Their Last Summer

M.I.A. (2021)

June and I have been texting almost non-stop since the lake, we've even hung out a couple of times. Tonight Connor is throwing a party, like the one from last year, of course June plans on going. She invited me, but she already knew I was going to say no.

It's about an hour before the party is supposed to start and my mom and I are in the kitchen, she's trying her best to teach me to cook.

"You just put the sauce in there... hand it to me." She says, taking the sauce from me and laughing.

"Fine, I'll start on dessert!" I say, getting the boxed cake I bought.

"Go ahead, even though I think it's a crime for that box to be in my kitchen." My mom says, we both laugh and get back to work.

Everything is done and sitting on the stove, when the front door slams. We both look at each other, I know we were thinking the same thing. Why did he have to come? My mom and I were having fun just the two of us, and now my dad is going to spoil it.

"Why isn't the table set? You're home all day, and you can't even cook me dinner? I work everyday, and slave for this family-"My dad says, taking off his shoes and coat.

"Sweetie, I made dinner. It's just on the stove. Sit down and I'll bring it to you." My mom says.

My dad blows his breath and mumbles something, he finally makes his way to the table. I can't help but look at him in disgust, all my mom does is tend to our every need. At least he could be grateful and nice.

"What are you looking at boy? Got something to say?" My dad says, looking over at me.

"No, just wanted to know if you wanted some cake?" I ask.

"Sure, bring it here." My dad says.

I cut a slice of cake and sit it on a small plate. I grab a fork, but I accidentally dropped it on the floor. Who cares? He deserves a little dirt, or whatever is attached to this fork.

I take it to him, my mom is still making his dinner plate. "I guess I'll eat this first since she's taking so long." My dad says, taking a big bite.

I try to hold in my laugh when he picks a hair out of his mouth, "Who made this cake?"

"Henry did sweetie. Isn't it good?" My mom says, coming out of the kitchen and sitting his plate in front of him.

"I reckon it would be, if it didn't have any hair in it. Just forget it!" My dad says, he doesn't take any time before he digs into his dinner.

My dad eats his dinner and goes straight to his room, my mom and I stay back and clean up. The party started almost two hours ago, and June emailed me.

Which is weird until I found out what her email said,

i knwo thiis iis wired to say rihgt now but I rlly liek yuh.

June just emailed me, and from what I can make of it she likes me. I don't get too excited for many reasons: First, June is clearly drunk. Second, something has been up with June, I don't want to take advantage of her. Lastly and probably the most important, she's with Jalen. That's why she emailed me, because Jalen would never check her emails.

I don't read too much into what the actual email says, but you can clearly tell June is drunk. Maybe I should go get her,

June? Are you ok? Are you drunk? Do you want me to come get you?

I go to my room and wait for a response. It's been over an hour, so I finally go to sleep.

I wake up expecting to have an email from June, but there's nothing. I saw on Maggie's new post on chirp that they're all going camping today. It was a picture of all of them in Connor's jeep, everyone was smiling but June. She was looking out the window and looked a little sad, but I just figured she was hungover. Just to be safe, I shoot her a text,

"Hey, Just checking up on you! I saw you guys were going camping, hopefully you can just relax and have fun! Text me if you need anything. Love you!"

I don't expect her to text me back,I just want her to have fun. Plus the campsite doesn't have the best cell service.

Isaac had sent me a text late last night, he was asking if I wanted to join him and Bailey at the lake. So I'm on my way there now. I called Isaac and told him and he asked me to pick up some bait and snacks if I could.

I pull into the gas station down the road from the lake, the parking lot is full of trucks with boats hooked up to the back.

I walk in and grab the list of snacks Bailey sent me, and I pick a few of my own. You have to ask for the bait at the counter, they keep it in the back away from the food.

"Henry, how have you been?" Jerry said he was the owner of the gas station.

"I've been good. I need some bait too." I say, putting all the snacks on the counter.

"Going fishing again I see, June out there?" Jerry says, while putting everything in a bag.

"No, it's just me today, I'm meeting Isaac up there." I say. June and I would come in here after some of our fishing trips. June and Jerry would talk my ears off about how bad I was at fishing, it was all in good humor though.

"Oh, well alrighty. What kind of bait would you like?" Jerry asked.

"I don't know what type of bait Isaac is wanting, so I'll take three cups of worms and a basket of crickets." I say.

When I get to the lake and park, I can already see Bailey and Isaac on the dock. I grab everything and head down to join them.

"Hey Henry!" Bailey says, she's laying out a towel.

"Hey Bailey! What's up Isaac!" I say, putting everything down.

"What's up Henry! You pick up some bait?" Isaac says, giving me a fist bump.

I pull out the worms and crickets, "Yeah, I got these."

"Thanks man... Watch this." Isaac says, while grabbing a worm out of the cup and putting it in the palm of his hand. He made his way over to Bailey and balled his hand up, hiding the worm.

"Sweetie, can you hold this for a second?" Isaac says, bending down and meeting Bailey.

Bailey stuck out her hand, and Isaac dropped the worm in it. "ISAAC!" Bailey screamed, throwing the worm. She jumped up from her towel, "Gross!"

Bailey can't help but laugh once she sees Isaac and I in tears laughing.

Turns out June can catch fish better than both me and Isaac. I only caught five fish, and Isaac caught four. We have been fishing all day, and Bailey has been tanning. Bailey started complaining about the sun going down, and how it was time to leave. So we started packing up, and threw the fish we caught back.

I checked my phone before and after getting in the shower and I still had no text from June.

My mom opened my door, "Henry, do you want to watch a movie or something? I haven't seen you all day, and I missed you honey."

"Want to play a board game, we have a lot of movie nights mama." I say laughing, I get up and make my way to the kitchen table.

My mom and I played Yahtzee until twelve in the morning, "We better get some shut eye. Good night sweetie!"

I went to bed with no messages from June.

The sound of an amber alert wakes me up, I look down at my phone to see that there were messages from my mom, Maggie, Jalen, and Junes aunt.

June Was Missing.