The Summer of No Regrets Read Online Free PDF Page A

overrated.

    •••

    Something was wrong. I sat up in my sleeping bag blinking in the gray light of the loft. The air was cold, and my mattress had deflated, leaving me on the bare boards. Sleeping in the tree house had been more appealing than another therapy session with Malory.
    Wind in the limbs rocked the tree house gently. I’d named this tree Eve, and she was a good place to be when life went south.
    A cedar branch curved across the skylight like a protective arm.
    A few moths fluttered in the domed glass.
    I quieted my breathing and listened to the outside: squirrels chattering near the window, the buzzing of a wasp. And down below…That was it! The kinglets and robins were sounding an alarm. Something was down there.
    It was freezing outside my bag. I yanked on my jeans and puled out my Nonni coat—the patchwork one she made me right before she died. No one knew I slept with it, but it made me feel better. I slipped it on and stuffed my feet into my sneakers.
    Out on the porch I scanned the clearing. There! Twenty paces from Eve was…Oh, God, what was he doing here? Wasn’t the Hansen acreage enough for him? If there was a God, why would he (or she) send me this?
    He sat against the Douglas fir I’d named Adam, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them. He couldn’t see me on the tree house porch. I’d leave it that way. I could wait him out. I slowly sat myself down against the wall and put my hands flat on the damp boards. Pitch stuck to my fingers. Mosquitoes bit me. My hair probably looked like mice were living in it, and I hadn’t brushed my teeth. He’d better go away soon.
    At least ten minutes went by. Luke Geoffrey leaned back against Adam, ran his hands through the pine duff. He was beautiful. I hated myself for thinking that, but he was. He looked sad, and I had a ridiculous urge to go down there and hug him.
    Instead, I was spying on him. This thought came to me slowly.

    Instead, I was spying on him. This thought came to me slowly.
    Most people who sit in the woods like that want privacy, and I was unabashedly scanning his face for clues about his sadness.
    His mother had died, I thought. No, he had befriended a homeless orphan child he’d found in a subway station in Manhattan. She was six, and he’d convinced his parents they should adopt her. But she’d died, horribly of AIDS the folowing year, since her mother was a heroin addict. All Luke had left of her was a Raggedy Ann doll he had given her, and now he carried the doll in his pocket, crying into its stained apron when he was alone.
    Luke got up from where he was sitting, and I was instantly, screamingly embarrassed about the orphan girl, as if he could read my mind from down there. This was the boy who had infrared humiliation-sensing capabilities. This was the boy didn’t know anything good about me. He didn’t know I was deep and philosophical or that I had won violin competitions. He only knew I read the National Enquirer .
    He started walking toward Eve. No! I thought. Go back! Or at least don’t look up. Every muscle in my body tightened. I would stay perfectly still and not breathe until he went away. He stopped and picked a few huckleberries, lifted his palm to examine them, and then dumped them on the ground and squished them with his foot. He crouched to tie his shoelace. I could see the back of his neck as he bent forward.
    And then I saw her. She emerged from behind Adam, all in one motion: tawny gold fur, white muzzle outlined in black.
    “Cougar!” I heard myself scream.
    She was probably seven feet long from nose to tail. I don’t know why I decided she was female; I’d never seen a cougar outside of Northwest Trek Wildlife Park. Cougars don’t let people see them unless they want to be seen. Dad says they can track a person for miles and he’ll never know.
    Luke fell backward, catching himself on his hands. The cougar’s ears lowered as she locked eyes with him. She was cougar’s ears lowered as she locked