Free The Last Summer of Us by Maggie Harcourt Page A

walk through it looking for a fuse box. I don’t know why I’ve assumed that whatever it is that controls the electricity is outside, other than because if it is inside, in the dark, I don’t stand a chance of finding it anyway. And I want my shower; I can feel the dust sticking to the sweat on my face, just sitting there, and now there’s going to be a lovely thick layer of pollen or whatever it is that’s kicking up out of the grass too. So yes. Shower.
    My foot hits something solid hidden in the grass – something solid which clinks. An empty bottle. A collection of them, actually: vodka bottles. The cheap type that the local offies always have sitting beside the till with Special Offer!!! written on neon cardboard stars stuck to the front. There’s also a couple of crumpled-up cigarette packets and a pile of dog-ends. So not only are they a classy bunch here at St Jude’s, they’re a cliché with it.
    Something glitters in the grass next to the bottles – and I take a step back. That’s not glass. It’s metal. It’s a needle. It’s sticking straight up, invisible until the light hits it – and I almost trod right on it.
    The sunshine doesn’t feel as warm any more, and with a shiver I realize that I’m out here in the middle of a field, alone. My phone is in my bag – which, naturally, is still in the pile next to Jared and Steffan.
    It’s fine. I’m fine. There was no one around me a minute ago, and there’s no one here now. Nothing’s changed. It’s just…that’s a needle. A needle, you know? Outside a school changing room. Would it have been sharp enough to go through the thin sole of my flip-flop if I’d taken that one extra step? And if it had…what then?
    It dawns on me that – lights or not – there’s no way I’m going into that changing block on my own.
    The walk back across the field feels very long and, although I should know better, the what if s start piling up. Even though I know there’s no one there, I keep turning around to look behind me as though I’m expecting to see someone standing by the changing block, watching me walk away.
    They’re still bickering. Of course they are. But now, at least, one of the tents is up. It’s a little wonky, and it creeps a couple of metres backwards when the breeze picks up. (Because who bothers with something as boring as pegging a tent down? I mean, really ? Not Steffan, that’s for sure.) But it’s up. Well, up- ish . Only two more to go.
    â€œSo? What’s it like? As shitty as usual?” Steffan barely looks up from the rod he’s trying to unfold.
    â€œYeah. No. I didn’t go in. The lights wouldn’t work.”
    â€œYou scared of the dark all of a sudden?” He means it as a joke, but between his lips and my ears the words somehow twist and become something else.
    I’ve never been afraid of the dark. Not even when I was little. The dark was comfortable and it was quiet, and I always understood that there are no monsters just waiting for someone to throw a switch and set them free. The world doesn’t change around us simply because the lights go out. We change.
    I never was afraid of the dark…but lately it’s got noisy. The darkness is no longer quiet and it’s no longer empty. It’s loud and it’s full. Full of doubt. Could I have changed anything? Was there anything I could have done that would have made a difference? Is there any way I could have ended up not watching them carrying my mother’s coffin into that church? What if, what if, what if? I don’t know. In the light, I tell myself there’s nothing that I could have done; that it wasn’t my fault. People make their own choices and live their own lives and then they die. That’s how the world works.
    In the light, that’s what I tell myself.
    But in the dark…
    Jared glances up from