Page 4 of Seven Lost Summers
Seeing her pulls Bianca into my mind, and I can’t help but wonder what she would look like now at twenty-five.
I bet she’d be every bit as beautiful as Quinn. Bianca was stunning, wild, untamed, a presence that demanded attention.
Quinn, standing here now, is just as striking, but in a different way. She’s softer, quieter, her beauty shaped by the weight of the pain she’s carried all these years.
As I watch her walk toward us, I can still hear the echoes of their conversations.
Quinn and Bianca side by side, dreaming about the future as if nothing could hold them back. They couldn’t wait for the day they turned eighteen. “No more asking Mom for permission,” Bianca would grin, certain she had the whole world figured out. They’d talk about tattoos and piercings. Every wild plan they could imagine. Their laughter was loud, bold, untouchable, as unapologetic as they were. Back then, we all believed life would always be that simple.
When Quinn finally looks up and sees us, her eyes flicker with something raw… recognition, regret, maybe even fear.
I feel it, the hesitation coiled around her like chains, every link dragging at her feet.
For a second, I think she might turn and walk away. But she doesn’t.
She steps forward, then another, each footfall hesitant, as if the ground itself might give way beneath her.
She finally reaches us and kneels at Bianca’s grave. Her hands tremble, a fragile betrayal of everything she’s trying to hold in. She sets down a bouquet of bright lilies at the base of the headstone, her fingers lingering against the stone a moment too long.
“I’ll just put these down and leave you with Bianca,” she whispers, her voice thin and trembling, as if the floodgates could burst at any second.
Before I can answer, Nate’s voice breaks the silence, quiet but certain.
“No, Quinn. Stay,” he says, the words so soft they sound fragile, as if they might splinter if spoken any louder. “You were her best friend. You deserve to be here.”
Quinn doesn’t lift her head right away. Her gaze stays down, her breath unsteady, as if she’s trying to hold herself together but can’t.
For a moment, even time feels suspended, waiting with her.
Then, slowly, she raises her eyes, and it all crashes down. Pain. Loss. That suffocating grief that transforms you, reshapes you into something you can’t ever outrun. It’s all there in her eyes, the same way it’s buried deep in us.
She gives a small, hesitant nod, uncertain if she can face what comes next. Her hands tremble as she reaches into her bag and pulls out a photo. Leaning forward, she places it gently against the cold stone, her fingertips brushing over it before lingering there, shaking, desperate to hold on to the remnants of a past that keeps slipping further away.
I look down at the photo, and it feels like my chest splits open, ribs splintering as everything inside me spills out. My breath hitches. The air turns razor-sharp, each inhale cutting like glass.
It’s us—Nate, Bianca, Quinn, and me—frozen in a moment so perfect it fucking hurts.
We had no fucking idea.
I’ve never seen this photo before, and it tears me apart.
We look so young, so carefree, untouched by the weight of the world. We didn’t know the truth then. We didn’t know how fast everything could slip through our fingers, how quickly the people we loved could be ripped away.
Less than a week after this picture was taken, the ground split beneath us, and we fell fucking hard.
Bianca was gone, and nothing, no stretch of time, no desperate prayer, could bring her back. We didn’t just lose her that day; we lost pieces of ourselves. The versions of us in that photo… wide-eyed, clinging to foolish dreams, died with her.
Quinn stands there, silent and still, her head bowed.
I watch her and wonder if, in her mind, she’s speaking to Bianca, whispering secrets only the two of them would understand.
When she finally looks up, her eyes meet mine, and something sharp drives into my chest, twisting deeper the longer she holds my gaze. My throat tightens, dry as sandpaper, but I force the words out anyway, even though they burn like acid.
“That photo, Quinn… can I get a copy of it?”
It’s a foolish request.
Selfish, even—as if a picture could ever mend what’s been broken.
