I look up at her, and she stops breathing. Her golden-amber eyes meet mine, and her tongue darts out to wet her lips.
“Summer,” I say. “Are you going to be okay without anyone here? Is there someone I can call?”
“Oh, I’ll be fine,” she scoffs, shrugging as if her tumble earlier was nothing. But I look at the quickly darkening bruise dubiously.
Summer refuses to meet my eyes, so I can’t help but look around her small studio apartment. She wasn’t kidding when she said this place was barely big enough for her. The queen bed she’s currently lying in takes up most of the space. There’s a TV on the floor; the kitchen is only big enough to cook one thing at a time, and there’s no microwave. It has a sink just large enoughto wash your hands in. The walls are all made of brick; there are only two windows in the apartment, both by her bed, and what little light they let in is dominated by plants. The nicest thing in the apartment is the wood floor, and even that is covered in scratches from past tenants.
No wonder she’s at the bar so often. Anyone would feel claustrophobic spending too much time here.
She groans as she tries to roll her ankle back and forth, and I make the quick decision to try to prevent any reason for her to have to stand up and walk around.
“You don’t have to do that,” she protests as I grab a glass from her kitchen and fill it with water. I manage to find off-brand painkillers in her medicine cabinet, which I place on the small bedside table beside her.
“Do you have a first aid kit?” I ask, ignoring her protests.
She sighs but points toward one of the kitchen cupboards. I quickly find a bandage wrap and make my way back to her. I kneel in front of her again, and she’s back to refusing to look at me as I tightly bind her ankle. She flinches a bit but doesn’t make a sound.
I grab one of the pillows off the bed and put it next to her. “You should probably keep your ankle elevated,” I explain, and she nods.
I know I’m stalling. I don’t want to leave. But at this point, I’ve done everything I can and more to help her. Way more than is appropriate for a teacher to do for their student.
She turns her head, and a strand of blonde hair falls across her cheek. It takes every ounce of willpower not to brush the strand behind her ear.
A small orange tabby jumps up on her bed and glares at me with yellow, judgmental eyes. “I’m going,” I say, holding my hands up.
Summer finally cracks a smile as she scratches behind the feline’s ears.
“Thank you, Asher,” I hear her say quietly as I close the door behind me.
By the timeI get back to my apartment, it’s late, but I shoot off a text to my sister anyway. She has a two-year-old who likes to keep her on her toes, and I can usually count on her being awake at all hours of the day.
My phone starts to ring after I change into sweats and a T-shirt. My sister’s name pops up on my phone, along with a picture of her holding my niece just after she was born. “Juliet,” I answer with a smile. “I can always rely on you to be awake whenever I feel like chatting with someone.”
She snorts. “You do realize that you need to make more friends, right? Wanting to chat with your little sister in the middle of the night is sort of pathetic at your age.”
I can hear my niece, Terra, making babbling noises in the background. “How is… Carmel?” I ask, hating the ridiculous town she found off a half-ass Google search.
“Come on, Ash,” she sings. “You know that’s not the full name.”
I roll my eyes. “I am not only disgusted by the fact that there is a town named Carmel-By-The-Sea, but that you decided to live in such aridiculous place.”
“California really is the best state,” she says with a dreamy sigh. “And I love this town,” she sniffs, her voice taking on amore defensive tone. “It has all these cute old cottages, and the vibe is something else. It’s straight out of a fantasy novel.”
“How is the cottage?” I ask, pouring myself a glass of whiskey.I won’t be able to get to sleep for a while now anyway, I think, Summer’s long legs appearing in my mind.
“The cottage is still a disaster,” she replies. “There’s only so much thatPinterestcan teach me.”
“Wouldn’t it have been easier just to get a place near Mom and Dad?” I question hesitantly, knowing my sister bristles at the topic.
Juliet had found out she was pregnant, dumped her college boyfriend, and taken off with little more than a quick phone call, leaving an unfinished bachelor’s degree behind her. Our mother had been devastated that she hadn’t been able to throw Juliet a baby shower or be there when the baby was born. Juliet had kept in touch with me but had been vague about where she was moving. I blamed her ex; she had… implied that he had been less than kind to her. I had no proof that she had found out she was pregnant and panicked, but it was an easy conclusion to come to.
Juliet took a gap year to travel after high school and followed it up with a second gap year, much to our parents’ dismay. She dropped out of college at twenty-three, with just a few credits left before graduation. Our father didn’t understand why she didn’t stick it out, but something had obviously spooked her. Could’ve been her ex. Could’ve been the daunting idea of being a young single mother. She never said.
“I like it here,” she deadpans, clearly not open to discussing why she decided to find one of the smallest beach towns on the West Coast and why she didn’t want anyone to know she was there. “It’s a fresh start that I desperately needed.”
Our mother hated it when Juliet referred to her drastic move as a ‘fresh start’, mainly because we had been given very few details on the why of it all. Not to mention, Juliet had not beenhome to visit, and none of us had met Terra in person yet. Terra will be turning three this year. Juliet had willingly cut her family out of her life, besides the occasional phone call to our parents. She spoke with me more, but refused to come back home.
“Plus, the bakery I was able to purchase here has been taking off lately, and I think we all know there’s no way I would’ve been able to accomplish something like that in Seattle,” she continues.
