Page 10 of Seven Lost Summers
I don’t say a word. I grab my beer and take a long pull, hoping the cold will cut through the burn in my chest. It doesn’t.
Nothing ever fucking does. But his hand stays, steady, and for now that’s enough to keep me from breaking apart.
Quinn’s fingers trace the rim of the box, slow and careful, as though every memory inside might scorch her if she moves too fast. She hesitates, eyes darting between us, her mouth parting only to close again.
Then she exhales.
“Bianca told me once she was happiest when she was with you two.”
Both Nate and I look up.
Her voice is steady, but the words slice straight through.
“She said being with you made her believe she could do anything… be anything. That even when the world felt too heavy, having you both beside her gave her the courage to chase what she wanted.”
Nate blinks, and a softness flickers in his eyes, cutting through the weight of it all just enough to let a little air in.
And me?
I cling to Quinn’s words like they’re the only thing keeping me from coming apart at the seams. The ache shifts, just a fraction, knowing we gave her something good. And for the first time since opening that box, it almost feels like enough.
I look at the photo again.
That smile…unforced, unposed. Real. Real in a way nothing else is anymore.
Quinn reaches back into the box and lifts another photo, its edges worn soft with time—the kind that wasn’t just kept, but held. She turns it over in her hands, a small smile tugging at her lips before she finally shows it to us.
“Oh shit, I forgot about this,” she says, her voice lighter now, threaded with an edge of fondness that cuts a little too close.
Bianca’s swallowed up in one of Nate’s hoodies, sleeves hanging past her fingers, the fabric drowning her. She’s grinning, all teeth and trouble, like she knew exactly what she was doing.
Nate exhales, the sound closer to a memory than a laugh. His eyes stay fixed on the photo.
“I always wondered where that hoodie went.”
Quinn chuckles, shaking her head. “She didn’t take the hoodie. You gave it to her. She was freezing, remember?”
Nate nods slowly, as if he recalls every damn second of that night. “Yeah. I did.”
And just like that, the moment moves on.
Quinn keeps digging through the box.
More photos, ticket stubs, scraps of a life that would mean nothing to anyone else, but to us, mean everything.
Each piece hits with a memory, a second when she was still here. Breathing. Laughing. Owning every fucking room she stepped into.
Nate starts talking, his voice lighter than it’s been in days, shoulders easing as he spills story after story. All the dumb shit she used to say. All the times she got away with murder because of that damn smile.
Every laugh Nate lets slip, every half-smile tugging at Quinn’s mouth, drives one truth home, Bianca wasn’t just a loss. She was a light we were lucky to stand in, even if only for a while.
For the first time in forever, the silence in my chest doesn’t feel so fucking hollow.
So I let the stories pull me in.
Let their voices stitch over the cracks.
Let time slip past as we do the only thing left for us to do—the only way we can still keep her.… and that is… to remember.
