A Summer To Remember

Chapter 1

The summer I turned sixteen will be the summer I would remember for the rest of my life.

Though I have grown older and wiser since the time this story took place, I still imagine the feeling of his young lips on mine and how our hands fit together like two puzzle pieces. Though we both have fear oblivion, we knew this summer will be remembered forever.

My story can't be summed up in a long paragraph or even a three-page news story. My story is much more powerful than anything in the world. Even more amazing than having that dream where you're the main character in a Nicholas Sparks novel. My life turned into one of those novels that summer years ago.

It was the year Bill Wyman announces he will be leaving the Rolling Stones and the year Comet Mueller was discovered. I was in my second to last year of high school while my brother was going to go into his senior year of High School. And the mistakes I made that summer, I will never regret them.

The bell of the church rings, giving me hope and a presence of God while I think back to that amazing summer.

My name is Emily Mason. And I'm 16 years old. In Long Island, 1993.

*** 

It was the summer of 1993. We were on our way to the beach house. Just my Dad, my older brother, Timmy, and I. This is the first summer in a while that we are going to the beach house. We have been waiting a long time to come here. We haven't been here since my Mom died when I was only three. I'm now sixteen, a straight-A student, and I have dreams of one day being in the music business or a writer slash publisher. My Dad always said I got my talent from my Mom. But I got my kind heart from him. Same with Timmy. Timmy may be a moody seventeen-year-old High School Senior but he has a big heart. One time the three of us went to Myrtle Beach and Timmy saw an abandoned turtles nest and stayed by it until the marine rescue people came to take over. He guarded that nest as if it were his own child.

Timmy and my Dad were sitting in the front seats of our Volkswagen while I sat in the back, my feet propped up on the seat as I read a book. I read a lot. My Dad said it's another trait I take after my mother but I know it's also just who I am and it's just what I do.

"Timothy, you have got to be more responsible," My Dad argued with Timmy. They've been bickering since Timmy was fourteen. That was when his teenage hormones kicked in and he started getting frustrated for random things.

Timmy groaned. "It's 'Timmy', dad." He paused to look at my dad. Dad had one eye on him and one eye on the road the whole time. "And why would you care?"

"Because I'm your father." Dad lifted a hand to his head and massaged his temple. "You are almost eighteen. Start acting like it."

Timmy looked at dad, dad not looking at Timmy. "I'll try to do better, dad. Is that what you want?"

Dad sighed. "When's the makeup test?" Timmy failed his driving test because he wasn't ready. He just went in there and winged it. Dad raised us to take it slow in order to achieve our goals in life. Most Dads would punish their kid and make them take a class or practice all day. Not my Dad. My dad just lectures Timmy about being more responsible and later would help him out so he will pass his makeup test.

Timmy shrugged. "I don't know."

"How does a seventeen-year-old boy manage to fail a driving test? You've had your permit for a year."

Timmy shrugged again. "I don't know. It's rigged? How many times did you take the test before you passed?"

"Once." Dad then pointed a finger at me. "Don't follow your brother's bad examples."