Untouched A Cedar Cove Novella

She opens the cabinet, and pulls down a box of Oreos. Gets milk from the fridge. I fetch two glasses, and we sit around the table in the light from the porch outside.
    “Can't sleep?” I ask.
    She shrugs.
    “Mom leave a note?”
    She shakes her head.
    We dunk cookies in silence for a moment.
    “So how's the girl?” Brit asks.
    I play dumb. “Which girl? You know I’ve got them in every state, baby.”
    She snorts, and tosses a chunk of cookie at me. I intercept, and shove it in my mouth. “The one from here,” she says.“Julia.”
    “Juliet.” I correct her.
    Brit smirks. “See, I knew you liked her.”
    “I didn't say that.”
    “ Juliet .” She mimics me, drawing out the word. “Please, you don’t have to say a thing, it's written all over your face. Emerson's in looooove,” she adds, singsong.
    I glare at her. “How old are you again?”
    Brit laughs. “So when do I get to meet her? With her clothes on, I mean.”
    Now it’s my turn to shrug. “I don't know...” I say slowly. “The party got busted, Larry took her home.”
    Brit pauses. “She's got the kind of parents who care?”
    “About this?” I remember her mom’s face, seeing Juliet escorted up the front steps by a deputy sheriff. “Yeah.”
    “Must be nice.” Brit says, and the wistful sound in her voice hurts me like hell. I give her the last cookie.
    “It won't always be like this, you know.” I tell her softly.
    “Yeah,” Brit sighs. “Maybe one of these days, she won't come home.”
    The truth sits between us, the elephant in the room. We’ve both thought it, how could we not? Equal parts guilt and hope, shame and anger.
    Because it would be so much easier if, one of these nights, mom didn’t come home. If she could just stay gone. Then we wouldn't go through this cycle over and over again: Brit waiting for her to shape up and be a real mom, and me hoping for... Hell, I don’t even hope anymore, I lost that a long time ago. But I'm left to clean up the mess, every time, and when I think about a version of my life without that – without waiting for the call to come get her, wondering what she’s gone and done this time...
    What would that life be like? Safe. Normal. Easy.
    The kind of life worth sharing.
    “You should get back to bed,” I tell her, getting up to rinse our glasses.
    “You too.”Brit replies. “You need your beauty sleep. You look like hell.”
    “Gee, thanks.”
    “Tough love, big bro.” Brit circles the tale and wraps her arms around me in a quick hug. “Be careful, OK?” she whispers, face pressed against my chest.
    “What do you mean?”
    “This girl… she’s a summer girl, right?” Brit tilts her face up to me, eyes sad. “That means she’s leaving. They all leave, in the end.”
    I break the hug, and shove her gently towards the hall. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” But my words catch in my throat, and the question lingers, long after she trails back to bed, and I’m alone in the dark kitchen.
    Just one week, and already, I’m in so deep with Juliet, I can’t see the surface. But what happens next week, and the week after?
    What happens when summer’s over?

J ULIET
    My mom loses it. I've never seen her so mad.
    Dad smirks his way through it the way he always does, like I'm just a joke to him, but the minute the deputy leaves, mom flips out. She yells and screams about responsibility, and strangers, and wandering off in the dark alone.
    I stand, arms folded, and take it. Nothing they say can ruin the warmth I have blazing from my chest, a fierce glow of joy radiating out through my entire body, surrounding me with safety and hope.
    Emerson.
    Emerson.
    Only him.
    "Do you know what could have happened to you?" Mom is still yelling. She's wrapped in a threadbare bathrobe, pale and drawn in the 3AM kitchen light. For the first time, I feel a pang of guilt that I left her to worry alone.
    “I was fine," I reassure her. "Emerson would never let anything happen to me."
    I hurry upstairs to bed before they can quiz me anymore. When I come down the next morning – braced for more lectures and yelling and lord know what other parental disappointment – they say nothing. I eat breakfast in silence, suspicious, listening to mom chatter about a farmer’s market in the next town, and the family bike ride we can all take along the coast. I wait for the catch, but none comes.
    “What do you think?” Mom asks me with a nervous smile. I look from her to dad, who is sitting