Page 43 of Summertime Friends

“Yeah? ‘Bout me, ey?” She rolled her eyes at me.

“I’m always thinking about you.” An admission I didn’t expect.

“What about me?”

Emerson stands up, standing on the back of the bed. She turns around and gracefully dives off.

“Come in and find out,” she taunted me from the clear turquoise water. From where I stand on the boat, I can see her pulling on the strings of her bikini bottoms.

I slip my shirt over my head; Emerson fixated on me from where she treads. Her eyes darken as they roam my torso. Her bottom lip curled beneath her teeth.

A moment later, I’m in the water with her. A cannonball that decks her with a splash. We swam to a nearby shore together, tucked in a cove where the rest couldn’t see us. She slipped her bottoms into my pocket before hitting dry land. Emerson climbed on top of me while I lay on a flat rock with waves crashing over us. The sparkle in her eyes differed from all the others as she sank onto me. She leaned forward and whispered into my ear.

“How you could be my forever.”

That’s the day I knew she loved me. No matter if she never said it, I told myself she felt it.

I love that memory, but I get angry when I sit in it for too long. I let us both down by not doing anything about the emotions that were surging between us that trip—or any of our time together, for that matter.

She treaded water, waiting for me to join her. I tread in her past, afraid that I wasn’t the lifesaver but the weight that drowned her.

“Yes,” present-day Emerson finally confirms.

“I loved you,” I whisper painfully. “You know?”

“I know,” she whispers back.

“Did you?”

I know she knew. I said it repeatedly, hoping that words would speak louder than actions for once.

“Liam—” She’s pleading with me with her eyes. Silently begging me to put us both out of our misery right now by, I don’t know, leaving? Kissing her? Telling her that it doesn’t matter if she won’t ever love me and that I’ll take anything from her? I don’t know.

“Emerson—”

“You broke my heart.” I already knew this, but confirmation, hearing it come from her lips, it hurts. It’s a reminder that, at one point, I was almost the person to rebuild it.

“And you broke mine,” I say.

19

EMERSON

Now

I don’t remember the moment I fell in love with Liam.

It happened, though. We both let it happen unintentionally.

And maybe that’s what I needed. I needed love to surprise me. I needed it to find me when I wasn’t looking.

I wasn’t looking for Liam that summer, but we found each other.

He was my best friend. I shared more with him than I did anyone else. Liam made it easy to be me. The closer we became, the deeper I fell.

One day, I woke up, and love was there. It was like I was a baby deer, a fawn trying to find its legs to stand on the ground, ready to face the world for the first time. Everything was new, everything fresh. I was discovering the smell of the grass, the colors of flowers, and the sounds of my surroundings for the first time. That’s what it felt like that day. I was reborn, or whatever was blocking my eyes was removed, and I saw everything differently, anew.

I had never loved anyone before. I had sworn off it after watching how much pain it can cause in its wake, never letting myself get too close to the possibility. I didn’t think I was good enough for it. . . and, ultimately, Iwasn’t.

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