Page 124 of Summer of Our True Colours

“Isn’t that, like, a three-and-a-half-hour journey?”

Probably longer, I almost told her, somehow holding myself back as memories of Henry flashed through my mind. The hours we’d spent together telling each other about our lives back home, joking about how far away we lived from one another and how the distance would likely help us stay away from each other once we returned to England.

I could hear Rhea and Bailey talking amongst themselves, but it turned into nothing more than white noise to my ears as Henry’s face hovering above me haunted my every thought because, dammit, I already missed him.

“Phoebe?” Rhea said softly, making me blink until I turned to look at her. “What’s wrong?” she asked, reaching up to brush herthumb under my eye as a tear I hadn’t even known existed fell without permission. “Is it Henry?”

I stared into her eyes, feeling everything and nothing all at once. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“Oh, babe,” Bailey said at my side, her hand landing on my shoulder.

“I had one rule, you guys. One. Now look at the state of me.”

“It’ll all work out.”

“How? Henry and I agreed it would only be a summer thing. I did this to myself. I let him in, and now I have to deal with the consequences of that. It’s not Henry’s job to make me happy, it’s my own. He already got tricked in to a relationship he didn’t really want to be in once before. I refuse to do the same thing. Can’t. Won’t. I respect him too much for that.”

Bailey and Rhea glanced at each other, a silent conversation I wasn’t privy to passing between them before Rhea pulled my attention her way.

“Bee, it’s not my place to speak on his behalf but…” Rhea paused, searching my eyes. “The guy fucking adored you. Even when you were hiding it from us, everyone could see the way he felt—feels.”

“I can’t think about that, Rhea.” I shook my head. “If I trick myself into believing there’s more to this than what we agreed, I risk getting hurt worse than I did when I found out Rob had been letting another woman into his bed. Don’t you see? I can’t let that happen again, and I think… I think Henry has the ability to wreck me even more after only two weeks than Rob had after three years together.”

“But…”

“It’s over.” I shrugged a shoulder. “It was good—amazing, even—and I’ll never forget it. He was everything I didn’t know I needed and more, but now it’s done. We’re done. He needs to go live his life. I need to go live mine.”

“What if he’s the one you’re supposed to end up with, though?” Bailey asked more gently than I thought her capable.

The thought of a forever with Henry Cohen lit that spark of hope to a dangerous height I struggled to force back down to a flicker.

“I’m starting to believe all the best things out there are supposed to be temporary. Dreams, ice cream, holidays, sunsets… books. If we had them any longer, they wouldn’t feel as special, right?”

“Do you really believe you’d get bored of waking up next to him every day?”

The answer to that was a resounding no, but being honest with myself right now would only cause more pain I had no strength to deal with.

Henry had a lot of baggage to deal with, and not just the kind you checked in to come on holiday, but the kind you couldn’t unpack and put away for another year once you arrived home. He had his parents’ deaths, which he still hadn’t fully processed, he had his strained relationship with Andy, the only true friend he’d ever known, who now went out of his way to make Henry feel ashamed or not good enough at every turn.

He had Lillie.

Did I really want to even consider throwing myself into the mix of all that when I had enough baggage of my own to deal with? My parents’ no doubt impending divorce, my ever-ailing grandfather, not to mention my own rotten ex? It was one thing for us to be perfect together in paradise, but how different would we be in everyday, mundane life with all that noise around us?

“I can wake up with him anytime I want,” I told them. “He may have gotten on that plane, but I’ll always have the memories, and those will have to do now.”

R.T.M

Remember this moment had already become rememberthosemoments.

They were all I had left.

Our summer fling had officially come to its end, and the only time I’d ever see Henry Cohen again would be in my dreams, where the sun would never stop shining, the hammock would never stop swinging, and his hands would never stop roaming.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Henry

“These kids have to be three of the luckiest bastards alive,” someone muttered.

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