Chapter 46 Summer
Hours later, I stare up at the moonlit paneled roof of the camper van.
Parker’s soft breaths tickle my neck. He fell asleep about an hour ago, holding me tightly to him, my back to his chest. Making good on his promise to keep me close, in his heart, even in his sleep.
Halfway into the final chapter of our Hidden Moon book, my dad sent a good luck text for tomorrow, alongside a family photo of them enjoying a day on the beach.
It’s everything that’s made me feel like I could disappear, sink to the very bottom of the ocean outside this van, and it would take ages for someone to notice.
For once, I don’t feel that way.
The nonstop stream of messages in our friends’ group chat, coordinating their arrivals tomorrow, is a buoy thrown at me.
The sight of Caroline and Brian’s RV, now parked a few rows down from ours, a life vest hugging me tight.
The feel of Parker’s beating heart against me a sturdy rope, tethering me to safety.
I don’t want to give up on my relationship with my dad.
But what has it brought me recently, other than heartache and feelings of crippling insignificance?
For years, it ripped the joy out of the thing I loved most. Derailed every single plan I had for myself in favor of staying desperately put in a place where he could easily find me, once it was finally my turn to have him again.
Tonight, in this cramped, overheating camper van, I decide that I’m done waiting for my turn. I want to go into tomorrow, into the future, without the deadweight of broken hope holding me back.
Sitting up, I stroke a finger over Parker’s stubbled cheek. “Park?”
His eyelids flutter. As though he were hovering on the edge of consciousness, just waiting to be called back to me. “Love?”
“Can you do something for me? Can you just hold my hand for a few minutes?”
He sits up, laces our fingers.
I reach for my phone on the nightstand and dial. My father’s voicemail greeting fills my eardrum. The one I’ve got memorized.
The one I shouldn’t know by heart.
“Hi, Dad. It’s Summer.” Parker shuffles closer, his body tense as though ready to jump into a brawl with me.
“Do you remember what you used to tell me when I was younger, before I’d compete?
You’d take me by the shoulders on the sand, tell me to close my eyes.
‘Big, big breath, Summer,’ you’d say. ‘I love you no matter what. I’ll be right here, waiting for you. ’ ”
I close my eyes and I’m back there again. The first time he said it to me at thirteen, knees bent to bring us at eye level. His green eyes near-identical to mine.
Tears fall down my cheeks, because this is the last kind of call I ever imagined making. I’d believed him with all my heart—I’ll be right here, waiting for you.
“Maybe you thought that I’d always be here waiting for you, too.
That our bond was self-sufficient, that you didn’t need to look after it, or me.
That you could call me in and out of your life whenever it suited you.
But God, what you’ve done to me for the past few years?
I wouldn’t wish feeling so damn irrelevant on my worst enemy.
” Parker’s warm hand around mine is my courage.
My sanity. My dream of something better.
“I’m calling to tell you that I’m finally done waiting.
Done making excuses for you. Done trying to make you see me.
You won’t be hearing from me again. And I’m not leaving this message hoping you’ll call me, or try to change my mind. I’m leaving it for me—a clean break.”
Something heavy lifts off my chest at the words, as though my heart needed to hear it to believe it. That it could finally release the piece of itself that belonged to him, waiting for him to reclaim it. And offer it to people who’d cherish it the way it deserved to be.
“I’m blocking your number. If you ever want to talk… I’d say you know where to find me, but I don’t plan on being here to wait around for you anymore.” I take a breath, filling my lungs to the brim, then releasing it all. “Bye, Dad.”
With shaking hands, I hang up. My rough sobs fill the van as I block and delete his number, curtailing the temptation that I know will come at my lowest points.
Parker holds me tight. Lets me soak through his shirt. Lets me shuffle around to press my ear right over his beating heart.
Thump thump thump thump. My favorite sound in the world.
He strokes my hair, whispering I love you so much, that was so fucking brave, I’ll always be here, right here for you, Summer as I cry myself to sleep.