Page 43 of Five Summer Wishes

“You’re back,” he said, like it was a question. Like I hadn’t been gone long enough to make it complicated.

“I’m here,” I said. Which was safer thanyes.

He looked older. Not old. Just older. Like life had finally gotten its hands on him and made him slow down. There was something about the way he stood; more grounded than I remembered.

“How long are you staying?”

I shrugged. “Not sure.”

“Willa,” he said, voice low. “It’s been six years.”

“Five and a half,” I corrected, because that was easier than acknowledging the ache forming behind my ribs.

He smiled, just barely. “You look the same.”

I didn’t return it. “You don’t.”

That hung between us for a second.

Then he looked down at my sketchpad. “Still drawing everyone but yourself?”

I flipped it shut. “Still making assumptions?”

He didn’t flinch. “I just remember how much you hated staying in one place. Thought maybe that changed.”

I crossed my arms. “Did you follow me or just luck into this awkward reunion?”

“I have a booth,” he said, nodding toward the other end of the market. “Furniture now. Reclaimed wood. Artisanal polish. Very adult of me.”

That almost made me laugh.

Almost.

“I should go,” I said. “Fruit to forage. Lives to sketch.”

“Willa.”

I stopped.

“You ever wonder what would’ve happened if you’d stayed?”

I turned. Met his eyes.

“Every day.”

Back at the house,Harper was pacing on the porch, phone to her ear, mouthing something about permits and signage. June was in the backyard with Lily, showing her how to repot basil without murdering it.

I dropped my things on the kitchen counter and headed straight upstairs. I needed time to sort through whatever the hell had just cracked open inside me.

I sat on the edge of the bed and opened my sketchbook, flipping past the hands, past the porch swing, past the half-drawn party scene from the potluck.

I found a blank page and just stared at it.

Then, without fully meaning to, I started to draw Sawyer’s eyes.

Not the romanticized version. Not the way I remembered them in good lighting with the right music in the background. But the way they looked this morning—tired. Certain. Still holding me responsible for a conversation I ran away from five and a half years ago.

I shaded in the lines around them. The softness. The weight.

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