was a hundred feet of plastic, heading down a slope before it leveled off again into a huge splash zone. No wonder the camp bragged about it.

I stepped up to the end of the line and the little girl in front of me turned around and peered up at me.

“Hi,” she said. She couldn’t have been more than six or seven.

“Hi.”

“Have you done this before?”

“No, it’s my first time. What about you?”

“Mine too.” She rose to her tiptoes and then back down again several times.

She seemed nervous, so I said, “Look at all the people getting off and coming back in line again. It must be really fun.”

She nodded as we inched forward in line. “My brother says it’s fun.”

“That’s good. I was a little nervous but that makes me feel better.”

“Me too!”

“You can show me how to do it when we get to the top.”

She smiled, revealing two missing top teeth. “You’re pretty.”

Suddenly waiting in line with a bunch of kids didn’t seem so bad. “Thank you. So are you.”

“You look like Belle,” she said.

“You have a friend named Belle?”

“No, Belle from Beauty and the Beast.”

“Oh.” I’d never gotten that one before. Lauren always got all the Disney princess comparisons. “Thank you.”

“Do you know any of her songs?”

“Um…” It had been forever since I’d watched Beauty and the Beast. “There’s that one she sings in the village. And the one where all the dishes sing.”

The girl giggled. “Sing one!”

“What?” I changed my mind. Kids were the worst. “No, that’s okay.”

“Please!”

Had Lauren somehow put her up to this? I searched for my sister in the crowd. “Look, we’re almost to the front,” I told the girl, even though we’d only just reached the curve of the line.

That’s when she started singing, loudly, drawing lots of stares. A few of the other kids around us joined in. I felt like I was in the middle of a bad musical. By the time I got to the front of the line, I was so ready to be done that I hardly enjoyed the slide.

The Fourth of July arrived and as I was heading to change for fireworks, I saw Maricela walking ahead of me, on her way to break or done with her shift, I wasn’t sure. I’d just finished dinner with my family where the band’s stage in the corner of the dining hall sat quietly empty again tonight until a boy, maybe twelve or thirteen, had stepped onto it and called out, “Where has all the music gone? Someone bring back the music!”

His friends had laughed and eventually his parents had pulled him down. Surprisingly, my sister said nothing about it, didn’t even look at me. Lauren hadn’t said more than a handful of words to me since our fight.

I picked up my pace until I was walking next to Maricela.

“Hey, stranger!” she said, her face brightening. “Where have you been all week?”

“In hiding. There are too many people here.” And the universe or the moon or someone by the name of Lauren was out to convince me to do something I didn’t want to do.

“Tell me about it.”

“You done for the day?” I asked.

“Yes! You should come with me! We watch the fireworks from a clearing up the hill.”

“Pretty sure my parents wouldn’t be super excited if I didn’t watch the fireworks show with them. They reserved a spot by the lake last week.”

“Oh, right. Sometimes I forget your whole family is here.”

“Very much here,” I said with a smile. “Don’t you have to help with the fireworks?”

“No. Janelle hires a company for that. She doesn’t want us burning the forest down. Go figure.”

“She expects so much.” I scanned a group of people in front of us as we walked but there was nobody I recognized—only guests. “How is everyone?”

“Everyone?” she asked.

I bit the inside of my cheek. She was really going to make me spell it out. “Brooks. How is Brooks? Have he and Kai made up? Has he talked about the festival at all?” I hadn’t seen him all week, despite doing everything to search him out except knock on his cabin door, and it was killing me.

She smirked. “It’s been so busy this week, I haven’t talked to anyone much. But he seems like his normal self, from a distance. I saw him talking to Kai just yesterday, so I think they’re good.”

The amount of relief I felt at that was more than the news deserved.

We passed a bench tucked between two pines where a guy was singing to a girl. She was giggling, her hands over her mouth. “Seriously?” I said.

“Music is a love language, isn’t it?” Maricela said with a sincere smile.

“Not you too,” I responded with a groan. “Has my sister been talking to you?”

“About what?” she asked, oblivious.

“About me singing with Brooks for the festival?”

“What? No! Is that a possibility?”

“No, it’s not. I’m a chicken.”

“You’re not a chicken,” she said.

“I really am,” I said.

She nodded slowly as if thinking this through. “So now you’re worried Brooks is mad at you.”

“Do you think he is?”

“No, I don’t. Brooks is probably mad at himself for entertaining the idea of performing at the festival in the first place. For getting his hopes up about it. He probably even has some stupid idea that his dreams are what caused Ian to get hurt. Like I told you before, Brooks is a mess. And I thought I told you that meant you should steer clear.” Just how well did Maricela know Brooks? With a speech like that, more than I realized. I panicked when I realized he could easily be her mystery guy.

“You don’t think I should sing?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think. It matters what you think.”

If only I knew what I