Page 6 of Seven Lost Summers
I turn my head and watch him—the frustration in his jaw, the way his hands strangle the wheel like he’s two seconds from snapping it in half. And yeah, for a moment, I wonder if this is going to be too much for him.
But fuck that.
I love him, no question.
Still, if this is too much, he can stay in the car, because this isn’t about him.
This is about her.
She was the girl who taught me not to hide. The one who saw me when no one else even looked. She made me believe I could be more than the mess everyone else decided I was.
We turn left into the industrial district. The streets are cracked, buildings half-dead, rust bleeding across metal, windows smeared with grime or shattered through. It all looks abandoned, even when it’s not. Groups linger on corners, eyes dull, movements sluggish, as if they’ve got nowhere else to go and nothing left to want.
A pair of boots dangles from the power lines, swaying lazily in the breeze like some fucked-up omen—a warning not to get too comfortable. Every wall, dumpster, and sidewalk is drowned in graffiti. Layers on layers, names and phrases painted over each other until the walls are nothing but noise. Nobody’s tried to scrub it clean. This place gave up on being saved a long time ago.
As we crawl through in our shiny, too-clean car, heads turn.
Not curious. Not welcoming.
Just watching, measuring us, waiting to see if we’re here to start something or if we’ll keep driving, chased off by the weight of their stares.
I lift my hand, offering a small wave to a kid slumped on the curb, legs sprawled, hoodie shadowing half his face. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t even blink. Just stares through me, like he’s already seen it all and knows exactly how this story ends.
And I wonder if he’s been passed around the way I was. If his fists ache from fighting ghosts that won’t stay dead. If he’s holding out for someone to drag him from the wreckage the way Wes and Rose did for me. Or maybe he already knows the truth. That most of us don’t get out.
Quinn pulls up in front of a run-down apartment block and kills the engine.
Nate rolls in beside her, slowing to the curb, his eyes fixed on the building.
The place is a fucking mess.
Cracks split the concrete like old scars. Blankets hang over windows in place of curtains, shutting out more than just the sun. This isn’t just a shitty building… it’s a graveyard. The kind of place that eats people alive and doesn’t bother spitting out the bones.
Quinn steps out and makes her way over.
I hit the button, rolling the window down.
“You can pull in behind me,” she says, calm, like this place doesn’t rattle her. “It’s safe. No one’s gonna touch it.”
I glance at Nate.
He doesn’t speak, but the muscle ticking in his jaw says enough.
Safe? That’s a word people use when they’ve never had everything ripped out from under them.
Nate pulls into the lot and cuts the engine behind Quinn’s car. We climb out without a word.
The silence between us stretches tight, heavy with everything we’re not saying.
Quinn leads us up two flights of concrete stairs.
Our footsteps echo through the stairwell, sharp and hollow. The railing is rusted, paint peeling in strips. The air reeks of stagnation. The dead weight left behind by too many lives passing through without ever really mattering.
We step into a long, narrow hallway swallowed by shadows. A single bulb flickers overhead, buzzing like it’s dying a slow, miserable death.
Each door we pass leaks noise—a woman screaming, a baby wailing, a TV blaring some crap loud enough to shake the walls. This is the kind of place where no one looks up, no one makes eye contact. Where silence isn’t peace, it’s survival. Where people already know too much to bother asking.
Quinn stops at a door with a dent so deep it looks like someone once tried to kick the whole thing in. She mutters under her breath, digging through her bag until she finds the key, then shoves it into the lock and twists.
