Page 182 of Summer Love

I stop on his name, but I don’t open the thread. I lock the screen and put the phone back in my apron pocket.

I look up. The red N is still blinking. Above the alley, the corner of the main neon sign juts out over the diner’s roof—LUCKY STAR, in pink and blue. Pink for LUCKY. Blue for STAR.

Star.

Star Park. The line Jace and I waited in for churros. The number 17 on our Ferris wheel car. The string lights wrapped around the ride’s posts. His arm along the rail behind me, not on my shoulders. The kiss at the top of the wheel. His question: “Be my girlfriend, Summer.” And my hand sliding into his when our car started back down.

I turn my head away. The N keeps blinking. Red. Red. Red.

The dark water. The screaming. Blood on the rocks. The torn-open leg.

I close my eyes and count to three. I open them again. The red is still pulsing on the brick.

I should have been there after the accident.

I should have been there when he woke up. When he saw his thigh for the first time. When he understood what he’d never do again. Through the rehab that followed.

Even if I was only a bet, I loved him, and I wasn’t there.

“Summer?”

I jump. It’s Mavis. She’s cracked the service door open.

“Your eggs are up,” she says.

“Coming.”

She holds the door open for me.

“You okay, hon?” she asks as I pass her.

“Yeah.”

My lie is well practiced.

I grab the plate at the pass. Eggs over easy, pancakes, crispy bacon. Everything table four ordered—or didn’t.

I cross the floor, set the plate down in front of the guy. He ignores me.

I walk away without a word.

I miss Jace. A week of telling myself it’ll pass. It’s getting worse.

CHAPTER 59

Jace

Iget out of the cab and slam the door.

The car pulls away down Delancey Street. I stay planted on the sidewalk, my backpack too heavy for what’s in it.

The first step pulls at my left thigh—six hours on a plane, it didn’t appreciate that. I wince. After a few steps, the muscle loosens.

Lucky Star Diner

The neon flickers on the storefront, Lucky in pink, Star in blue. The asphalt’s still wet from a shower I never saw fall. On the corner, a subway grate spits steam. Across the street, a guy pushes a shopping cart, talking to himself.

I slept two hours on the plane. In Coral Bay it’s 6 p.m. Here it’s 9 p.m., and the New York August night throws off heat like an oven someone just shut off.