The Summer We Fell (The Summer, #1)(43)

I swallow. “Donna isn’t like that. And she’s probably right. It turns out badly for most people.”

“If everyone stopped trying to do shit other people had failed at, we’d still be cooking over fire and wishing wheels existed. Whatever. I got you something.” He reaches to his right and hands me a small package. “It’s a mic. It attaches to your phone.”

I have no clue why he’d give me this or what I’d use it for. “Oh, uh…thanks.” I sound more confused than grateful.

“I thought you could use it to record yourself singing. I looked it up. People have gotten discovered just by sending in their home recordings, and that mic is supposed to have better sound quality than the rest.”

Five seconds ago, the package in my hand seemed weird and mostly meaningless. Now, it’s as if he’s handed me something priceless beyond measure. Not simply because he believes in me, in my ability to become something when no one else believes the same, but that he cares enough to show up here and insist on it.

I blink back tears. “I love it,” I rasp. “Thank you.”



“Don’t thank me.” He picks up his fork and stabs it into an egg yolk. “Use it.”

I’M the one who sets up the GoFundMe for Luke. He tells me no one’s going to donate but I’m hoping he’s wrong. If we can just get him a few good boards—two decent shortboards and a board for big waves—that might be good enough. There’s a pretty big contest in Santa Cruz this summer and everyone thinks he’d have a shot. Maybe he’ll get some attention, get a sponsor or two, and build from there.

The pastor drones on at dinner about what Luke might do with a business degree—marketing, or car sales. He thinks I might qualify to work at a preschool later on, once I have this year of interning under my belt.

There’s nothing wrong with what he suggests. It’s just not what either of us wants. My gaze meets Luke’s.

“Just because they say it,” his eyes tell me, “doesn’t mean we have to listen.”

I smile in response. He’s right.





19

NOW

I lie in bed waiting for the sound of his footfall against the wood, for the sigh of the mattress as his knee sinks into it. When he arrives, I’ll tell him to leave. I will. Even if it’s the last thing I want to do.

But I fall asleep waiting, and when the bed sighs and his weight is above me, I’m somehow unable to form the words I need to form. I want him to stop and I don’t want him to stop, and it’s only as my eyes fly open that I realize I’m alone.

I’m relieved and I’m empty, all at the same time.

For two days and two nights we avoid each other, and by the third night I’m praying for the sound of his feet. All night I dream of the floorboards creaking as he approaches, the rasp of his breath as he comes. I wake each day with my body on fire, the sheets twisted between my legs, devastated that he isn’t coming back to me.

I’m angry at him for making me want him this way, and desperate for the sight of him anyhow.

Donna smiles when I walk into the kitchen. “He’s surfing.” I guess it’s obvious I was looking for him. “You know our boy. He can’t stay away from the water for long.”

Tears sting as I turn away from her. I don’t know how she can say those words after what happened to Danny. If I were her, I’d have moved as far from the ocean as possible, trying to forget, trying to pretend it doesn’t exist. How can she drive down the coastal road without remembering?

Because I can’t.

“I think I’ll take over painting the garage,” I tell her.

“You sure, hon? I don’t like you on that tall ladder.”

I laugh. “But you didn’t argue with Luke on that ladder, did you?”

She waves a hand at me. “He’s Luke.”

Because if that ladder fell, he’d grab onto a gutter and swing himself Tarzan-style to safety, or somehow ride the ladder as it descended and roll away at the last moment. He does things you wouldn’t imagine were possible until you witnessed them yourself.

“I’ll be fine,” I tell her. “If you had to be a world-class athlete to climb a ladder, there’d be a lot of unpainted houses.”



I go outside and gather supplies from the garage. I bang my shin simply by carrying the ladder, and the paint’s so heavy that I have an angry red line across my palm by the time I’ve gotten it across the yard.

Then I climb, and all that cockiness with Donna dies a quick death.

It requires a surprising degree of coordination to climb a ladder while carrying a heavy can of paint in one hand and a brush and paint pan in the other. When I finally make it, sloppily pouring paint into the tray, I nearly dump the whole pan onto the ground and barely catch it. I begin with too much paint on the brush and as it drips down the wall, I sigh heavily. Goddammit, Luke. Why do you make everything look so easy?

It takes about twenty minutes to relax and find my rhythm, to decide I sort of enjoy the mindlessness of painting. The temperature outside is perfect—the sun warm on my arms, the breeze cool. I picture Luke out on the water right now, jogging his board forward to increase his speed as he cuts through the waves, making every trick look ridiculously easy to the dumb kids watching.