Page 134 of Summer Love

For six years, it all rested on that: she knew, and she left anyway.

Except she didn’t.

I tighten my arms around her.

CHAPTER 42

Summer

My face is burning, my eyelids heavy, and my throat aches like I’ve been screaming for hours. I didn’t scream. I cried into Jace’s shoulder until his T-shirt was soaked through.

His arms are still around me; mine haven’t let go of him yet. I feel his breath in my hair, slow, steady.

The trailer’s quiet again.

After a long moment, Jace straightens. His arms drop and the air rushes in between us. He runs a hand through his hair and gets to his feet.

“Come on,” he says, holding out his hand.

He helps me up. My legs are stiff, my dress damp. I wipe my face with the back of my hand.

We step outside. After the fight, the video, Jace shouting on those rocks, my sobbing, the trailer is too small, the walls too close.

Flip is curled up on the little deck in front of the trailer. He lifts his head as we pass, wags his tail, but doesn’t make a move to follow us.

We cross the surf school yard without a word. The boards lined up on the racks are pale shapes in the dark. The sand crunches under our feet when we reach the beach. The night air is heavy with mist.

The waves roll in and break to a rhythm I know by heart: the one from summers past. The moon is high, not quite full, tracing a white path across the water.

We walk side by side toward the pier, in step, not talking.

To our left, behind the skatepark, the old Walker house sits higher up, outlined in the dark. Shutters closed, hedges too high, no light.

Jace doesn’t say anything, but his jaw tightens when he looks up at the front of the house, and he turns away, toward the sea.

I grew up thinking the Walker family was indestructible. Tom, Maggie, Jace, Noah, Avery—that loud, tight-knit family where someone was always laughing, where there was always one board too many in the entryway, always an extra plate at the table. I remember the day Grandma told me Tom was sick. I was eight. I didn’t understand what that meant, or what the treatments were going to cost them. He died a year later. Insurance didn’t cover everything. The house was sold, and the Walkers moved into an apartment in town.

Jace was ten, Noah eight, Avery two.

We pass the house.

Our arms swing with our steps and our hands brush. I don’t move away. A dip in the sand throws me off balance and my shoulder bumps Jace’s, then the space opens up between us again. When our fingers touch again, Jace takes my hand without looking at me.

I don’t pull it back.

Finally, we step onto the pier. The wood creaks under our feet; water laps against the pilings. The lamp posts are out—either they don’t work anymore or no one bothers with them. The only light comes from the moon and the reflections on the water.

At the end of the pier, we stop. The ocean opens up in front of us, dark, vast. Off to the left, the black mass of the Star Park cliffs stands out against the sky. The park’s structures—the Ferris wheel, the top of the haunted house—are motionless shadows, barely visible.

I look up at the cliffs. Jace follows my gaze.

“Is that why Noah never went to college?”

My voice is hoarse, cracked from crying so hard. Jace takes a breath.

“Yeah.”

Without letting go of my hand, he leans on the railing, one elbow on the wood.