Page 47 of Summer Love

I don’t tell her she’s right. The cup is warm against my palm and the smell of coffee covers the mustiness.

Maya moves into the room, looks around. The open windows, the scratched floor, the boxes lined up along the wall, the old floral couch.

“It’s a beautiful house,” she murmurs. “It’s got a soul. You can feel it.”

It’s not a polite compliment. There’s a real surprise in her voice, like she was expecting worse.

She looks at the moldings, a little chipped above the windows. The kitchen tile, with its faded blue pattern. The hallway running toward the stairs, narrow, slightly crooked, like the house has shifted over time.

“It’s my grandparents’ place,” I say. “They lived here their whole lives.”

“Did you come here a lot?”

“Every summer. Well… part of it. My parents were divorced, joint custody. And my dad brought me here.”

Maya sits on the arm of the couch. Legs crossed, she sips her coffee.

“My dad’s a literature professor,” I go on. “Not exactly the outdoorsy type. He spent his days inside with his books and his research. Me… I met the local kids fast.”

Maya smiles.

“The Walkers, no?”

Noah, my best friend. And Jace, my first love.

I nod.

“They introduced me to their crew, and I spent every summer with them.”

“And your grandparents?”

“My grandfather fished. My grandmother cooked. They took me to the beach, we’d read on the deck, and at night we’d eat grilled fish while we watched the sunset. It was… simple.”

“That’s why the house has this energy,” Maya says. “You can tell happy people lived here.”

My throat tightens.

“My grandfather went first. Heart attack. And my grandmother… a few months later.”

I don’t say “of a broken heart.” Maya tilts her head, and I know she gets it.

“I was sixteen.”

My fingers close around the little gold wave.

“The next summer, I came back with my dad. Ten days in the empty house. We had to leave earlier than planned.”

“And after that?”

“After that, I didn’t come back.”

Maya watches me in silence.

“It was too hard,” she says at last.

It’s not a question.

“Yeah. And also…”