The Summer We Fell (The Summer, #1)(26)

Bitch. It was her strategy all along: get me to talk about my past by suggesting she’ll talk about Danny’s death if I don’t.

But would it be the end of the world, admitting I left home at fifteen? It will ultimately help Danny’s House, and the stuff with Luke…that’s so far in the past. There’s got to be a point at which all my paranoia is unnecessary.

It’s Danny's legacy, and Donna’s too. Don’t they deserve to have it be big? Don’t they deserve some credit for how they helped me?

I take a careful sip of my wine and blot my lips. “If this article’s purpose is to attract positive attention to the charity, I guess you wouldn’t want to sour the whole thing by suggesting Danny’s death was anything but an accident.”

She gives me a diplomatic smile. “You don’t need to worry about that. I’m sure the facts will speak for themselves.”

Yeah, nice try, lady.

I push my wine aside and lean forward with both palms flat on the table. “I’ll discuss living with the Allens if you can assure me you won’t imply Danny’s death was suicide. Donna just…doesn’t need that right now.”

She hesitates again, which tells me she had indeed intended to do just that, but she nods. “Agreed.

So…tell me a little bit about why you had to leave home.”

I wonder how much I should say. Just because I’ve agreed to discuss this doesn’t mean she needs the entire truth. So I start with a simpler answer and even that feels like too much.

“I never felt safe, not once, until I moved into the Allens’ house,” I begin.

I don’t mention it was Luke who truly made me feel safe, however. As far as I’m concerned, publicly, he no longer matters.

I wonder how long you have to lie to the world before you believe something yourself.





12

THEN

AUGUST 2013

T he remainder of August, leading up to the start of school, is painfully quiet. I work more hours to take my mind off the fact that the boys are gone, but I feel their absence every minute of the day.

Sometimes, when I’m passing Danny’s room, I stop and peer in, hungry for something: a scent, a memory. As if I can stand here long enough to carry myself back in time.

There’s nothing, of course. The sheets on the twin beds have been changed, the laundry is gone, the floor is swept.

Our dinners are simpler, and quieter. The pastor and Donna talk, and I sit in silence with nothing to add. It’s hard to contribute when all I’m allowed to say is what they want to hear. I can’t tell them I dread school and dread work and that I have this strange, constant ache in my chest that just won’t go away.

The one thing I gain in Danny’s absence is time. I don’t play guitar when the pastor is home—he is bothered when he sees me being “unproductive”—but when he’s gone, I practice, and those moments fill me in a way nothing else seems to. Donna always manages to give me a quick hug afterward, to tell me how pretty it was. It’s her way of letting me know she approves.

But aside from that, I’m empty—so empty—and it wasn’t like this last year. Yes, I was often tired, and I wished my life was a little more exciting—but it wasn’t this. Those few months with the boys here have changed everything, and not for the better. I no longer fit in anywhere. Not here, and not at school, where everyone but me is talking about college.

I’ve done the math: all those long hours I spent last summer cleaning up ketchup-covered tables, being hit on and condescended to…they don’t even amount to enough to cover a single semester. And I know I could get loans, but then what? The only thing I’m really interested in is singing, and how’s a degree going to help me there?

I let most of the rites of passage slip by, simply because of the cost. I had to replace the bike—

getting to the high school in Haverford requires three different buses without it—but I don’t feel safe biking at night and can’t afford Uber, which means no football games or parties. I spend Senior Skip Day working. Shane Harris asks me to Homecoming “just as friends” but a dress would cost money I



shouldn’t be spending, and I can’t imagine explaining to the pastor and Donna that I’m going to a dance with someone else.

Hailey’s the only one who still texts, and even she has stopped asking me to hang out because she’s tired of my excuses.

The highlight of my week, the only highlight, is watching Danny’s games on TV every Saturday.

“I can’t tell them apart,” says Donna. “I’m not sure I’d even recognize Danny if they ever let him play. Which one is Luke again?”

“He’s the wide receiver,” says the pastor.

I know exactly which one Luke is. Even in a helmet and pads, no one else on the field combines his height and agility. He’s as graceful and powerful there as he is in the water.

When he runs, it’s a thing of beauty. When he leaps in the air, his large hands plucking a football high above him without a moment’s hesitation, I marvel at what the human body is capable of. The pastor has never said a single word on Sunday that makes me believe in God, but watching these games makes me think there must be something greater out there, something miraculous. Because what else could possibly explain Luke?