Page 75 of The Last Thing You Said

40 · Lucy

Summer unravels.

August has arrived, and with it the fact that soon it will be one year.

I am moving forward. Trixie is not.

Trixie is now memories and stories and photographs in frames and albums and scrapbooks. The Trixies I tell to a little girl who misses a cousin she barely knew.

I’m still grounded. The fire at the restaurant caused a lot of damage to the kitchen and part of the back dining room. They say it was the lightning that night after all. The timing couldn’t have been worse, in the middle of the summer tourist season, but they’re hoping to reopen in a couple of weeks.

At least Mom is talking to me again since the fire. I guess she must have decided that, in the grand scheme of things, my refusal to work that Monday night shift isn’t such a big deal.

Simon has come over twice. I’m worried, though, that someone will come home and find him here, and I can’t do that to my parents. Not now, after South Dakota and the fire.

So I tell him he needs to go; he kisses me. He sends me text messages; he misses me.

Today, he and Shay are taking a day trip up to Lake Itasca, the headwaters of the Mississippi River, an hour and a half away. I watch them drive off from the kitchen window.

It strikes me that I won’t miss him when he’s gone—not today, not after he goes back to St. Paul.

I run upstairs to my room for my phone and call Hannah, who picks up right away.

“I should miss him, right?” My breathing is heavy.

“Lucille? Miss who? Is everything okay?”

“Simon. I should miss him, right, when he’s not around? Isn’t that how love works? You want to be with a person all the time, and when you can’t, it’s like a piece of you is missing?”

She doesn’t answer right away.

“Hannah?”

“You miss Ben.”

I don’t need to say anything. I’ve never stopped missing Ben.

“I think you know what you need to do. I really had high hopes for Simon, though.” She sighs. “I wish I could come over.”

“Me, too. I miss you.”

Hannah laughs. “That’s how you know it’s love. I love you, too, Lucille.”

I end the call and lean my head against the wall. The next time Simon sneaks over, I’ll tell him that it’s not working, that we should break up.

I take a deep breath. I don’t want to think about this anymore. I grab a book and walk down to the patio to take advantage of the fact that Shay’s not using it today.

But the words are a jumble on the page. My mind wanders.

It’s too quiet.

I’m too alone.

I find my iPod and slip my earbuds in and walk into town, cutting through Sullivan Street Park.

I walk the trail and sit at the edge of the lake, my toes in the sand. I close my eyes and count the days until summer ends.

My phone buzzes with a text—a photo of Simon standing next to the tall marker at the headwaters, then another of him standing in shallow Lake Itasca. Missing u @ the Mississippi. Wish u were here.