Page 90 of Summer Love

I press the cold mug between my palms.

CHAPTER 30

Summer

Iwake up disoriented, my mouth dry, unable to tell what time it is.

The bungalow is quiet. The ceiling fan turns overhead, slow, useless. The light has changed since I lay down—brighter, warmer. Early afternoon, maybe.

I’m not hungry. This morning’s exhaustion has faded, replaced by a strange calm.

I stay still for a few minutes. Then I get up and go out.

I take the path to the house. The ground is warm under my bare feet. I’m not thinking about anything.

That’s a lie. I’ve only been thinking about one thing since I came back to Coral Bay: the one room I avoid.

My room.

On the deck, I find my clothes and sandals, left there this morning.

I push open the door to the house. The smell of fresh paint hangs in the entryway. I head for the stairs.

The wood creaks under my bare feet. One step tilts under my weight, another cracks near the wall.

On the landing, I don’t look at the other doors. I go to the one that’s ajar. I push it open with my fingertips.

The shutters are closed. I can only make out dark shapes.

I cross the room by feel. My fingers find the latch; I push the shutters open.

Light floods in. The floral curtains sway in the draft—faded, a little stiff, the fabric yellowed with age.

The bed is made, the blanket pulled tight, the pillows flat. The pale wood nightstand hasn’t moved. Neither has the lamp, though its shade has turned yellow. I look up at the poster of Surya Bonaly, the skater I wanted to be like at fourteen—not my mother. One corner has peeled away, but the rest is still pinned up.

On the floor, a pair of white Converse, too small now, lies near the bed. My Converse from that summer.

It’s not a child’s room. It’s a seventeen-year-old girl’s room, frozen on the morning she left.

I take a few steps across the warm floorboards and feel something under my right foot.

I look down. A bracelet pokes out from under the bed. Braided threads—blue, turquoise, white—with a sliding knot to tighten it.

I bend down and pick it up. I frown.

What is this?

It’s not mine. I’ve never seen it before. It’s pretty—the blue has faded, the white has gone cream, but the weave still holds.

I slip it onto my wrist. The thread is soft against my skin. I move to the bed and sit down.

The mattress sinks under me, in the same spot as before.

My hand slides over the pillow on the left side—the one I didn’t sleep on. The one where someone else’s head had rested, one night, six years ago.

The fabric is cold. There’s nothing left, but my hand searches anyway.

And I remember the morning I left.