July, 1987
The Bluth family sat on the beach in silence. It was the Fourth of July and they'd gone to Huntington Beach to watch the fireworks, but none of them were feeling particularly conversational as they waited for them to start. Michael, meanwhile, was preoccupied with trying not to notice how pretty Lindsay looked sitting next to him on the picnic blanket in her short, low-cut dress. He was sure he wasn't imagining it, she was definitely wearing more revealing clothes when she was around him now.
"Mom, can I swim in the ocean?" Buster asked.
"Absolutely not," Lucille said.
Michael jumped slightly as Lindsay leaned in close to him and whispered in his ear, "You wanna get out of here?"
"Uh, where do you want to go?" he said quietly, his heart beating quickly.
"Doesn't matter," she said. "We could just walk down the beach a little ways."
"Okay," he said before he could stop himself.
"Great," she whispered. She stood up. "We're going to walk down the beach," she said to the rest of the family as Michael stood up, too.
Lucille raised her eyebrows. "Alright," she said.
Lindsay started walking away. Michael followed her, glancing nervously back at his parents. Lately their mother had been making less and less subtle remarks about how close they were, and he was starting to worry she suspected something was going on between them. Which wasn't true, he thought angrily, they hadn't done anything. But Lindsay wasn't helping when she did things like this in front of everyone. Gob had also seemed a little suspicious ever since he'd walked in on them dancing together. Thankfully their father didn't seem to have noticed anything.
"Don't you just love our family celebrations?" Lindsay said sarcastically when they were out of earshot. Michael laughed. "Ugh, I can't believe you're leaving next month and I'll be stuck with them for another year."
"Sorry," he said guiltily. Lindsay hadn't been very subtle about her jealousy that he was going to college and she wasn't. He'd told her, though, he'd tried to convince her to go to summer school instead of repeating ninth grade and she hadn't listened. Still, it was hard not to feel guilty. "It's just one more year, and then you'll be done, too," he pointed out.
"Yeah, but it's going to be torture without you," she said. "Just me and Gob and Buster and Dad and Mom."
He laughed. "Yeah, it's going to be bad. I'll call you every day, though, it will be like I'm still here."
"Good," she said. "You'd better."
"Of course I will," he said, and he meant it. He was excited about going to college, but he wasn't quite ready to leave his twin sister behind. In some ways it was a good thing. He was hoping that living apart would help him get over his feelings for her. But he would miss her. It was hard to imagine only seeing her on the holidays after they'd spent their whole lives together. Even worse was the fear that she would relapse when he was gone. She was only going to therapy once a week now and for the first time since middle school she looked healthy, but he couldn't shake the fear that she would spin out of control when she didn't have him there to support her anymore.
"So have you thought about where you're going to go next year?" he asked.
"Not really," she said. "Maybe Boston."
"Boston?"
"Yeah, why not?"
"Nothing, it's just…why Boston? Is there a specific college there you want to go to?"
"No, I just want to go somewhere different from here. There are a lot of colleges there, right?"
"Well, yeah, but you should probably find a specific one you're interested in," Michael said, a little frustrated by her indifference toward her future, and slightly hurt that she would want to go somewhere so far away. "We wouldn't see each other much if you went there," he pointed out.
"Aww, would you miss me?" she teased.
He rolled his eyes. "Yes, I would miss you," he said. She smiled at him.
"I won't, then," she said. She stopped and sat down a piece of driftwood. He sat next to her. "Maybe I could go somewhere near you," she said. "Are there any colleges near Berkeley that I could get into?"
"Uh, not that I know of, but I'm sure there are. That would be great."
"Yeah, it would be," she said, and he loved the way her eyes lit up when she said it. "We could take turns visiting each other every weekend and go to parties together. Yeah, I really like this idea."
"Me, too," he said, though he felt a little uneasy picturing them alone in a dorm room without their parents in the next room. But a year would probably be enough to get over her, and it would be nice to see her more. And he couldn't help it, he loved how excited she seemed to be about the possibility of living near him again. "Okay, I'll look through my college guide when we get home and find something for you," he said.
"Great," she said, looking out at the waves. "Yeah, I'd feel a lot better about you leaving. I just have to get through one more year with Mom and then it will be just the two of us in San Francisco, or wherever the college you find is."
Just the two of us, he thought. "Sounds good," he said.
She smiled. "Yeah, it does."
CRACK!
"Oh, look!" she said, looking up at the sky as the fireworks exploded above them. Michael just kept watching her as her beautiful, familiar face glowed red in the light of the fireworks, and though he kept telling himself he was just confused, all he could think was, I love her.
She glanced over at him. Her eyes widened slightly when she saw that he was looking at her, and then her red lips spread into a teasing smile. He turned away, embarrassed. He looked up at the sky and pretended to watch the fireworks, though he was too distracted by the feeling of her watching him to pay any attention to them. He saw her move in his peripheral vision and then he felt her hand on his. He froze. This was not okay, she knew that. He glanced nervously at the other people on the beach a few yards away. Of course, they didn't know they were brother and sister, but still. She tried to lean against him, but he stood up and pulled his hand away.
"Maybe we should go back now," he said shakily, his heart pounding.
"Oh," she said, blushing. "Okay."
She stood up and they walked back down the beach in silence. He glanced over at her. She was determinedly looking down at the sand, her jaw set. She looked like she might cry. He turned away guiltily. He wanted to apologize, but that would mean acknowledging what had happened, so he didn't say anything.
