Page 175 of Summer Love

She comes up at the top, a blue check next to her name. She’s on the ice in a fitted burgundy dress, back arched. She’s got over a hundred thousand followers.

I tap send a message and stop.

This is stupid. I’m about to message a girl who probably doesn’t even remember me. She lives in Canada, and I don’t even know what city. She’s got no reason to answer me. I’m going to ask her for her half-sister’s address when they barely talk. I’m going to come off like a lunatic. Or I’ll come off as exactly what I am: a guy at the end of his rope, out of places to look.

Screw it.

I breathe in and tap the mic.

“Hey, Elena. It’s Jace Walker. I don’t know if you remember me. I’m a childhood friend of Summer’s. You came to Coral Bay once, you were maybe ten or eleven… Look. I screwed up. She went back to New York and I don’t even know where she lives. I need to talk to her. I love her, and I didn’t get the chance to tell her. If you can help—an address, a contact, a lead, I’ll take it. Thanks.”

I send it before I can chicken out. I set the phone on the counter. My hands are shaking a little.

I drop onto the bed, arms spread, eyes on the ceiling. There’s nothing left to try.

My eyes close. I drift, half asleep.

The phone buzzes. I jolt up, lunge for it. Incoming Instagram call.

Elena.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Jace.”

Her voice isn’t hostile. That’s something.

“Thanks for calling back⁠—”

“Yeah, I remember you. Well… mostly I remember Summer glued to you.”

She laughs for a second. I don’t know what to say.

“I’m listening,” she goes on. “What happened with Summer?”

I lay it out, no real order. The bet that wasn’t a bet, my accident, the misunderstanding that held for six years, her coming back, almost three weeks of circling the truth, what I figured out too late. I don’t tell her everything. I tell her enough.

“Jace, I’d like to help you,” Elena says when I’m done. “But I don’t have her address either. I still have her number, but I haven’t talked to her in three years. A text on her birthday, one on mine, that’s it. I don’t even know if she’ll answer me.”

She exhales and adds, lower.

“When she cut ties with our mother, I disappeared right along with her.”

I close my eyes. When Summer cuts someone off, she doesn’t pick and choose. Noah’s collateral damage. So is Elena.

“She watches all your competitions online,” I say.

A long silence on the other end.

“She told you that?” she finally asks.

“Yeah. And I could tell she misses you.”

She keeps it together, but I hear her breathing.

“I’m not promising anything, but I’ll try,” she says. “I’ll call her. And I’ll keep you posted.”

“Thanks, Elena.”