The Summer We Fell (The Summer, #1)(8)

It’ll be a good place for kids. A good place for anyone coming from a home like mine. I blink back tears and swallow hard, willing myself to hold it together. One good thing might emerge from this whole fucking mess, but I’ll never stop wishing it just hadn’t happened in the first place.

“It’s not much, I know,” she says.

“You know how I was raised,” I tell her with a small smile. “As long as I’ve got a bed, I’m fine.”

She wraps an arm around my shoulders. “I’ve seen the kind of places you stay now. I imagine you’ve gotten used to much better.”

She isn’t wrong. I’ve become the kind of person who complains when turndown service hasn’t been completed by the time I get to my room, who is put out when a suite isn’t available. But at the same time, I’m still waiting to lose it all, and there is never a night when I climb into bed without half

anticipating I’ll be jerked out of it—my stepfather’s hand wrapped tight around my ankle, yanking me to the floor to punish me for some infraction, or Justin, demanding I come outside so my brother won’t wake. Maybe that’s why I don’t object all that much when Cash is rough with me—because I’ve lived through worse.

Or maybe it’s just that I know I deserve it.

“It’s perfect,” I tell her, my mouth slipping into a smile. “I’ll just have my assistant forward some six-hundred thread count sheets for the bed.”

I was joking, but Luke rolls his eyes as he heads off to his room, and resentment bursts in my chest. I know I have absolutely earned his hatred, every bit of it, but does he really think I turned into that person so fast?

Sure he does. He’d assumed I was that person by the time I left seven years ago.

“I’ll let you get settled while I start work on dinner. Bathroom’s down the hall if you want to shower.” Donna throws her arms around me, and the familiarity of the action makes my chest ache.

“It’s so good to have you home, Juliet.”

I hug her tightly, fighting the urge to cry. I’d like to tell her it’s good to be here, too, but with me, Luke, and all these memories under one roof…there’s just no way to make it sound true.

The memories. I don’t know how the hell to make them stop creeping forward, but I’d better figure it out. I need every last one of them tucked back where they’re safe. Where she—and Luke—

can’t reach them.





THEN

JUNE 2013

D onna’s in her element with the boys here. She enlists me to help her cook and clean and dote on them because she genuinely can’t imagine I’d want to do anything else.

In some ways it’s as if I came to her as a mound of unformed clay, and she’s chosen to shape me into this thing she always wanted: a sweet, choir-singing daughter—a thoughtful and nurturing wife for her son. I didn’t really have any plans for this ball of clay. I don’t know why there’s this occasional impulse to snatch myself back.

I straggle into the house after a double shift to find the boys are already back from surfing.

Donna smiles at me when I enter as if I’m the most beloved princess of a fairy tale, while Luke simply glares. He’s already figured out that I’m the Big Bad Wolf.

“Can you start the rice for me, hon?” she asks.

I nod, going to the sink to wash my hands, wishing I could just sit for a moment. I’m always achy after a double, but today this girl from Danny’s high school tripped me, so it’s worse than normal.

Every time I swallow, I can feel where my chin hit the chair as I fell, and as always, even when I’m not looking in Luke’s direction, I know his withering gaze is on me, saying, “You’re not fooling me, Juliet.”

Yet I can’t hate him. Not entirely. There’s something lean and underfed about Luke at mealtime, despite his size, that hurts my heart. He eats fast, the way you would if you were starving, the way you would if you’d spent a lot of time starving. And he might be; Donna isn’t making nearly enough food, and he’s a lot bigger than Danny and the pastor. He’s also far more active. Danny’s got a desk job at the church this summer, but Luke’s working construction. And in addition to surfing with Danny all afternoon, he’s getting up at dawn to surf before work as well. He must need way more food than he’s getting, and when I reach the table after everyone else and discover he’s already cleared his plate, there’s this twist in my heart I can’t ignore.

He leaves the table hungry every night. I’m not sure how Donna hasn’t noticed.

“Oh, sweetheart,” she says, watching me pour the rice into a serving bowl, “you made twice as much as we needed.”

“Sorry,” I reply as if I did it by accident.

I’m the last one to sit, and when I do, Luke’s eyes darken as he studies my face. “What happened to your chin?”

I flush as everyone turns to look at me. “I tripped at work,” I say quietly.

I’m not sure why he had to call attention to it or why his nostrils are flaring as if I just lied. Which I did, but what possible evil motive could I even have? Does he think I’m working as a dominatrix on the side? That I’m selling meth on the way home? When would I even have the fucking time? He’s plowing through the extra rice I made like a champ, though. I’ve forgiven him long before I’m through telling myself I’m mad.