Page 127 of Summer After Summer

“I’m sure Lucy doesn’t need any help getting someone to fall in love with her.”

“No.”

“And you shouldn’t marry for money,” I say. “You should marry for love.”

“That’s what I always thought.”

“Don’t sell yourself short.”

“Get the full price?”

“I just meant … you shouldn’t settle. Wait until you feel … wait until it feels like you can’t stand your life without that person in it.”

Our eyes lock and the world slows down. That’s what it felt like between us whenever we could manage to be together.

“I only feel that way in the summer,” Fred says.

“Summer after summer …”

“What’s that?”

“Something Ash said about how we tortured each other summer after summer.”

“That’s not all we did …” He shifts his body weight, and now he’s tipping closer to me. “Olivia …”

I raise my finger to his lips, surprised somehow at the shock of touching his skin, his mouth, though I shouldn’t be. It’s always like this between us. The one thing that was never in doubt.

But it reminds me too. Of everything that’s broken. How we can’t seem to make it work. And I don’t want to think about that right now. I just want to enjoy this night and this moon and the gentle rock of the ocean at our feet.

“No bad intentions,” I say. “Remember?”

He smiles against my finger, and it’s almost like a kiss, then leans away. “I remember.”

“We should go back to the house.”

“In a minute.”

“Okay.”

He scoots closer to me so our sides our touching. It feels dangerous, but my eyelids are heavy, the sound of the waves lulling me under.

I let my head fall onto his shoulder, blocking out who I’m leaning on.

“Olivia,” he says, but he’s far away.

“Shh.”

I let my head fall further, and then I feel his arm around me, supporting me, and then I feel nothing at all.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

June 2013

I don’t know why I count out my time with Fred in days. Maybe it’s because we always end up having so few of them.

I try not to think of that as I wake up hours later, naked in Fred’s bed, in his London apartment. I have a moment of disorientation when I can’t remember where I am, and then it all comes rushing back. His hands, mine. The way our bodies fit together the way they always have. The way we savored and devoured each other and finally fell asleep.

I feel happy, languid, and terrible, a hangover forming from the too many drinks that led us here.

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