Page 38 of Our Secret Summer

“What the h—” The words caught in Raffo’s throat.

Mia stood framed in the doorway, backlit by the hall lights, looking both familiar and like a complete stranger.

“I come in peace.” Mia raised her hands, one of which held a bottle of champagne. “I hear massive congratulations are in order.” The forced cheerfulness in her voice made Raffo’s skin crawl.

Mia lowered her hands. “I’m sorry for showing up like this. Can we talk, please?” The question hung in the air between them, heavy with all the conversations they should have had months ago.

“What do you want?” Raffo found it impossible to inject any friendliness into her voice.

“Just to… talk and, um, tell you something that I really need to say and haven’t yet had the chance.”

Raffo took a breath. She was never going to be ready for this but she had to talk to Mia at some point. After so many years together, they had a life—and a lot of admin—to untangle. Although Mia didn’t look as though she had admin on her mind. She looked pale and skinnier than before with not a hint left of the smugness with which she’d introduced Ophelia into their lives.

“Can we sit?” Mia gestured at the lounge area in the corner where she’d spent a lot of time the past decade. The worn leather armchair still bore the indent from where she used to curl up with her laptop. Mia had always loved coming to the studio and she’d been in constant competition with Connor as to which of them was Raffo’s biggest supporter.

“Sure.” Raffo was more than happy to put her brushes to the side. And Mia was smart enough not to ask how her work was going.

“I’m sorry for how things went down,” Mia said as soon as her behind touched the chair. “I’m so sorry. I need you to know that.” She put the bottle of champagne on the table between them. It couldn’t have looked more out of place. “I’ve been an inconsiderate bitch. I’m well aware of that.”

Raffo didn’t say anything. She just listened while her heart alternately flung itself against her ribcage and seemed to want to shrink away into the farthest corner of her body.

“She’s not like you, Raff,” Mia said, wiping her eyes.

“What? W—who?” Raffo stammered.

“Ophelia, she… she’s really smart, like, with an IQ up to here and all that.” Mia actually held her hand above her head. “But she’s not serious. She’s… I don’t know how to put it. The best I can come up with is that she’s not like you. She’s the opposite of you.”

“Mia, um, I don’t want to hear this. If you want to complain about your new girlfriend, please have the courtesy to do that to someone other than me.”

“She’s not my girlfriend anymore. I broke up with her.”

The words hit Raffo like a physical blow. Wasn’t this what she’d been dreaming of, secretly, when she allowed herself a little less anger at Mia?

“I—I don’t know what to say to that.” And she didn’t. The studio suddenly felt too small, too full of their shared history, of the future they’d planned together between these walls.

“I’m not here to… beg for your forgiveness. To beg you to take me back. I’m not that foolish and I know you, but… I miss you. I know I fucked everything up. I dropped this massive bomb on our lives. I hurt you so much, I know that, and you didn’t deserve that.” Mia locked her gaze on Raffo.

A tremor started in Raffo’s fingers and rippled through her entire body, as if every cell was trying to reject Mia’s words.

“You are so… gorgeously you,” Mia said—had the audacity to say, after she’d ripped Raffo’s heart to shreds. “And I’m so very sorry. I just wanted you to know that.” Mia rose. “That’s what I wanted to say to you.” She took a few steps toward the door. “Maybe we can talk some more later? I would like that.”

Raffo couldn’t move and she certainly couldn’t speak. She just watched as Mia walked out of her studio, as though she’d had any right to come here in the first place. What the fuck? She glanced at the bottle of champagne and fought the impulse to smash it into smithereens. She tried to calm her trembling body and control her breathing so that, at the very least, her hands would stop shaking. As soon as she was able, she reached for her phone and called Connor.

“Mia just came to my studio,” Raffo said.

“No way. What did she say?” Connor sounded as though he was in traffic.

Raffo told Connor the bits her shocked brain could remember.

“I’m just pulling up to my mom’s house,” Connor said. “Do you want to come here?”

“What? To your mom’s?” That would be the day. “No.”

“She’s having an issue with her iPad again. I was going to stay for dinner, but I can skip that if you need me to come home and be with you.”

“No, it’s fine. Have dinner with your mom.”

“Why won’t you come over? Aren’t you friends now after all that time together by the lake? She knows all about Mia, doesn’t she?”

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