Page 43 of The Forbidden Summer
“Muddying them,” I repeat, wrinkling my nose. “You think you’re mud?”
He doesn’t answer, just sips his whiskey and stares out at the crowd like he’s memorizing all the ways to not say how he feels.
I trace the condensation down my glass, watching the droplets race to the coaster below. “I hate that this ends,” I say, finally breaking the silence. “Us. The cabin. You.”
“It doesn’t end,” he says, eyes fixed on his drink. “It just… becomes something else.”
I snort. “You always talk like a poet when you’re uncomfortable.”
“I’m not uncomfortable.”
“You’re dodging.”
He sighs, long and low, then finally lifts his eyes to mine. “You can’t stay, Van. You know that.”
I swallow the knot rising in my throat. “Icould. I could figure something out. Move classes to online. Stay a little longer. I’m almost finished with school.”
“And then what? You get stuck in limbo? Waiting for me to sort through my mess of feelings while we both pretend the world doesn’t exist outside that tree line?”
I don’t answer, because I don’t have an answer. Just that gnawing ache in my chest, the one that feels like homesickness, except home is sitting across from me, guarded and quietly breaking.
“I’m not asking you to forget,” he says, softer now. “I’m just asking you to breathe. To go back. Get your bearings. Talk to your parents. Hell, talk to yourself. Spend some timenottangled up in me.”
“I don’t want space from you.”
“That’s the problem,” he says, with a crooked smile. “Neither do I. Which is why you need it.”
I think of Harold and Elliot. They took a breather and look what happened to them. They never found their way back to the cabin, back to each other. What if Père and I are doomed to repeat the same fate?
He downs the last of his whiskey and sets the glass down gently, like the weight of his words might crack it. “You can’t make a decision this big from inside a dream, Van. The cabin’s always been magic. It makes everything feel… bigger than it is. Sweeter. Closer. But that doesn’t mean it’s real, not forever. We need to be sure.”
His honesty stings worse than silence.
I push my drink away, appetite gone. “And if I go back and realize itisreal?”
He looks at me like I’m something precious and dangerous all at once. “Then you’ll know. And I’ll still be here.”
The jukebox skips to another slow, mournful track. He rests his hand on the table, not quite reaching for mine, but close enough that I feel the warmth.
And even though we’re surrounded by strangers and neon beer signs and the hum of small-town chatter, in this tiny booth in the back of a bar, it’s just us.
It still feels like home.
And I don't know how to leave it. Leavehim.
On the way out, I stop at the old bulletin board near theentrance. Flyers flap lightly in the summer breeze coming through the open door. My eyes catch on one in bright orange—Stony Creek Summer Fair: Crafts, Music, Pie Bake-Off. Vendors Wanted.
“Hey, look at this.” I tap the flyer. “I could set up a booth. Sell some of the stuff I’ve carved.”
Père makes a gruff noise, too close to a laugh. “You gonna sellWoody?”
I bark out a laugh, shaking my head. “Not a chance. Woody stays in the family.”
He huffs out another soft laugh, the corners of his eyes crinkling. He looks younger, less burdened, more like the man I know in the quiet moments back at the cabin.
We step back out into the night. The warm, pine-sweet air wraps around us. I feel his hand brush mine, like a question. I answer by tangling my fingers with his, holding tight, even as we walk back into the dark.
“You know I’m going to miss you like crazy, right?” Père admits.
