Page 24 of The Summer of Us

Her smile was bright, her voice teasing. “I guess after making about a million fucking dozen, they should be.”

My biscuit froze partway to my mouth. “You don’t swear.”

She smirked, then turned and walked away. “I learned,” she called over her shoulder.

I chuckled as I ate my biscuit.

Learning. That was what we had to do. Relearn each other. Move forward from the past.

Could we do that? Could we be Linc and Sunny again?

She slid into the seat across from me, sipping a cup of coffee. She looked out the window.

“It’s almost summer,” she mused. “It’ll be busy here again.”

I reached across the table for her hand. She let me take it, and I liked how mine engulfed hers, folding over her small palm protectively.

“Will you try with me, Sunny? Can we use the summer to get back to where we were?”

She shook her head, and my heart sank.

“I don’t want to go back to where we were, Linc. It was too tumultuous and scary. Can’t we just be Linc and Sunny now? Two people who have met and want to get to know each other?”

“Let the past go, you mean?”

She looked down at our hands. “The past shaped us, made us who we are. It will always be a part of us, but I would rather face the future looking forward.” She smiled. “I know we still have a lot to talk about, and deal with, but I would like to try.”

“With me?” I asked, hopeful.

“With you.”

“Another summer of us, then?”

Her reply was all I needed to hear.

“I’d like to think of it as the start of us. A lifetime, instead of a season.”

There was so much I wanted to say. Thoughts and dreams I wanted to share with her. Memories I needed to talk about and clear from my head. But with her words, I knew I could. We would find our way, and with time, we’d heal and move forward.

Together.

I hunched over the table and brought her mouth to mine.

“I can live with that.”

She smiled as I kissed her.

And I was finally home.

Part II

8

Linc

I watched Sunny all morning, observing her over the screen of my laptop. She was cordial and welcoming, greeting customers by name, already preparing their orders when they walked in. I recognized a few people by her greetings but felt no pull to stand and reacquaint myself with anyone. I had never been close to a lot of people growing up, school mates included. I was polite and friendly, but distant. Mostly due to the fact that my father’s influence was too great, and simply due to the fact that most other kids found me strange. They had no idea of the rules or pressure put upon me by my father, so it was easier for them to shrug off my behavior as different. And everyone knew how kids felt about different. They shied away from it, especially if it meant going against the majority. I had been a lonely kid, except for Sunny. She had been in my life so long, when we were apart, the pain was a physical pull.

As I sat in her shop, the sun streaming in the window, the scent of baking permeating the air, and her within my sight, that pain was now a low, dull ache. I didn’t know what the future held for us, but I knew I wanted to find out.