Cruel Summer | ✓

chapter fifteen

I don't have a key to Lou's house but when I push down the front door handle with my elbow, it's unlocked. Riley waves as she drives off once I'm inside and I toe off my new running shoes by the door. It's almost two. I don't hear anything coming from the living room so Lou must be done with lessons for the day.

"Hello?" I call as I head through to the kitchen. "It's only me," I add, in case she thinks she's being burgled.

"Charlotte. There you are."

"Here I am."

Lou's sitting in the window seat, a thick book in her hands. She lets it fall shut without marking her page when she stands. She gives me a weary look and runs her hand through her hair. By the strands caught in her rings, it looks like she's been doing that for a while. "I need your number."

"Huh?" I turn my ear towards her, having only half heard what she said.

"I need your number," she says again, "so that when you leave me a note saying you're going for a quick run and then you still haven't come back more than three hours later, I can text you to make sure you're okay instead of stressing out over a hypothetical catastrophe."

I'm about to make a joke, to tease her for her worry, until I remember James. The catastrophe is not entirely hypothetical when her husband would still be alive if he hadn't hiked the same route I just ran. My face falls; I can pinpoint the moment my flush turns to pallor.

"Shit, Lou, I'm sorry. I didn't think. I bumped into Riley at the overlook and she took me shopping." I hold up my bags as evidence and let them drop to the floor. I spot the moment Lou's body deflates, when the stress leaks out of her shoulders. It's the same moment I realize I am not answerable only to myself, not while I'm staying with her. She passes me her phone, the new contact page already open; she has put my name as Charlotte. I don't change it when I add my number beneath but I do add a couple of emojis. A sparkle and a rainbow.

When I give it back to her, she smiles. My own phone buzzes in my pocket with a text from a new number. I save her to my contacts as Lou and I add the nail polish emoji to her name, an homage to her hands.

"How was your run?"

"Good. Sweaty. Hard."

"Buy anything nice?" She nods at my bags.

"I spent a lot," I admit. "I found a bunch of great running gear in the thrift stores, and Riley made me get new shoes from her boyfriend, so I'm a whole new woman. Just don't come too close." I pluck at the hem of my tank top, pull it away from my body. "I'm so hot and I bet I stink."

"Well, you know where the shower is."

"I have a better idea."

"Mmm?"

She follows me outside. I cross the garden to the dock, where I strip out of my top and pants and run into the lake in my underwear. It's been years since I cannonballed into the water, way too long since I felt that cold slap of the lake and the sting as the water goes up my nose. When I surface, Lou's standing on the edge of the dock, mid-laugh as I adjust my bra.

"I take it you didn't buy a bathing suit?"

"Oh! I did, actually. It's in one of the bags on the kitchen floor. Could you grab it for me?" I give her my best puppy dog eyes; she chuckles and disappears.

There's no-one around. I slip out of my bra and underwear and drape them over the ladder. When Lou returns with my new bikini — a cute tropical print, the cups only the slightest bit too big — she tilts her head at me and says, "Are you naked right now?"

"Only momentarily." The water is up to my shoulders and I don't think it's clear enough that she can see anything, although I do reach a bit too far to grab the bikini off her and tug it on underwater. I doggy paddle for a moment, still rendered breathless by the cold, but I slowly acclimatize and before long, I'm floating on my back, loose strings of my bathing suit floating around me. Lou is still watching me. I grin up at her. "Take a picture. It'll last longer."