Page 56 of Summer's Echo
That made her pause. Slowly, she shifted, tilting her head to look at me in the dim light. “What do you think they’re going to say?” she asked. “About us.”
The question shouldn’t have surprised me. But still, I stiffened. I’d been asking myself the same thing. Summer had always been welcomed in the Abara house. My siblings adored her, my mother had once treated her like she was part of the family. But my father…he had never seen it that way. He had never been shy about his opinion, never hesitated to remind me that we were too much, too fast, too young. I exhaled slowly, my fingers trailing lazily down her arm as I gave myself a second to answer.
“I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. I’m grown. I make my own decisions, and my choice is you.”
The tense lines of her face mellowed, but something flickered in her eyes—unease, doubt, guilt.
“They wouldn’t be wrong to be concerned, you know,” she said, her fingers tracing unhurried, absentminded circles against my chest. “What kind of woman plans a wedding just to not show up, then in the same day tells her first love he’s been her only love all along?”
I should have been angry at the self-blame in her voice, but I wasn’t. Instead, a quiet warmth came over me, because she was finally saying the words I had always known to be true. “The kind of woman who needed time,” I said simply, brushing my thumb over her cheek. She shrugged, doubt lingering in her expression. She wasn’t convinced. Worry was etched across her face, her lip caught between her teeth as if she were bracing for words she didn’t want to speak. Her fingers found her ear, tugging lightly—her silent confession of angst.
“I don’t really give a damn what they think, Sun. Or what anybody thinks, for that matter,” I said firmly, cutting off whatever argument she was about to make before she could even voice it. “We’ve been through too much, wasted too much time to start worrying about other people’s opinions now.” She halted. The hesitation was in every breath, every small shift of her body.
“But they were right back then,” she said, the weight of the past pressing into her words “Your parents weren’t wrong, E. We were really deep really fast.”
I let out a short, humorless laugh, shaking my head. “They weren’t right either, Summer. They were scared. And yeah, we made mistakes, but damn, we were just kids—kids who didn’t know better, who never even got the chance to figure it out.”
My chest felt tight, the old frustration creeping in—the years we’d lost, the choices we didn’t get to make. We had been too young, but we hadn’t been wrong. Summer ran a gentle hand across my face, her touch grounding me.
“Maybe he was just protecting you,” she said, her gaze drifting into the darkness, like she wasn’t really speaking to me but to something…someone who would listen to her muted thoughts.
An unsettling riddled my stomach. I reached for her chin, tilting her face back up to me. “Summer, what are you not saying?”
Her lips parted, but no words released, only uneven breaths, as if caught between what she could say or what she shouldn’t say. Aimlessly, she swiped her fingertips up and down my stomach, but she remained silent. I raised a brow, urging her to talk to me.
“I came to your house before I left for Atlanta,” she said finally.
My brows drew together in confusion, then tightened with something heavier—anger, dread–because I already sensed this was heading somewhere I wouldn’t be able to shake. I sat up on the couch, bringing her with me.
“What?”
“The night before I left for Spelman. We hadn’t talked since the clinic, and I couldn’t leave like that. I needed to see you. To talk. To say goodbye.” Her breathing was labored as she spoke, her legs instinctively tucking over mine. “But I never got the chance.”
A bitter, acidic burn settled in my gut. My voice came out sharp. “Why?” But I already knew.My fucking father.
“Mr. Abara…your father wouldn’t let me.”
I went still, my breath escaping in ragged intervals. All this time, I thought Summer just left. Just said fuck me and went off to live her life without looking back. All this time, I thought I hadn’t meant enough to her to say goodbye. And it was him.
“My father,” I said, the words hollow as they left my mouth.
Summer swallowed, the memory dancing just beneath the surface of her expression.
“He answered the door. And before I could even say anything, he stepped out onto the porch.” She paused, her lips pressing together before she forced herself to continue. “I don’t know if you were there or not, but he told me to stay away from you—that you had your whole future ahead of you, and I would only hold you back.”
The words sliced through me like the sharpest blade. I sat back, stunned. Speechless. Barely holding on to my sanity.
“What else did he say?” My voice was controlled, but rage churned beneath my skin. My father was the smartest man I knew and a great provider, but he could be a heartless son of a bitch.
Summer debated, shaking her head. “Nothing.”
But I knew that was a lie. I leaned forward, my jaw tense. “Tell me, Summer.”
Her gaze faltered, as if she was searching for a way to soften the truth. Then, her voice came quiet, strained. “He said that you deserved better than a girl who…” She left the rest unsaid, but I already knew how it ended. It hit me like a punch straight to the ribs, knocking the air from my lungs. I already knew the ending to that sentence.My family was traditional. Strict and sometimes unforgiving. My father, especially. Marriage preceded pregnancy under any circumstance. In our village, an unmarried, pregnant girl would have been disowned, sent away, a walking disgrace. A stain on the family’s honor.
“My fucking father.” The words were guttural, bitter, filled with something between nausea and fury. I needed air. Needed to move. I quickly shifted her legs off me and stood.
“Echo, it doesn’t matter now.” She tried to convince me, but it wasn’t enough to cool the fire spreading through me.
