knew that June probably had a thousand more questions.
Would she tell Summer? It wouldn’t matter if she did. Like Arabella had
said, it wasn’t a secret anymore. She’d come out to her parents when she
was nineteen because she just couldn’t stand to be fake anymore. Her dad
was absolutely fine with it, her sister was okay too. Her mom, oddly
enough, took the news hard and it was a good year before their relationship
was back to being even half of what it was before, and they’d never been
that close. In fact, they weren’t close until the whole scandal involving her
dad. Arabella’s mom had to admit that she couldn’t live that lifestyle
anymore – the lifestyle of tennis and country clubs and stuck-up friends and
charity functions, throwing parties for this or that.
If there was one good thing that had come from the whole situation it was
that they were closer as a family than they’d ever been before. When they
lost everything, they still had each other. That might be tacky as glue, but it
was true for them. They’d held together. So far.
Arabella slid underneath the sheet. The room was stifling, even with the
window cracked. Outside, mosquitos buzzed at the screen. She could hear a
chirping in the night, far beyond the cabin, and wondered if it was a bug or
some sort of bird or even an animal.
What had been up there in the tree?
If it was a bear, would it try and get into the cabin?
Arabella shuddered. She’d never be able to sleep if she thought about a
bear breaking down the door and mauling them in the darkness before they
could get out and get to safety. Better to think it was an opossum and that it
had been minding its own business until they came along. The eyes had
been pretty small. Bears didn’t have small eyes, did they? Likely not.
Instead of driving herself crazy thinking about the wildlife, Arabella
thought instead about the day she and June had been talking about.
Chapter 8
High School