The Summer I Turned Pretty (Summer, #1)

by Jenny Han

Jeremiah, though—he was my friend. He was nice to me. He was the kind of boy who still hugged his mother, still wanted to hold her hand even when he was technically too old for it. He wasn’t embarrassed either. Jeremiah Fisher was too busy having fun to ever be embarrassed.

I wished I could do that for Jeremiah. I knew it would make him feel better, but I couldn’t. Instead, I reached over and grabbed his hand and squeezed it tight. He didn’t look at me, but he didn’t let go either. This was the moment when we became true, real friends.

“You forgot the straws,” I told him. He ripped the plastic off of the Twizzler box and bit the ends off of two Twizzlers. Then he put them in the cup. He grinned broadly. He looked so proud of himself. I’d forgotten all about our Twizzler straws. We used to do it all the time. We sipped out of the straws at the same time, like in a 1950s Coke commercial—heads bent, foreheads almost touching. I wondered if people thought we were on a date.

Jeremiah looked at me, and he smiled in this familiar way, and suddenly I had this crazy thought. I thought, Jeremiah Fisher wants to kiss me. Which, was crazy. This was Jeremiah. He’d never looked at me like that, and as for me, Conrad was the one I liked, even when he was moody and inaccessible the way he was now. It had always been Conrad. I’d never seriously considered Jeremiah, not with Conrad standing there. And of course Jeremiah had never looked at me that way before either. I was his pal. His movie-watching partner, the girl he shared a bathroom with, shared secrets with. I wasn’t the girl he kissed.

Jeremiah said, “Aw, I’ll take you, Belly. We’ll take those guys down. I think you’re probably a lot tougher than little Tay-lor.” Taylor walked down the steps and into the pool slowly, cringing at the temperature. “I’m very tough, Jeremy,” she said. Then Jeremiah crouched down in the water, and I scrambled to get onto his shoulders. He was slippery, so it was hard to stay on at first. Then he stood up and righted himself. I shifted and balanced my hands on his head. “Am I too heavy?” I asked him quietly. He was so wiry and thin, I was afraid I’d break him. “You weigh, like, nothing,” he lied, breathing hard and gripping on to my legs. I wanted to kiss the top of his head right then.

Taylor rolled her eyes. “Blah. He’s boring. I think I’ll like Jeremy instead.” “His name is Jeremiah,” I said sourly.

I was brushing my teeth in the upstairs bathroom when Jeremiah came in, shutting the door behind him. Reaching for his toothbrush, he said, “What’s going on with you and Con? Why are you guys so mad at each other?” He hopped up onto the sink. Jeremiah hated it when people fought. It was part of why he always played the clown. He took it upon himself to bring levity to any situation. It was sweet but also kind of annoying. Through a mouthful of toothpaste I said, “Um, because he’s a self-righteous neo-maxi-zoom-dweebie?” We both laughed at that. It was one of our little inside jokes, a line from The Breakfast Club that we

spent repeating to each other the summer I was eight and he was nine. He cleared his throat. “Seriously, though, don’t be so hard on him. He’s going through some stuff.” This was news to me. “What? What stuff?” I demanded. Jeremiah hesitated. “It’s not up to me to tell you.” “Come on. We tell each other everything, Jere. No secrets, remember?” He smiled. “I remember. But I still can’t tell you. It’s not my secret.” Frowning, I turned the faucet on and said, “You always take his side.” “I’m not taking his side. I’m just telling his side.” “Same thing.” He reached out and turned the corners of my mouth up. It was one of his oldest tricks; no matter what, it made me smile. “No pouting, Bells, remember?”

“Best friends are important. They’re the closest thing to a sister you’ll ever have,” she told me. “Don’t squander it.”

We’ll watch a movie.” “Done,”

asleep. He let me drive home. I didn’t