Page 5 of The Summer I Destroyed You

She’s beautiful, standing there in the afternoon light. I’d dare anyone to say otherwise. Simply looking at her is enough to make me really understand what it means to want something. To want it desperately.

Some people—perhaps even most—would say she’s too much work. But what I see is her strength. She’s been through some shit, but she still stands proud. And she’s stunning, sure, but it’s her tenacity that makes her so much more than that.

I can’t believe the morons on the city council want to turn her into a parking garage.

Lucas Hall was built in the 1800s by a group of rich landowners, undoubtedly off the backs of cheap immigrant labor. Whatever her origins, she is what remains of our town’s illustrious beginnings, and I want to make sure she still remains long after the rest of our history’s been replaced.

Before the bank turned me down for the loan, I had big plans, plans that would preserve Lucas Hall while bringing in the tourists everyone seems to want. Now, I don’t know what the hell I’m going to present when the town holds its first hearing the week after next. I just know I’ve got to do something to stop the way outsiders are destroying our town.

Reluctantly, I turn and jog across the street to Pearsons’ Hardware, ignoring the twinge in my leg, nodding to Jim as I head back toward the plumbing section.

I’m only a few feet inside the store when I notice the shelves are practically empty.

“Hey, Jim?” I turn his way as he comes out from behind the register. “Where the hell is everything? There’s nothing back here.”

He winces. “You haven’t heard, I guess? We’re closing up shop.”

It’s so unexpected that I stop in place, hoping I’ve misheard him. Pearsons’ is an institution. I came here as a kid. My dad came here as a kid. “Closing up? Why?”

He raises a shoulder. “Got a decent offer so I took it. I’d planned to retire in the next decade anyway…It would be hard to turn down the money just for a few more years here.”

I narrowly stop myself from objecting. Obviously, if he wanted to pass this place on to his sons, he would have. If he cared about his family’s legacy, the town’s legacy, he’d have done something else. Increasingly, it feels like I’m the only one who cares about preserving anything at all. “Who bought it?”

He shakes his head. “Some corporation. MT Enterprises? I think it’s gonna be one of those spin places. They bought Cuts-n-Stuff too.”

I say goodnight to Jim and walk back outside, my gaze moving from one end of the street to the other in shock.

Right before that roof gave way and I broke my leg, I felt this chill at the base of my spine. Life sneaks up on you, and that chill is the warning that comes too late. You feel it as a roof sags and you realize how easily all your plans could be fucked up. You feel it when you land two floors below and realize it could be days before anyone knows you’re missing.

Or when you discover, once the ink is dry and it can’t be undone, that some asshole has already bought up your whole goddamn town.

3

EMMY

I’m woken by the slamming of doors outside, a ladder being raised. I shower and go downstairs in shorts and a T-shirt, hair wet, my glasses still on, in need of coffee. Both my mother and Snowflake are awake and only one of them is happy to see me.

“Let her out back,” my mother says from her perch in front of the TV as Snowflake bounds toward me. “She needs to pee. And tell them to knock it off outside. I’ve got a headache.”

My hand, threading through Snowflake’s fur, stills. My mother managed to get out of bed, make herself coffee, and do her hair, but she couldn’t bother to let this poor dog pee after a night inside?

I don’t know why I’m surprised. If I’d needed her permission to pee, I’d probably still be waiting too.

I open the door and the dog rushes out to the corners of the yard, past a group of men who stand at the perimeter of the future screen porch. They’re facing away from me, but I’m drawn immediately to the one in the center: he’s wearing the hell out of those Levi’s and, better yet, he’s big enough to obliterate me—I like an element of danger in bed.

This is intensely shallow, of course, but why shouldn’t I be intensely shallow? I don’t need a man to pay my way, ask about my day or, God forbid, expect me to ask about his. I’m interested in roughly three body parts—possibly four if he’s ambidextrous—and when I’m asking so little, I deserve to get it in a pretty package.

He’s not paying any attention to me, but the guys nudge him, and he turns at last. Under the shadow cast by his hard hat, I can’t even see his face, but I know he’s hot. I can just make out the shape of his mouth—that full lower lip, the sharpness of his jaw, already shaded with stubble. I swear to God, testosterone is rolling off him and I can feel it from here.

But then he steps forward, pulling off the hat, and it hits me suddenly, with a dark, painful thud deep in my stomach: I know him. I’m not sure how I know him, but I know that it’s bad. It’s like that with me sometimes—I can’t recall a memory, only the pain it caused. And he, at some point, caused me pain. Many people in this town did.

And I don’t forgive, even if I forget.

“My mom says you’re making too much noise,” I announce. “She wants you to knock it off.”

His gaze sweeps over me from head to foot. “Does your mother want this job done, princess?”

Oh no he didn’t.

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