The Forgotten Summer (Book 2 Newport Beach Series)

Chapter 1

The copy of Jacob’s death certificate sat inside the document box Abigail had brought with her on the plane. Part of her was just trying to forget that it existed but no matter what she did to try and distract herself, there was always a piece of her mind that was on the box and what its contents could mean for her.

The parts of the house she felt comfortable exploring had never been cleaner, she thought. After cleaning and organizing the kitchen for the third time she had started to feel just a little bit crazy.

She wasn’t exactly sure whether their investigation should even go forward; after all, it had been twenty years, hadn’t it?

Was she really going to spend her summer digging up the past and potentially upsetting not just herself but whoever knew Jacob as well? She sat up straight, the sudsy sponge in her hand dripping on her jeans. Why hadn’t she thought of this before? Jacob’s parents must know, surely? A wave of guilt made her pause; if he had killed himself, then they would know and might not want to talk about it. Especially with the woman who been with him in the car.

She had never gotten on particularly well with Jacob’s parents; they saw her as a distraction to Jacob, who they thought should be concentrating on getting into college. They definitely wouldn’t want to talk to the person they blamed for his death, she realized as she felt tears prickle at the corner of her eyes.

It can’t be that simple,she thought bitterly, just go and talk to his parents, track them down and show up at their house being like, ‘oh hey remember me? I nearly died in the car with your son, remember? And by the way, is he really dead?’

Nope, that definitely wasn’t an option. She squeezed the sponge out into the bucket next to her and wiped off the suds on her jeans. It left a dark spot where the water had seeped in, and she swallowed hard, trying to ignore the image as best she could. The nightmare that she had had on the plane was worse than the usual ones, and the theme had continued since her first night in the house.

Normally, in her dreams, they would start with her in the car or a few seconds after plummeting off the road. These ones, though, all seemed to start with her living her normal life. When she was in the kitchen, working in the garden, or cleaning the house, she would start to notice water falling around her or onto her.

Her nightmares usually came in waves; she would have the same or similar one for several weeks, and then it would go away. She hoped that this particular wave was going to be ending soon. She had woken up in a cold sweat the night before, and she didn’t know how much more intense her dreams could get before she started to get really worried and had to call Dr. Lavender.

With barely three hours of sleep from the previous night, she was exhausted. The hallway floor was pretty much clean. She had scrubbed it from front to back and was now contemplating starting on the walls. As she looked up and caught sight of herself in the mirror, kneeling on the hard floor with her hair tied up behind her head in a messy bun, she sighed and decided that it was absolutely time for a break.

As she made her way to the kitchen, she unlocked her phone, beelining for the symptoms diary she’d been keeping for the last several years. Abigail knew that there were plenty of apps out there that did the same thing, but she had always felt that her plain and basic notes app with logically thought-out titles and date stamping was far more reliable. Plus, this way she could take a copy of them and send them to Dr. Lavender whenever she needed to. She added a new note and started to type:

Lack of sleep is starting to get to me. Last night, I slept for three hours in total. It took me two hours to get to sleep the first time, and then I woke up almost 40 minutes later, after which it took me at least an hour to get back to sleep again. This pattern continued throughout the night until about 4 AM when I decided I might as well just get up. Nightmares are about 7/10, but they are getting weirder. I will continue to keep track.

After saving the note and pocketing the phone, Abigail let out a loud sigh and rubbed her palms against her face as if trying to wake herself up. She had to sit down, have tea, and maybe see if she could nap. Napping wasn’t always recommended for people with insomnia as it can make falling asleep at night harder, but she was at a point of deprivation that she knew any sleep was better than no sleep.

Despite never having really drunk tea before this, she had started to get into it. She calmly fetched the teapot and filter, selected one of the cups and saucers, and started to boil the electric tea kettle. In fact, she decided to treat making tea like a meditative practice. This wasn’t exactly a huge discovery, she knew. Cultures around the world had tea rituals and tea ceremonies, but it was new to her. She felt like a lot of it had to do with the fact that the tea she was drinking was actually delicious.

As it brewed, she pulled out her phone again and sent two text messages; one to her daughters in London and one to Shelley back home. Seeing a notification pop up from the girls as she unlocked the phone made her smile.

Sid(ney) has changed your nickname to Mom/Mum.

From Mom/Mum: hey girls, you’ll never guess what! Not only have I started drinking tea, but I’m actually enjoying it! Maybe one of you could bring back some British tea… I think that’s a thing, right?

From Abigail: Hi Shelley, Thank you so much for the tea basket. You know how much I hate to admit when someone is right about something—you were 100% right. I just needed to be drinking the right tea. Please, for the good of my soul, tell me where you bought this tea! I miss you and our coffee catch-ups. Maybe when the summer arrives, you could take a few days to come up and enjoy the sun and sea.

Her tea was ready to be poured by the time she finished typing. It was a bit of an odd mix. Or at least, it was to her: a vanilla and strawberry black tea with actual chunks of freeze-dried strawberry in the looseleaf mix. It smelled delightful, and as she brought the cup to her face and breathed in deeply, Abigail closed her eyes and was reminded of an ice cream melting on a hot day.

She took the cup of tea with her and sat on the large back armchair in the corner of the room where the kitchen transitioned into a dining area. Settling into the seat, she closed her eyes again and concentrated on the delicious smell. A stray thought popped into her mind: if she was gonna be treating making tea like meditation, she should stop texting during it. Abigail smiled. The joke reminded her of something, but she wasn’t sure what it was. She knew in that moment that she was comfortable, cozy, and about to enjoy a delicious cup of tea.

She was barely halfway through it when she blinked against the light that now seemed too bright to keep her eyes open. She let them flutter closed.

The scene she saw in front of her was ultimately familiar; it was the strongest memory of her last summer in Newport. Outside the ice cream shop, Jacob was behind her, an ice cream in hand. She knew that there was a logical fallacy in thinking that this was her best memory. It was probably her best memory because she had a photograph of that day, and had looked at it once or twice, but that didn’t matter to her right now. Right now, she was just going to let herself enjoy having this dream.

After having vivid nightmares for so many years, Abigail knew when she was lucid dreaming. She didn’t always notice quite so fully or so quickly, but this time, she was glad for it as it normally kicked in just as her nightmares peaked in terrifying action.

Her eyes fluttered. She saw the image flicker back and forth like an old movie where the film wasn’t quite right. She was sitting across from Jacob in the ice cream parlor and he was saying something to her and she leaned in to try and hear. He took the opportunity to kiss her lightly on the tip of her nose. She giggled in her dream…

Or was it a memory?

Teenage Abigail swiped the end of her nose with a hooked finger and then did the same thing to Jacob, who grinned back at her. His smile got sad, and he looked up at her over his ice cream.

“Just don’t know what to do, Abs,” he said, “If my dad’s cheating, my mom will crack a doozy. But maybe, like, he deserves it? He shouldn’t be cheating on her.”

Through teenage Abigail’s mind, she felt the confusion and dread that she remembered at that moment.

“Well… Maybe it’s not your business, Jake?” she said, “I know it’s weird, and I know your dad has treated your mom really badly in the past… But parents... I dunno, it’s like they have a life too and maybe...”

“So what? You think I should just let this go? Maybe if I can figure out if he is cheating on her, and I tell her, she can leave,” Jacob said, “and if he is not cheating, then no harm done… Right?”

Abigail blinked in the image of the ice cream parlor. She blinked again and the image of Jacob was gone completely.

As he disappeared, she started and sloshed some of the still warm vanilla and strawberry tea down her hand. More out of anticipation than out of pain, she yelped, sloshing more of the tea on her jeans. She looked frantically around the room, searching for Jacob and trying to ensure she was awake.

When she had satisfied her panicking mind that she was actually awake, she sighed and looked down at her now-soaking jeans. Luckily, her phone had been in the pocket on the dry side of her jeans, and had avoided being drowned. Abigail winced at her choice of words; the image of water sloshing into a car flashed through her mind.

She took a deep breath and walked over to the sink, depositing the now empty teacup into the waiting pile of dirty washing up and washed her hands. Pulling out her phone, she started yet another note in her symptom diary:

Approximately lunchtime: allowed myself to doze in a chair, triggering what felt like a dream first, but I think was actually a flashback. Haven’t had a flashback in a really long time, and I haven’t had this dream before. Other dreams of Jacob and that day we got ice cream in the summer before the crash have always been general and was mostly us looking at each other like lovestruck teenagers. But this was a conversation and is making me remember he really did think his dad was cheating on his mom, and didn’t know what to do about it.

The process of typing out her dreams helped Abigail to figure out if they were just dreams or if they were actually memories. She was 100% sure this was a flashback. She hated how dramatic she sounded when she talked about them, but true flashbacks had the power to make her talk to people who weren’t there while half awake. The last one she’d had was while her mother was in the hospital and she had gone nearly 4 days without any real sleep. Liam had walked into their hotel room and found her talking to her mom about going to prom. He was fairly used to all of her sleep symptoms, but even he had to admit that this one freaked him out.

The realization that this was a memory she had just relived made her feel even more tired, but she really did not want to go back to sleep right then and risk having a worse dream. She jumped when the phone rang, staring at it and taking in the caller ID. She smiled and rolled her eyes.

“Hello, Byron, you have remarkably perfect timing—what can I do for you today?”