Page 42 of Summertime Friends

That’s an answer I’m not sure she’s ready to hear.

The entire walk home, I wished for her to say something. Anything. Curse at me, yell at me, put a spell on me, whatever—anything to show that she still cared. That somewhere deep down, despite what happened and the time between us, there is something still there. That Emerson struggled these past three years as much as I did because from where I am on the sidelines of her life, it sure seems as if she didn’t.

“Why are you here?” She asks again.

“Did you love me?” I ask her.

I catch her off guard with the question. It’s an answer to her question. To get what she wants to know, she has to give me what I need.I need to know if she loved me.Was what Chloe said earlier accurate?

“You lost the opportunity to know that. And it’s not fair to ask me this now, and you know that.” Emerson shakes her head. “If that’s why you wanted to come up, then I need you to lea—”

“Why do you never want to talk about this, Emerson? What are you so afraid of?”

“Afraid?! I’m not afraid of anything. We were friends, nothing more.”

“We werenotfriends, and you know it. I don’t kiss, touch, or think about my friends as I did you.”

“Okay, fine. We weren’t only friends! Does it make you happy to hear that? It shouldn’t because it doesn’t matter how I felt about you then. . . or now. I’m with someone else!”

“Stop rubbing it in.” The fact that ‘Emerson is engaged’ should be tattooed on my head given how many times I’ve been reminded in the past week about it. “Are you in love with him?”

“Don’t be cruel, Liam.”

Her hands come to the sides of her head. She runs them through her hair, pulling on it.

“Are you?” My mouth finds her ear. I whisper, hot breath trickling down her neck. “If you are, I’ll—I’ll be okay. I’ll be happy for you. It might make me a prick, but I can’t lie to you. There is a part of me that hopes you. . . aren’t.” I rest my forehead on hers.

It takes her a few moments, but she shakes her head. The movement moves my head with hers.

“Say it out loud, States.”

“I can’t,” she whispers, looking up at me through her lashes. Her face shows that the admittance pains her to say.

I pull my forehead away from hers.

“Figured.”

“What is that supposed to mean? You figured,” she huffs.

“Well. . .” Just say it. Just do it. “You can’t admit it now, and you couldn’t admit that you loved me then because it scared you.” The reins of my composure are about to snap. Her back is pressed up against the door, my arms still caging her in, but my body is closer to hers. Gravitating toward her with each word I say. “You werefinallyenough for someone. Unconditionally enough for me. So you pretended. You pretended we were some platonic fluffer of a relationship with each other. Pretended none of it mattered to you. Pretended the way I touched you didn’t burn through your entire body. Pretended you weren’t the person you’ve seen through my eyes. Pretended you didn’t love me.” My eyes close. I take a deep breath. Opening my eyes, I stare directly at Emerson. “I don’t believe after what we had, you are capable of turning around and having something greater with anyone else. Now, please. Answer. The. Question.”

“I already did.” Her voice is faint.

“Not that one. My original question.” It comes out as a growl.

I know the answer.

And I think I know the exact moment—not the moment I fell in love with her, which is wrapped around my bones like skin, even all these years later. But what I mean is when she fell in love with me.

We were in Tortola in the BVIs five summers ago. It was a year after we met and the second time that Emerson joined the boys and me for our summer holiday. We chartered a boat to take the six of us; Callum’s little sister, Audrey, and Beatrix came with us. Without my mum around, I needed the two predominant women in my life to meet the third. I was the one to insist on the girls coming with us.

Emerson was at the back of the boat, lounging on the leather couch-bed. Wearing a dark green string bikini that made her eyes greener. She was alone but watching us. It’s what she does best, a trait I don’t think many appreciate. The patience to be absorbent as a sponge. I always wonder what she is thinking in these moments. Inever ask. It feels quite like I’m invading a part of her mind that I’m not sure she would share.

I asked her this time, though. I made my way to the back of the boat.

“What’s on that mind of yours, States?”

“Thoughts.”

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