38. Summer 19
We drove for the first ten minutes in comfortable silence. We both needed the space to process everything that had happened over the past few days as well as the last hour.
As we drive down backroads to our destination, I let one of my recently curated playlists play softly in the background. The playlist is entirely composed of songs Andrew and I have shown one another throughout the summer.
When Zach Bryan’s “Sun to Me” comes on the speakers, Andrew wordlessly leans forward in his seat to turn up the volume. I can’t help but sing along because I know every word by heart. It’s one of my favorites.
As the song proceeds, I can’t help but pause the music and break the gentle silence. “I liked this song before, but I think it just took on a whole new meaning for me.”
Andrew glances my way. “How so?”
“Listen to this part,” I instruct, rewinding the song a bit and then pressing play. I grab his left hand as the music flows for about thirty seconds before I pause it again.
He looks at me, the faintest hint of a smile beginning to show. “Why’d you pause it again?”
“I just have to explain myself. Then I promise we can start the song all over again,” I charm, pressing my lips to the top of his hand. “You helped me when I was in a really low place. I was mourning the loss of Rebecca, and I didn’t think I’d ever be able to move forward from it, especially not here where memories of her are lingering like shadows around every corner. But you brought me from this dark place to this place of light. I feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders since the beginning of the summer. And you’ve continued to help me in ways that go beyond my grief. You’ve called me out on my shit and pushed me to overcome my fears. Obviously, I still have a lot to work out, but you’re helping me make strides forward.”
“You got all of that from thirty seconds of song? Wow.” He doesn’t say anything else. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Andrew not have something perfectly clever or charming to say. Slowly, as my words sink in, a smile spreads wide on his face. Is that a blush I see crossing his cheeks?
After another beat, he demands, “Pull over.”
“What? We’re almost there. What’s wrong?”
I pull over to the side of the road despite my confusion, and the second I put the car in park, Andrew leans forward to restart the song and press his lips to mine. Again, it’s one of those kisses that is meant to express everything we can’t seem to say with words, but I receive his message loud and clear. He feels the same way about me. I light his shadows too.
When we pull apart, we listen to the song together again, with my head on his shoulder and his arm wrapped around me. I can tell, just from the way he holds me and the way he kissed me, that he got my message.
When the song ends, I slowly pull the car back onto the road, not quite ready for this moment to end, but so excited for what’s next. “We’re almost there. I’m excited on your behalf.” I giggle with glee.
“You sure are talking this up. Do you want to give me a hint?”
“By the time I come up with a hint, we’ll be there.”
“Aw, come on!” he pleads with me.
“We’re here.” I nod my head in the direction of the scene I set up for him earlier today.
He takes in the scene and then turns to look at me. He’s ecstatic. “You did not!” he exclaims. Already I can tell I nailed it, and I can’t help but feel proud of myself for putting this together for him.
The edges of my mouth turn up into a sheepish grin. “I did.”
He swings the door open and leaps out of the car, rushing around to my side and opening the door for me before I even have a chance to unbuckle. “I knew you’d be excited, but I didn’t think you’d be this excited. Is it the carryout or the porch swing that did it for you?”
“It’s all of it,” he says, clearly telling the truth. “How long has the food been sitting there for?” He skeptically inspects the scene for a moment.
“Hopefully not too long. I had Dani’s help.” I pull my phone out of my pocket to glance at her last text, then hold it out to show Andrew. “Yup, she dropped it off not even five minutes ago. It should still be hot.”
“This is incredible!” Andrew rushes toward the porch swing I found through very tedious research. It sits on the back end of a cabin across the lake from our houses. It has a perfect view of the water and is very secluded as the cabin is surrounded by trees.
I came across the cabin by a happy accident. I spent hours and hours searching for a porch swing near us the day we had thunderstorms a few weeks back, but it was only when I got tired of looking and decided to look up the price of one of my favorite houses on the lake that I came across this one for sale on Zillow. It’s currently uninhabited, which works out perfectly for us.
Before Andrew makes it to the swing, he pauses abruptly and turns back toward me. He closes the distance between us and pulls me in for a hug, placing a kiss on my forehead. “You’re incredible.” His soft smile melts me into a puddle of goo on the ground.
I shake my head at him. “Andrew, you’re the one who’s been doing all these grand gestures for me all summer. You deserve this. It’s time I show you how much you mean to me.”
We walk, hand in hand toward the porch swing, and I feel the anticipation building inside of me. Yes, I found a porch swing to match our song. Yes, I got him carryout from his favorite Italian restaurant, but there’s still one item sitting on the bench that he hasn’t seen, not to mention the goodies I have stowed away in the car.
He sits down and picks up the boxes, trying to read the handwriting on the top one to figure out whose food is whose.
I sit down on the other side and pull the speaker out from underneath the swing, turning it on and quickly queuing up some music on my phone.
Before I hit play, I hear Andrew’s breath hitch. “What is this?”
My stomach does a small somersault. I hope this goes over the way I expected. I nod my head down at the envelope. “I gave one of my coworkers one of your stories. She called me and talked my ear off about how much she loved it for a solid twenty minutes, without even letting me squeeze in a word.” I laugh a little, nerves still eating away at me. “I haven’t read what’s in the envelope, but she wanted me to give it to you.”
His eyes grow wide. “You gave someone at the publishing company one of my stories? And she liked it?”
I nod, fighting back the hopeful smile that is trying to make its way onto my face right now. “You better rip that thing open before I lose all self-control and do it for you.”
He eagerly tears into the envelope and reads it silently, killing me a little, or a lot, as his face doesn’t give away a hint of emotion.
After a minute, he turns to me and kisses me. “Thank you, Em.”
“What’d it say?” I sputter. “Is it good news?”
His casual expression breaks into one of elation. “She says she wants the rest of my stories. She thinks they have the potential to be published, and she even thinks it would sell wonderfully as a series. She has an agent in mind she regularly works with who is willing to represent me and help me market the series,” he explains, emphasizing the last word. “She wants the series!”
Upon hearing his words, I finally exhale. “Oh my gosh, Andrew! That’s amazing! I’m so proud of you! I told you a year ago, you’d be one hell of a writer, and here you are, on your path to being published.”
I emphasize the last word, making sure he doesn’t allow this victory to go unrecognized. Andrew can be too humble for his own good.
His gaze meets mine. “I wouldn’t be here without you. You were my inspiration through all of this, and you helped push me to get back into it.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” I wink at him, and his eyes go dark.
My heart rate picks up, and I reach toward him, grabbing hold of his shirt and pulling him in closer to me. When my lips meet his, we share a clear hunger for one another. His hands are on my back and then in my hair, pulling me closer. His tongue slips into mine, softly teasing me. It’s as though we are both desperately trying to become one because the thought of being apart from each other any longer will break us.
When we finally pull apart, I straighten my hair and mutter between breathy gasps, “So should we eat before the food gets cold?”
He smiles and pulls me back in for another kiss before responding, “Yeah, I guess so.”
Andrew dives right into his fettuccini alfredo while I swirl my spaghetti noodles around on my fork, taking a bit more of a dainty approach to my meal.
I can’t help but feel a weight slowly piling onto my shoulders. I am glad this day has turned around and become so positive, but there’s still one more item that’s nagging at me.
“Andrew—”
“Hey, Em?—”
We laugh nervously at our unified attempt to start a conversation. “Go ahead.” He nods.
I hesitate for a few more moments while he stays silent, giving me the time and space I need to come forward with whatever it is that’s on my mind.
“Rebecca.” I finally say, but that’s all I say. I don’t know how to have this conversation. Every time I practiced in my head before, I always had an excuse for why it’d be better to just wing it. The conversation will be more authentic that way. I can’t plan things like this. The list goes on and on.
Seeing my exasperation, Andrew steps in. “What about Rebecca?”
I sigh deeply before going on, as if getting more oxygen in my lungs is going to make this easier. “It’s almost one year since—” I can’t bring myself to finish the sentence. I know just an hour before I was telling Andrew about how much he has helped me move forward from Rebecca’s death, but the one-year anniversary of her accident is almost the equivalent of picking at a scab. Maybe the wound was healing nicely, but I just know this little scratch is going to make me bleed again. I can only imagine Andrew must feel the same way. Rebecca was his sister. His twin. They spent their whole lives together.
Andrew nods, knowingly. “Yeah, Tuesday. I’ve been trying not to think about it,” he says somberly.
“I’m sorry, Andrew! It’s just that?—”
He cuts me off before I can continue. “Don’t be sorry. It’s good you brought this up. We should be talking about it.” Meeting my somber gaze, he adds, “I think we should do something together to celebrate Rebecca on that day. I don’t want to feel sad anymore.”
“You’re right. That’s kind of been our motto this whole summer, huh? It’s not what Rebecca would’ve wanted?”
“Yeah. I think it’s okay to say that it’s not what we want either.”
“How are you able to be so rational, Andrew? This is your sister. Your writing is filled with so much emotion and creativity. How can you have this side to you too?”
“I’m a man of many sides.” He smirks, then turns serious again, “Honestly, I guess I had to be the rational one with how crazy Rebecca could be. We needed someone to balance us out or we would’ve gotten into a lot more trouble than we did growing up.”
I smile, nodding my head in agreement. “Did you have anything in mind to celebrate her?”
“Maybe we don’t do anything crazy this time. We could just go up to the viewpoint and watch the sunrise while we binge-eat your grandpa’s cookie dough.”
I bury my face in my hands as I laugh. “She would’ve loved that. Why did she always have to be such a daredevil when the simple things would’ve made her just as happy?”
Andrew shakes his head. “I don’t know. It’s Rebecca. She liked having an edge.”
“I guess so.”
Silence falls over us for a few moments while we both take in the last couple of hours. We’ve talked about a lot of important matters, but it feels good to finally communicate with one another without any anger or anxiety. If we could’ve just done that sooner, maybe we’d be celebrating years of a happy relationship. Or we could’ve at least been there for each other when we first started grieving Rebecca late last summer. Maybe we wouldn’t have had a big fight to drive us apart for several days, but all of it has led us to this spot now, and I’m happy right now.
“I have a few more things planned for the evening, if you’re up for it.” I break the silence, ready to bring the evening to a more joyful note again.
He perks up. “You mean there’s more?”
I stand up from my spot on the porch swing and grab our empty boxes of food while I start heading toward my car. “Of course there’s more!”
I unlock my car and dig around in the back seat, pulling out a Tupperware full of freshly baked cookies, a container of vanilla ice cream, spoons, and a folder.
As I approach Andrew again with my arms full, I can practically see him salivating.
“What do you have there?”
“Oh, just my dessert. Did you bring anything for yourself?” I smirk.
His smile turns devilish as he lunges toward me. I sidestep him, squealing with glee, but he grabs me around the waist, snagging the ice cream from my grip and setting it aside as he pulls me in tight. His attack of kisses go from quick and playful to slow and passionate within seconds.
“Maybe we don’t need dessert,” he teases.
“Maybe you don’t, but I’ve been looking forward to this.”
He helps me scoop some vanilla ice cream between two cookies to make an ice cream sandwich. Andrew has always said he wanted to try making one with my grandpa’s cookies, but we never did.
With his mouth full of his first bite, he bellows, “Holy shit! This is incredible! I’ll never be able to eat cookies or ice cream by themselves ever again.”
I just shake my head at him with a smile on my face. “What about the cookie dough on Tuesday?”
“I think I can manage that,” he winks. “Just try it though! Thisis heaven!”
I lick a drop of ice cream that’s already melting out the bottom of my ice cream sandwich before taking a bite. “Holy shit! You’re right!”
“I told you.” He grumbles through another bite. “What’s this folder for?” He slides the folder toward himself and opens it up with the hand that isn’t covered in melted ice cream.
“One last surprise for you,” I tell him, licking a dribble of vanilla off my pinky. “I was told there should be a little note in there to explain.”
He reads the note aloud, “A friend of mine is a great artist, and she was inspired by the snippet of your story I shared with her. Enjoy!”
He pulls out the drawings that were mailed to me a few days ago and flips through them. Astonishment fills his face, and I think somewhere in there, I see a little pride.
“You make a beautiful princess, Em,” he remarks, handing me one of the images. It’s my character waving out the window of a castle down to Andrew’s character as he wields the head of a dragon. It reminds me a lot of a scene straight out of Rapunzel, but it’s exciting to see Andrew’s work brought to life.
“You make a pretty handsome knight, yourself,” I respond.
He looks through the two other images, and we go back and forth arguing over which one is our favorite. I tell him pink isn’t my color, and he insists I look good in all colors. He complains his arms look too small in one photo, but I tell him they nailed his gorgeous, piercing blue eyes.
As the sun sets and we prepare to head home, I snag my phone out of my pocket. “Wait, there’s one more thing we have to do before we leave.”
He looks at me curiously.
I press a few buttons and allow the notes of “Porch Swing Angel”to pour through the speaker. Immediately, Andrew’s face breaks into a grin, and he holds out a hand to me. “May I have this dance, princess?”
I nod. “Yes, you may, sir knight.”
And we finish out the evening in the most perfect way, holding each other close, swaying to the melody of our song.