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

the three feet to her bed and crawled under the blankets. She pulled them up to her chin and stared at the ceiling.

I quietly changed into a pair of pajama shorts and a tee and climbed in bed as well. My heart was still racing, so I knew I wouldn’t be able to go to sleep anytime soon. I clicked off the lamp on the nightstand between us and plunged the room into darkness. Through the wall came the muffled sounds of my parents talking. I wondered what consequences they were conjuring up for me.

My brain frantically tried to figure out how I could still perform at the festival. If I had been thinking more clearly out there, I wouldn’t have lost my temper. I would’ve tried to apologize with the hopes that they’d soften and let me sing in two weeks.

I took in several deep breaths as I stared into the blackness above me.

“You really made it?” Lauren asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Yes.”

“I…That’s good.”

“Yeah.” Several more quiet minutes passed. “You really have six thousand followers?”

“Yes.”

“That’s impressive.”

“Yeah.”

At some point after that, without another word between us, I fell asleep.

The next morning at the breakfast table was somber. Mom and Dad sat on one side, Lauren and I on the other. The light from the front window of our cabin cast a perfect square of yellow on the untouched fruit and Danishes between us.

Dad placed his clasped hands onto the table and looked at me. “We’re not sure what’s gotten into you, Avery. This is very unlike you.”

“I know,” I said. “I shouldn’t have lied.”

“Well, your mother and I have discussed this,” he said. “And we think the proper punishment for you is a week of grounding. And you obviously can’t see this boy again.”

Panic gripped my chest, but I tried to keep it at bay. We only had two weeks until the festival. I couldn’t be grounded for one whole week of that. We had an entire song to write. “Okay,” I said. Fighting them right now would be pointless. I had to show them I was sorry first, humble, let everyone calm down. Then maybe I’d be able to change their minds.

“What?” Lauren said. “No! She made the festival. You have to let her sing in it!”

I squeezed my sister’s knee. “It’s fine, Lauren. They’re right, I messed up.”

“And if we do catch you together again,” Mom said, “we’ll report him to Janelle.”

I took in a deep, shaky breath. “Okay.” I could tell they were done and it made me sad. I’d thought maybe my dad would apologize for what he’d said about me to that couple at the beginning of the summer. That maybe he’d say, I’m sad that you lied but I’m proud that you sang. But he didn’t.

“For the record,” I said, “I think you’d like Brooks. He’s a really nice guy. And maybe if you met him, you’d see that.” Really, Avery? You couldn’t hold it in for one more second?

“A really nice guy doesn’t need to sneak around with a girl,” Mom said.

“I agree,” Dad said. “We’re beyond disappointed in you, Avery.”

I stood abruptly, my chair scraping the tile in a loud whine. Once in my room, I tried to calm my emotions but that seemed to only make them worse, so after three times pacing the small aisle between our beds, I threw myself on my pillow face-first and cried.

Several minutes passed before the door creaked open and then shut. My mattress shifted as someone sat down next to me.

“Avery.” It was Lauren.

“Leave me alone, Lauren.”

She started scratching my back softly. “I’m so sorry. I was just mad and hurt and I didn’t know all this would happen.”

I sniffled as more tears came.

“So you actually cry like the rest of us.”

“If you record this, I swear…”

She laughed a little at my obvious joke but then sniffled herself. “Do you really hate me?”

“No.”

“I don’t hate you either.”

“I know,” I said; then I sat up and wiped at my eyes. She wiped hers as well. “You don’t think they’ll tell Janelle, do you? Brooks needs this place, this job. He has so much guilt inside him and he’ll think this is the universe punishing him for having dreams.”

Lauren’s eyes shot back and forth between mine. “Oh, you’re in love with him. I didn’t realize that.”

“I’m not in love with him. I’ve known him for like five weeks.”

She gave an exaggerated sigh. “Excuse me. You like him very much.”

I pressed my right thumb into my left palm. “Yes.”

A little smile snuck onto her face. “My sister the no-drama queen likes the unpredictable rocker.”

“Your sister has never been so full of dramatic angst.”

She laughed. “You’ll figure something out, Avery. You always get the parents on your side.”

“That’s because my side has always been their side! Until now…”

“Oh…I guess you’re right. That sucks. Oh, and by the way, I’m grounded too.”

“What? Why?”

“I guess Dad analyzed what you said last night and decided I’d been lying too.”

That’s what my dad took from what I’d said the night before? The least helpful part? “I’m sorry.”

She shrugged. “It’s fine.”

“Did they tell you what a grounding on vacation consisted of?”

“They said we got the lovely privilege of staying here the rest of the day to think long and hard about our actions. Then for the rest of the week, we get to do every single activity as a family.”

“Ugh,” I said. So both Lauren and I were on house arrest for twenty-four hours and on guarded watch for a week, and I had no way to tell Brooks what was going on.

“Yeah. They’re good at punishments.”

“Welcome to my epic adventure.”

“I can’t live like this,” I whined, lying in my bed, staring at the ceiling. My sister hadn’t been joking when she’d told me our punishment. We had done everything as a family going on forty-eight hours now. I loved my family, but this was way too much.

The day before at the lake, I’d been