The heat of the day settled damply around the house, the coming night doing nothing to allay the humidity. Inside, Jennie was sweating despite the air conditioner rattling away in her window. She wiped her forehead on the back of her bare arm and surveyed the chaos around her. Her bed was piled with suitcases and badly folded clothes. More clothes littered the floor, along with sheets and towels and the big photo album with the leopard print cover that her best friend Cammy had given her that morning. In two days, Jennie would be cramming all of this into her little Camry and driving ten hours to start her first semester at Greenwood College.
She sighed, hands on her hips. It was just too much to deal with in this heat. She needed a break. She went downstairs to the cool darkness of the kitchen.
Jennie trailed her hand over the smooth countertops as she went, glancing again at the note her mother had left her. She and Jennie's step-father Mark had accepted an invitation for cocktails out on a friend's boat and wouldn't be back until after midnight. She had left the name of the boat and the number for the marina in case there was an emergency. Jennie turned to the big refrigerator and pulled open both doors. She wasn't sure what she wanted. She only knew that it had to be cold. She grabbed a bottle of water and an ice cube from the bucket. With the fridge still open, she stood in its light and ran the ice over her sweaty skin. She shivered happily.
"Am I interrupting something?" Jennie jumped, but it was only Kyle, Mark's 25-year-old son.
"I didn't hear you come in," she stammered as her heart rate returned to normal.
"Sorry, I really didn't mean to startle you," he said. "The door was open. I just came to pick up some stuff from my dad's office."
"No problem," Jennie chirped, flinching at the forced casualness of her voice. "It's upstairs, you remember." Kyle nodded, half a smile playing at the edges of his mouth. He disappeared around the corner and up the stairs. Jennie cursed herself for sounding so ridiculous. She always felt like such a child when Kyle was around. She took her water and headed back upstairs to her room. She could hear Kyle rummaging around down the hall as she slowly began the arduous task of packing again.
"Hey, Jennie," Kyle said, poking his head around the door. "You mind if I take a swim while I'm here?"
"What's wrong with the pool at your building?" she asked, throwing a crumpled dress shirt into a suitcase.
"Lots of small children is what's wrong with it," he laughed. "Come on, you won't even know I'm out there." He put on an exaggerated pout.
"Fine, have at it," she said.
"Thanks, Jen," he grinned, "you're a lifesaver." He disappeared into the darkness of the hall before popping back into her doorway. "Hey, why don't you take a break and join me? You look like you could use some cooling off."
Jennie frowned and looked from the piles of stuff littering her floor to Kyle's big puppy dog eyes. "All right," she sighed, "but just for a little while."
"Awesome," Kyle said, disappearing again. Jennie pushed her door shut and began to dig through her things in search of her suit. She was just tying the back when Kyle knocked on her door. "You ready yet?" he called through the wood.
"Ready," she said as yanked the door opened. Kyle stood there in a pair of trunks he had left there earlier in the summer, a towel slung lazily over his shoulder.
