Free The Summer of Me & You by Rae Hachton Page A

here. I called Gunner's mother to ask if they'd seen you, and she tells me that you left with Gunner to go to a party yesterday afternoon. And now you're pulling up in my driveway with him ?”
    “His name's Kaleb, mom.”
    “I don't give a shit what his name is! You're grounded. Go to your room!”
    “What do you expect me to do all summer long? Sit in my room alone all day while you sleep then watch TV all night, waiting for you to come home in the morning? I'm sixteen. I'm supposed to have fun at this age.”
    “Not with him you're not.”
    “What do you have against Kaleb? Is this why you're freaking out? You've never liked him.”
    “I have reasons not to like that boy.”
    “Yeah? Let's hear them.”
    “Later,” she said. “I need to rest.”
    “What an excuse. There probably aren't any. You just wanna keep me caged up so you can control every aspect of my life.”
    She stormed over and jammed her finger into my chest. “You're gonna stop back talking me, Kayleigh. Now go to your room.” She pointed to the stairs.
    I didn't move. I wanted to show her I wasn't afraid of her. “You can't ground me. I have puppet theater at the daycare later on today.”
    “Well you're not going. That's a volunteer job, not one you're getting paid for and you're only using that as an excuse to see Kaleb.”
    I found my voice again. “I don't need an excuse to see Kaleb. I can see him if I want to.” Her eyes were full of rage.
    “Get out of my face,” she said. I turned away from her, marching up the steps. “You're going to be just like all the other girls.  I don't even want to look at you right now.”
    I went into my room, quietly closed the door even though I really wanted to slam it. I dropped to the floor and cried. Minutes later, she entered my room. “I'm going to be gone next weekend. I trust that you won't be seeing that boy.”
    Ha! I'm so glad she thinks that. As if she'd even know where I am.
     
     

CHAPTER NINE
    We were still doing it
    *
    We were still doing it.
    For some reason, Kayleigh avoided me. She didn't want to see me or talk to me. We hadn't spoken to each other since I'd taken her home the morning after that party. I probably called her two dozen times over the weekend, but she never answered any of my phone calls.
    If she didn't stop doing this to me, I was going to lose my mind.
    Mr. Macon's film class began the following week. The reason the class was being offered over the summer was because the school's budget didn't allow for art classes—they spent all their money on funding the sports teams instead. It killed me how no one considered filmmaking a real career. I wanted to ask the idiots who said such a thing, “Oh yeah, if it isn't a real career, then who in the hell makes all those movies to entertain you then? They don't just pop into existence from nowhere.”
    And someone has to make films, right? Just like someone has to perform surgery on people who need it. So why not me? What was so wrong with me aspiring to be a film director? It was no different than those who aspired to be lawyers.
    I was surprised to realize we had sixteen people in the class. I hadn't realized that sixteen people at this school wanted to be filmmakers. That was a shocker.
    You wanna know what else was shocking? Only two of those sixteen people were female. Wanna know who one of the females was?
    Kayleigh.
    And I was beginning to think we didn't have much in common. I hadn't even told her I was taking this class, so it wasn't like she'd signed up at the last minute to annoy me. She sat in the very back. I'd seen her when I first walked in, but I pretended not to. My calls had been ignored, so now I was going to ignore her. Her black hat with a film reel on it enshadowed her face. I wore my green shirt that I'd gotten from last year's short film festival in North Port. I'm not sure she'd realized I was there yet. She doodled in a notebook, not looking up. When Mr. Macon walked into the room, calling our