35. Summer
Summer
The last twenty-four hours have been a blur of productivity to keep my worries from rushing back in.
Who knew all it would take was my father dying and running into my first love to incite motivation?
I scrub the kitchen until it sparkles, fill garbage bags with mountains of donations and trash, and even attack my guitar and piano with a ferocity that surprises me.
I’ve got composition after composition written down; now all they need are words.
Avoidance isn’t healthy. I know that. But it’s better than the alternative.
“I don’t understand why Chase is being such a dick,” Addie says, stabbing her chopped salad with her fork.
I asked Addie and Joanna to meet me at the diner after yesterday’s events.
“What do you mean he told you to leave?” Joanna interjects.
“Exactly what I said,” I reply, biting into my brownie. “I woke up, tried to talk to him, and he essentially threw me out.”
My old boss, Candice, delivers our drinks with a warm smile. Americanos for me and Addie, a chocolate milkshake for Joanna, and a babycino for Mia, Joanna’s two-year-old daughter perched on her lap.
“Thanks, Candy,” I say.
“Anytime, sweetheart. It’s so good to have you back.” She squeezes my shoulder and I will myself not to stiffen. “I hope you’re doing okay, sweetie. It must be strange being here under the circumstances.”
“I’m doing okay. Keeping busy. The house and work are taking up most of my time.”
And I mean it, which surprises me more than anything.
I thought returning to Ocean Grove would suffocate me—drag me back into the memories I fought so hard to leave behind. Instead, something unexpected has happened. Being here has allowed me to breathe them out. Like the town itself needed to be faced before those shadows could finally be released.
Every decision I make about the house feels like a small act of reclamation. Like I’ve taken back my power.
My father’s letter is still folded inside my suitcase, unopened. I’ve flipped it over in my hands a few times, but I always put it back. I still don’t know if I’ll ever open it.
I’m not sure I need to.
I came here to settle my father’s estate, but it turns out I’ve settled something in myself.
The thing I’d been avoiding—coming home—has been the very thing I needed most. It’s the closure I didn’t know I needed.
“I know, I’ve been feeding the contractors—thank you for bringing in the extra business.” She winks. “I’m here if you ever need to talk. Losing a parent is never easy.”
“I lost him a long time ago, Candy.”
A beat of quiet. “I know, sweetie. I know.”
She moves on to the next table.
Candice always knew I was saving to get out.
She just never knew why—not until after I’d already gone.
Addie delivered the news that I wouldn’t be coming back, and I was comfortable with that.
Candice had always looked out for her staff.
She wasn’t a gossip, which said something given how much of it passed through this place.
I trusted her with the truth eventually.
She received it the way she received anything: quietly and without judgment or fuss.
Mia smacks her hands together with joy, grabbing the tiny cup with both fists. She tips it toward her face and proceeds to paint herself with foam and sprinkles, giggling the whole time.
I press my lips together to keep from laughing. Beside me, Addie gags. “I can’t handle sticky hands.” She shudders. “Bleh.”
“Welcome to my life,” Joanna deadpans, reaching for a napkin.
Mia is the spitting image of her mother—she has the same warm brown eyes and mischievous smile—aside from her blond curls, which she gets from her father.
Xavier.
Yeah, her dream of sleeping with him finally came true. Issue is, he ditched her and left town before the baby was born.
“So,” Joanna says, dabbing at Mia’s chin. “You saved his mom, fainted from the trauma, and his response was to kick you out?”
“That about sums it up.”
“What a dick.”
“That’s what I said,” I reply.
“Maybe he’s a little overwhelmed. He has a lot going on with his mom and everything,” Addie offers.
Joanna shakes her head. “I don’t get it. Chase used to be the sweetest guy. He used to help everyone. Now he just grunts and broods.” She bounces Mia on her knee. “Maybe he isn’t coping with his mother’s illness.”
I’ve considered that. After seeing Felicity in such a compromised state yesterday, it’s impossible to ignore how frail and weak she’s gotten. She’s nothing like the woman I knew. She used to laugh so loudly; she’d fill a whole room with joy and make everyone feel like they had a mother in her.
The woman Chase knows is disappearing piece by piece every day.
It’s a hard thing to watch.
I know this agony all too well. The way hope becomes a blade that cuts you every time you reach for it. The way you start grieving someone who’s still breathing—it’s a pain no one can prepare you for.
I understand his hostility. His bitterness. The walls he’s built high and thick so no one can get through. And he has; they’re clear as day.
When you’re drowning in your own emotions, there’s no room for anything else. It’s hard to reach the surface and catch your breath.
I know what it’s like to funnel every ounce of energy into surviving the next hour, the next day, the next week. You become a tourniquet because opening the wound means bleeding out.
Losing someone you love carves you out. It makes you mean. It makes you push away the people you care about because their presence is a reminder of everything you have to lose.
I think the worst part is knowing that you’re doing it. You know you’re hurting the people around you, but it’s impossible to stop. Because stopping means sitting with your feelings, and if you break, you don’t know if you’ll ever be able to put yourself back together.
I learned that lesson. Twice. And I still carry the hurt.
Thing is, I don’t force that hurt onto other people.
I take a long sip of my Americano. “When I first came to after I fainted, it was like I could almost see him—the old him, you know?”
Addie gives me a tight-lipped, sad smile. “I’m sorry.”
I shrug. “It’s fine. Things change; people change.”
“Well,” Addie starts, breaking apart her brownie. “Steele’s still a massive scrotum, so there’s that.”
Joanna rolls her eyes. “You really can’t ever let that go, can you?”
“Are you serious right now?” Addie’s fork clatters to her plate. “He humiliated me, Jo. In front of everyone.”
“You were eighteen. He was a stupid, hormone-fueled teenage boy who got embarrassed and handled it badly.”
“Handled it badly?” Addie leans forward, dropping her voice to a hiss.
“Whose blood do you think was smeared all over his hand? Do you have any idea what it felt like to have him look at me like I was disgusting? He laughed it off with all his buddies. Dismissed me like I didn’t matter.
Everyone called me Shark Tank or Jaws for the rest of summer! ”
“He apologized for that. He was a teenager.” Joanna exhales sharply. “Adds—”
“No.” She holds up a hand to stop her. “I’ll continue carrying this grudge until I’m in my grave. Then I’ll find him and kill him on the other side.”
Joanna’s eyes shift to the entrance when the bell above the door chimes.
“Oh my God,” she whispers.
“What?” Addie asks, twisting to look. She whips back around and ducks her head, hissing. “You have got to be kidding me.”
“Two large lattes,” a voice booms at the counter. “To go.”
Steele.
I glance over my shoulder and my stomach plummets.
Chase and Steele are at the counter, their backs to us.
“What are they doing here?” Addie whisper-shouts, sinking lower in her seat.
Mia babbles happily to herself. Joanna shoots her sister an exasperated look. “Getting coffee, Adds. Like normal people do. Just breathe. They haven’t even noticed us.”
“They better keep it that way,” Addie mutters.
The door chimes again.
I watch Joanna’s face as her gaze tracks toward the entrance again. She clears her throat before she quickly looks away, suddenly very interested in the menu.
The reaction sends unease winding up my spine.
I shouldn’t look. I know I shouldn’t look.
I look anyway.
A woman strides in—tall and sun-kissed with honey-blond hair tumbling over her shoulders. She’s in fitted jeans and riding boots with a flannel shirt tied around her small waist.
She’s effortlessly beautiful.
Her face lights up the moment she sees the boys.
“Hey, you!” She crosses to Chase, her hand landing on his forearm. “I was hoping I’d see you soon.”
Chase pivots and his tired eyes soften when they land on her.
He smiles.
“Rachel, hey. What are you doing here?”
Rachel.
It feels like a dagger to the throat.
“Desperately need caffeine.” She giggles. “Long morning with the horses.”
The three of them cluster in conversation while they wait for their orders.
My fingers curl around my coffee mug tightly.
“Sum?” Addie says. “You okay?”
“Uh-huh.”
She brushes my biceps. “Hey, maybe you shouldn’t look.”
But it’s too late. I can’t focus on anything else as Rachel takes her coffee and before leaving, reaches up to him on her tiptoes.
Chase dips his head to meet her halfway, accepting the kiss. Something inside me implodes.
His hand cups the back of her neck like it’s a dance they’ve done a million times.
“Sum?” Addie says, her voice low and gentle.
I turn away before I do something stupid like cry.
Or toss my coffee across the room.
“You okay?” she asks again.
I swallow the lump in my throat, nodding sharply.
There’s one haunting thought that lingers with me after they leave.
That should have been me.