Every Summer After

KEEGAN — EARLY JUNE / 2025

It was the summer before college.

The time when everyone who has already been through it says how great it was.

Keegan had just come out of the briny water of the bay, clasping his hand as he winced through the pain. A jellyfish had come up and swiped his right knuckles, tickling them like some form of revenge.

He watched it drift back out into the abyss before the pain really got to him.

The subtle tingle first, then everything pricking your skin at once. A thousand zaps of electricity poking you like tiny, relentless needles.

"Fuck," he cried, holding his hand above his head. He then put it back down in front of his stomach. Shaking it, twisting it, stomping his feet like a toddler in the sand. Nothing helped.

"Oh, for goodness sake, Keegan. Jellyfish again?" His mom, Laurie, asked as she flipped her book closed and rose to her feet from the comfort of her striped beach chair. The sun was angled towards the west, the reflection casting golden tips along the ripples out on the water.

"No, I just had an encounter with a sparkly purple mermaid. Yes, a jellyfish."

His mom's face twisted with disapproval. She pushed her sunglasses atop her head, the aviator lenses nestling into her bob of curly red hair.

"Let me see."

She sighed and grabbed Keegan's hand, resting it atop of her palm. The back was red and splotchy, some raised bumps already forming.

"Yeah, that's a sting alright," she said quietly.

Keegan rolled his eyes and pulled his hand away. Of course it was. He didn't need his mom's diagnosis. He was eighteen, after all, and had watched the jellyfish nudge past him and bless his knuckles with the gift of pain in real time.

"Mom, I don't need help," he said with a wince.

Water dripped off of his choppy hair that hung just above his eyebrows. It was only a few shades darker than his mother's, and a little less curly, too.

"Seems like you do," she said, giving his wrist a gentle, knowing wiggle. "I told you it wasn't a great day for swimming. But you went in."

"What was I supposed to do?!" he exclaimed in defense, eyes wide and arms out even wider. "Sit here in the hot sand with you for three hours? Open a fucking book? Bring a magazine? I can't even tan, because I burn."

"Keegan!" His mom's voice snapped. "Stop acting like a teenager."

"I am a teenager?" He spit back, poking his non-injured hand into the center of his chest.

"You're going to college in a few months. You're legally an adult. You have to figure things out for yourself."

There was suddenly something unspoken in Laurie's eyes. Pain, longing, hope. All swirled together in the greens and blues around her pupils.

Keegan had inherited her eyes, the same colors blending together in a different way. He had also inherited her thin lips, her semi-crooked teeth, her light freckles. He was almost like a carbon copy, the way some letters come out darker than others.

"I said I don't need help. Did you even hear me?" Keegan winced again as another round of stinging pulsed through his hand.

"You always need your mother," she said, matter of fact, sitting back down on her beach chair. "There's probably a reason nobody else is swimming today. Maybe you should have taken your surroundings into consideration."

The spine of her book cracked back open, sunglasses slipped back down over her eyes. Keegan just stared at her, hand cradled again, water still dripping. He turned and scanned the beach. Only a handful of other visitors—nobody in the water.

Keegan sat on top of his towel, a tattered and faded Cartoon Network one from his childhood. His mom slipped her sunglasses down to the tip of her nose and looked to the side towards him.

"Now you're just being ridiculous," She said while closing her book. "You got stung. Let's go home. We need to rinse and soak it."

"Fine," he said, taking another look at his knuckles. Just as bad as before, but he wasn't quite sure what he was hoping for. A magical cure?

His mom gathered her chair and the umbrella while Keegan flung the towels around his neck. His good hand took the beach bag, the two of them ascending up the sandy bank towards the parking lot.

"What are your plans tonight?" She asked once they reached the car, steadiness in her voice. She opened the trunk while Keegan went over and rinsed off his sandals.

"I don't know. Apparently soaking my hand," he said, placing it under the rushing water of the foot rinse. He glanced at his mom, checking to see if she had got into the car or was waiting to say something.

As suspected, she was already in front of the steering wheel, windows cracked. He rolled his eyes.

Once Keegan was in the car, she began backing out of the parking space, heading west towards the house.

"I'm probably going to see Chloe and Peter," he finally said, breaking the silence. "They just got here today. I saw them unloading."

"A little late this year, hm? Thought those twins would never come at all."

Keegan gave his mom a look of annoyance. Why did she say it so harshly? Every year, as far as he could remember, the twins would come just for the summer. The house had been in their family for years, welcoming generation after generation.

"I know you hate them. Every year it's a problem. Why?"

Laurie dug her fingers into the steering wheel, fidgeting in her seat as the car came to a halt at a red light. Still, she stared forward, even with Keegan's bright eyes focused on her, his head tilted back against the headrest.

"They're bad news," she finally huffed.

Keegan let out a laugh, loud and abrupt.

"Because they skateboard and have some tattoos?"

Laurie shifted uncomfortably again. "No. Forget it. Maybe I just have the wrong impression."

"You do," Keegan said as the car took a hard left into their development.

Seaside Pines was the name, complete with a dated sign from the nineties welcoming you inside the streets. Many people rented or stayed for the summer, just like Chloe and Peter's family. Keegan, however, was born and raised here in a very standard two-story home. The same one his mother was raised in.

The streets were tucked back between large pines, hence the name. It was a three minute car ride to the beach and bay, which many people seemed to love. Delaware didn't have much, but at least it had that, and Keegan got to grow up with it. A damp, shaded development with streetlights that only worked half the time. Sun desperately poked through during the day, the night swarmed with fireflies and spring peepers and cicadas.

"They're only here a few months out of the year," Keegan reminded his mom as she pulled the black Camry into the driveway.

She pressed the button to open the garage door, eyes forced ahead like stone. "I'm aware."

"Plus, they're both going to college like me. And so who knows if they'll be back next summer."

"Will you be back next summer?" Laurie suddenly asked before pushing her door open. She had everything lined up to do so: hand on the handle, seatbelt off, body tilted towards the door. But she stopped and asked this question instead.

"What? I hope so," Keegan said, a bit startled. What did she think was going to happen to him? He was attending Coastal University less than an hour away.

She nodded and followed through with opening her door at the exact same time as Keegan. When they both stood at the front of the garage, she glanced towards his hand, sighing softly. "Let's get that treated."

Inside, she got the bowl ready with hot water. It wasn't the first time and it won't be the last. Keegan had been getting stung by jellyfish his entire life. He remembered her saying "it's hard to wrangle that boy in sometimes" to his grandmother many years ago as he trudged out of the water with his second sting that week.

He reluctantly stuck his hand into the bowl and sat on the kitchen stool. Meanwhile, Laurie set a timer and Keegan could think of about seven thousand other things he'd rather do. One of them being with Peter and Chloe.

"I'm going to order a pizza," she said while she stared into the fridge. They hadn't been shopping in over a week and were pretty much cleaned out of everything.

"Sure," he said. "I'll try to be home by midnight."

Keegan stared into the bowl of hot water, sifting his hand through it gently.

"Alright then," his mom said, opening a bottle of tylenol. She shook out two oblong pills and set them in front of Keegan. For the swelling, he knew. Then, she filled up a water glass, placing it next to the bowl.

Twenty minutes after the timer had rang, Keegan was cleaned up and itching to leave. His mom sat on the sofa with her feet up on an ottoman. She was reading her book again, looking lost in her own little world.

"I'm leaving now," he said as he looked at her. She probably had no idea he was even watching.

"Yep," she said. "Have fun."

Keegan scratched the back of his neck and headed out the front door. After his shower, he had put on a black t-shirt and green athletic shorts. His freckled skin looked a bit redder than it did before he left the house this morning. He always wished he could tan as well as Peter and Chloe.

When he turned onto their street, the twins were playing basketball in the driveway. He thought he heard the dull thump through the trees when he left, and he was right.

Their garage door was wide open, displaying a mess of art supplies, beach stuff, trash, and two fold up chairs with a cooler inbetween. The house itself looked like it was going to fall apart at any moment, due to very minimal upkeep throughout the years.

Cream siding was slanted and covered with moss in some places. The wooden posts holding the roof of the front porch were splitting, and their forest green garage door had years worth of scrapes and dents. At least the grass was maintained, but patchy in most areas, some places non-existent and replaced with mulch and mud.

When they would leave for the summer, Keegan would look at the house through the seasons. Leaves piled high in the yard, snow on the roof in the winter, some tulips blooming in spring, yearning for sunlight. He knew it wouldn't be long then.

"Keegs!" Chloe yelled out, jumping up and down to get his attention.

Peter shot the basketball in the net behind her, turning to look towards him when it bounced back into his hands.

"Chlo!" He yelled back. It echoed through the trees, sending a smile from Chloe in his direction.

He quickened to a jog and the two collided, Keegan sending her back a couple steps from the impact. He picked her up and spun her around a few times. Then, he held her at arms length and examined her smiling face, nine months older than the last time he had seen her.

She looked the same as she always did. Stringy white-blonde hair framing her face, bright blue eyes, golden skin that looked like it had been kissed by the sun a thousand times. He would never get tired of seeing her. She reminded him of all of the summers for the past fifteen years. Warm days, the beach, ice cream trips, skateboarding.

And then she'd be gone, Peter would be gone. Vanished, out of reach for nine months. The entire term of a pregnancy. The leaves would turn and he'd go back to school, playing soccer and lacrosse and baseball with his school friends. Except this time, it was off to college. It would never be the same.

Peter nestled the basketball between his arm and hip, coming up to greet Keegan. They fist bumped and he pulled him into some sort of awkward side hug. He smelled like sea salt and musk. Equally as golden skin as his sister was scraped, scabbed, and bruised all over—even over his half finished tattoo sleeve.

Peter's hair was the color of milk chocolate and shaped into an overgrown mullet, which it was most years, even before that was a cool thing to do. The darkest blue eyes Keegan has ever seen sneaked a glance of him as they pulled away from each other.

"When did you guys get here?" Keegan now asked, both hands planted on his hips. He scanned from one twin to the other.

"Lunch time?" Peter looked at Chloe for confirmation and she nodded. "We had to go to the beach first thing. Haven't even showered yet, just skated back and thought we'd wait for you out here."

"Yeah, cool," Keegan said with a half smile. "I'm really glad you guys made it. I thought it was going to be the first summer without you."

Chloe was still smiling ear to ear, pink cheekbones high on her face. "I wouldn't skip it. Are you kidding? I think about this all year."

Peter shook his head. "Absolutely wouldn't skip it. But it's just us for now. Uncle Pete is divorcing his current wife, so he's back home with her and the kid now. They're sorting that out, apparently."

"Damn," Keegan sighed, a long beat of silence following.

His eyes drifted from the pavement to the basketball between his friend's arm.

It was like they all knew what was about to happen at the same time. Keegan lurched forward first, a sporadic movement that caught Chloe off guard but not Peter—he had fast reflexes. He lifted the ball above his head, a smile identical to his sister's now plastered on his face. Both boys stood about six foot, so Keegan could easily jump up and push it out of his hands.

The ball knocked back into the grass, Chloe sprinting behind the two of them to grab it. At five foot four, packed with lean muscle, she was fast.

"Ha!" she mocked, making the shot into the basket with ease from the grass. "Still fucking got it!"

Her index fingers slipped into her mouth, pulling the corners of her lips wide as she stuck her tongue out and made a face at the boys. The same thing she did at six, ten, fifteen years old.

And just like that, Keegan felt more at home than he ever did outside of summer.

Peter was still standing in the driveway, shaking his head in defeat. His hands were on his hips, some of his white t-shirt scrunched up to reveal skin like honey.

Keegan's eyes lingered for just a second.