A familiar melody threads itself through my dream. It sounds like our doorbell, but I’m dreaming, so I know it can’t be real and I stay asleep. Deeply asleep.
“Tim!”
I pull my head off the pillow and realize I’m drooling. Gross.
“Wake up!” Sarah yells from downstairs. “Someone’s here for you.”
Tumbling out of bed, I stumble to the bureau and yank out shorts and my Ultimate Frisee reject T-shirt. Sometimes, I wonder if Dad ever makes T-shirts right the first time. Then I smoosh some toothpaste across my teeth with my finger and am ready to go.
I’m so tired I trip down the first couple stairs. But when I see who’s in the foyer, I immediately wake fully and run the rest of the way down. I tackle my best friend in a bone-crunching hug. She smells like sunscreen and chlorine. A whole summer of horse camp hasn’t changed that smell. I pull back and look at her face. Thinner. She looks older, more mature. Do I? “Dare!” I squeeze her again, not believing I made it through the whole summer without her.
Everything will be better now.
“Nice to have you back,” Sarah says.
Dare gives Sarah a fist bump, and Sarah heads upstairs.
“Notice anything?” Dare asks, turning in a slow circle, then holding her brown arms up, like she’s filled with fabulous.
“Um, your boobs got bigger?”
Dare shoves me. “I lost like fifteen pounds. Fifteen pounds! I kept up my swimming and worked out every morning, plus all the riding and long walks. It was soooooo pretty up there. And they fed us really healthy foods, like kale, carrot and quinoa salad.” Dare strikes a pose that reminds me of Jenna Talackova. “Now I’m totally awesome and ready to start eighth grade,” she says. “No one at Gator Lake Middle will be able to resist this package.”
We crack up.
“I’ve missed you,” I say, sitting on the bottom step.
Dare sits next to me and shoves her shoulder into mine. “Me too.” She looks at my clothes and says, “But I see you’re still playing the Tim game.” Then she raises one eyebrow. How does she do that?
“I tried.”
“What do you mean you tried?” she says way too loudly.
I speak softly. “Yesterday, I went outside in my mom’s dress.”
“No way.” Dare smacks my shoulder.
I nod. “Yup. The pretty one she has with the lily of the valley flowers on it and a pair of white sandals.”
Dare pulls a bag of carrots out of her pocket and starts munching away. “So what happened?”
I don’t tell her about Dad’s scary reaction. I skip to the part I know she’ll be most interested in: “I met a boy.”
“What?” She stops chewing.
“Mmhmm.”
“No way!” Dare smacks me on the back of the head with the heel of her hand that’s holding a carrot, but it doesn’t bother me because I know she’s just excited for me. And then I remember to think of Dare. “Did you meet any boys at camp?”
Something changes on Dare’s face. Then she’s herself again. “Nah. It was the All Girls Channel at camp, except when we had a dance with the boys’ camp next door on the last night.” She waves her carrot nub. “Bunch o’ dorks.”
For some reason this makes us laugh again.
“It’s really good to have you back,” I say, leaning closer to her.
“That’s because I’m filled with awesome sauce, son!”
Everything feels easy and light with Dare…until she says, “So, where should we go today to practice? The mall? That coffee place I like? Oh, how about the thrift shop on Ronald Doss Road? I can get myself some funky clothes for school while we’re there.”
My throat tightens, like I’m allergic to her words. “I didn’t mention this, but yesterday when I wore Mom’s dress, my dad—”
“Oh, here we go again. Your dad doesn’t accept who you really are, so you can’t be that person, blah, blah, blah.” Then Dare becomes quiet and levels me with a stare. “I guess some things didn’t change over the summer.”
And suddenly, I’m not one hundred percent thrilled to have Dare back.
