Chapter 83 Summer
EIGHTY-THREE
SUMMER
When we step back into the farmhouse, my stomach is swirling with nerves.
My mum is sitting at the kitchen table. Fraser is hovering over her, chattering easily as he pours tea. Cameron is watching her with a frozen expression of dislike. She looks up as Alec helps me out of my coat.
“Summer,” she says, and ice trickles down my back.
“I’m glad to see you’re alive.” Mum looks just the same as she always does—beautiful and imposing.
Her blonde hair is pulled back in a tight chignon, and she’s dressed in a black pantsuit.
She looks ridiculously out of place in the boys’ cozy kitchen.
I switch myself on. I’m a bit out of practice. I don’t think I’ve forced myself to sparkle once in the last month. “Hi, Mum!” I say brightly. “Did you get the present I sent?” She looks at me blankly. “The cashmere?”
“Oh, yes. Thank you. I can’t exactly wear pink in court though, dear.”
“Elle Woods did,” I mumble as I join her at the table. Fraser winks at me, passing me a mug.
“You’ve been ignoring my calls,” Mum accuses as I sit down. “I know you must have seen them. You’re always on your phone.”
I feel Alec lean against the back of my chair. “Sorry,” I say, wrapping my hands around my warm mug. “I’ve been busy.”
“Evidently.” She looks at the three men scathingly. “You said you were done being messy online. You said that you’d stop creating public scandals.”
“I, um, don’t think my relationship constitutes a scandal—” I start weakly.
Mum ignores me. “And yet I can’t go online without seeing pictures of my daughter draped across three men in a club. People keep emailing them to me. It’s a circus.”
I wince. Okay, I do feel bad. It’s easy enough for me to drop a bomb and then hide up in the countryside with my phone turned off, but I never meant for my mum to feel the fallout. “I’m sorry,” I say honestly. “It’s really unfair that this is affecting you in any way.”
Alec clears his throat. “If anyone should be apologising, it should be us, Mrs Faye. We were the ones who approached Summer in that club. Summer didn’t even know we were in the city.”
Mum doesn’t even look at him. “You’re an adult,” she snaps at me.
“Take responsibility. Do you think anyone will want to hire me to protect them in an abuse case, when the first thing that pops up when they google me is a video of my daughter acting like a total airhead? Are you really so desperate for attention that you’d set up a publicity stunt like this? ”
Alec straightens. “Mrs Faye—” he booms.
I pat his chest. “It’s okay,” I tell him. “Mum, this isn’t a stunt.”
She stares at me. “Excuse me?”
“Meet Fraser, Cameron, and Alec. My boyfriends.”
Fraser lifts a cheerful hand. Alec and Cameron stay stony.
Mum looks between the three men as if she’s seeing them for the first time. “Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t have three boyfriends.”
“I, er, don’t think that’s a real rule,” I say. “I know it’s unusual, but I’m with all three of them, and I’m really happy. I am sorry that the video is affecting your work though. If there’s anything I can do or say to help, I will.”
Mum is silent for a few long moments. Then she sighs heavily. “Oh, honey.” She pulls her phone out. “I know what this is. I’m calling Dr Roberts.”
It takes me several seconds to place the name. “My…psychiatrist from secondary school? Why?”
“You’re clearly struggling.” She stabs at her screen.
“This is impulsive behaviour. I should have seen it sooner. First, you’re bursting into tears over your lipstick, then you’re quitting your job and coming to live on some Scottish farm.
This isn’t how serious adults act. We should look into switching your meds. This is just too much.”
Too much.
I don’t move. I feel an old, old pain rising up inside me, winding its way around my throat.
Mum keeps talking. “You were always like this, even as a kid.”
“…Polyamorous?” I choke out.
She huffs. “Thoughtless. Impulsive. Always running after what felt good. You’d get obsessed with some shiny thing for a few weeks and then drop it.
I mean, you couldn’t even finish your degree, for God’s sake, and it was in clothes.
You had this big dream of being some hot-shot fashion designer, but when the time came for you to actually put in any work, you got bored.
And now you’ve latched onto this sham of a relationship—”
There’s a loud scrape as Cameron stands, shoving his chair out. Before he can say anything, I speak up.
“I’ll never make you happy, will I?” I ask her.
Mum blinks at me. “Excuse me?”
My eyes are blurring. I am so angry I’m shaking. “My whole life, I’ve tried to make you happy. I’ve tried so hard. I’ve tried to get good grades. I’ve tried to sit still and be quiet. I’ve tried not to bother you or need anything. And it’s never worked, has it? I’ll never be good enough for you.”
She scoffs. “Please. You’re being dramatic.”
“I just told you that I’m in a relationship that makes me happy, and you told me I should be medicated so I can act more normal! I’ve been bullied online for months, and you never once asked me if I was okay! All you ever do is criticise me and make me feel like shit, and…and I’m done,” I say.
Mum rolls her eyes. “Please. I’m not criticising you. I just want you to stop embarrassing yourself. I’ve spent my whole life cleaning up your messes.”
“But I’m not embarrassed,” I say. “And this isn’t a mess.
It’s my life. Maybe it’s unconventional, but I’m not doing anything wrong.
I shouldn’t have to apologise to you. I already get cruel comments from thousands of strangers online, I’m not going to take them from people who are meant to love me too.
” I take a shuddery breath. “I…I think you should go.”
Mum’s mouth falls open. “I had to skip an entire workday to drive cross-country to see you today—”
“I didn’t ask you to,” I point out. “I won’t spend time with you if all you ever do is disapprove of everything about me. It makes me feel awful. You make me feel awful.”
“Summer, be sensible. We need to come up with a plan—”
Alec looms over me protectively. “She asked you to leave,” he tells my mum.
Mum gapes at him. “You can’t throw me out! I’m here to talk to my daughter.”
“I know,” he says. His face is coolly polite. “You seem very concerned with how your daughter’s relationship will affect your public standing.” He pauses. “I imagine your reputation will be damaged much more if you get arrested for trespassing.”
Mum’s face turns deathly white.
Fraser guffaws. “Please don’t make him start reciting Scottish trespassing laws, Mrs Faye. He has them all memorised, and it’s pure boring.”
Mum looks at Fraser with unadulterated disgust. She stands, gathering her purse. “Fine,” she snaps. “Fine. I was only trying to help.” She storms past me. “Don’t come running to me when you get strung up online for whatever thoughtless mess you make next. Silly girl.”
I quiver. Alec lays a hand on my shoulder, grounding me.
Suddenly, Cameron is moving. As Mum touches the door handle, he blocks her path with his massive body. “You,” he tells her bluntly, “are a very stupid woman.”
I choke on air. Mum stares at him in disbelief. “Excuse me?”
His face is dark. “I know you think you’re smart,” he says quietly.
“Because you’re good at passing exams. But you’re an idiot.
That girl”—he jams a thumb at me—“is a light. She’s overflowing with love to give.
She’s made all of our lives better. And you can’t even see all the good in her.
You. Are. Stupid. And now you’ve lost her. ”
I’ve never seen my mum speechless before, but nothing in all of her years of courtroom battles has prepared her for a six-foot-three Scottish sheep farmer calling her stupid.
Cameron pushes open the door and stands aside. “Go.”
Mum looks at me like she expects me to defend her. I don’t. Her scowl deepens. She shoves past Cameron, her heels clacking on the stone tile. Cameron slams the door behind her, sending the cutlery rattling in the drawers.
No one says anything. I sit frozen on my chair.
“Well,” Fraser says eventually, “if you two do make up, our family Christmases are going to be a lot of fun.”
Before I can answer, Cameron has pulled me out of the chair and into his arms, squeezing me in a giant bear hug. “Sorry,” he says into my hair. “She’s awful.”
“Aye.” Fraser crowds up at my back, pressing his cheek to the top of my head. Alec winds an arm around my waist. I’m totally cocooned in boyfriends.
Out of nowhere, I start laughing. The sound bubbles out of me, shaking through my body until my eyes are wet and my stomach hurts.
Cameron frowns at me. “What’s wrong with you?”
“You called my mum stupid,” I choke.
“Aye.”
“No one has ever called her that in her life!”
His forehead bunches. “The woman’s denser than fog.”
Alec tilts my face up to meet his eyes. “Summer,” he says softly. “Are you okay? I’m so sorry, I should never have let her in here. I had no idea she was such a…”
“Raging bitch?” Fraser offers.
Alec’s thumbs gently stroke my jaw. He’s holding me like he’s expecting me to fall apart.
But I don’t feel like falling apart. I wait for the wash of pain to hit me, and it doesn’t come. Instead, I feel…
Alive. Relaxed. Like I’ve taken off a too-tight jumper I didn’t even realise I’d outgrown.
Energy is humming through me. I look out the window.
It’s raining, but the sun is cracking through the clouds like gold.
The towering hills of the Highlands look almost impossibly green, DayGlo-bright against the pale wash of the sky.
Alec says it’s because the storm season has finally passed. Now that the weather is brightening up, spring can come in earnest. All of the rain that the hills have soaked up is going to send everything into bloom. It’s a new beginning. A fresh start.
“I think…I have an idea for something,” I say slowly. “I’m gonna work a bit. See you all later?” I give them all a quick hug, run to the front door, and grab my coat.