Page 43 of The Summers of Us

Leave it to Haven to read my mind twice.

“Speaking of jellyfish, he was looking at the moon jellies at the aquarium. Then we looked at each other and it was a really nice moment until I ruined it with something stupid. We hung out a couple days later, biked and went to the beach. I didn’t do anything stupid then, but I don’t know what to do.”

I got antsy, squirming under the grasp of what had been holding me down for years.

“Why are you so afraid to live?” Haven whispered. I spotted it as a foggy shadow on the stairs in front of us.

I didn’t want to get into it. I’d lived this long without getting into it. It had been long enough that getting into it might feel a whole lot like living it again. Haven had heard snatches of it throughout the years, enough to make a rough sketch of my past, but I’d never filled those blurry shapes with details. But there was something about this summer night, eatingtres lecheswith Haven. Her love in the form of food between us. Being with her made the evening smell like summer stars and sweets.

So why not a secret?

“My dad cheated on my mom.”

It slipped from my mouth the way the sun sets on a lavender night, slipping completely away before you could even notice it was leaving. Then my past came out all at once, a storm cloud flooding the present. I couldn’t look at Haven, so I talked to her shadow instead. To the curve of her nose and all the wispy flyaways and the empty fork in her hand.

“When my mom started to suspect it, she confronted him and he started to make her believe she was crazy for thinking such a thing. Things got bad after that, because Mom knew he didn’t love her anymore. She knew this, and he wouldn’t admit it.”

Haven cleared her throat, then fixed her hair behind her ear and sat up a little taller.

“Fighting became a daily thing. Sometimes they’d fight all through dinner and I ate alone so my food wouldn’t get cold. And because I didn’t know what else to do. I fell asleep to screaming and crying matches. There’s only so much that plugging your ears can do. Dad slept on the couch when they managed to end the fights without one of them storming out. I don’t know where my mom would go, but I knew my dad went to his girlfriend’s.

“One day, he left while I was at school. Right after he dropped me off. Left all his stuff at home, so I thought he was just running late from work or something. The next day after school, he was still gone.”

My eyes started to sting. My words came up thick and full of air.

“The last thing he ever told me was that he would never leave me. Then he just…never came back. He left.”

My tears came on fast, like the slippery moon behind a sunset. The first one ran off my cheek faster than I could wipe it.

“That’s really confusing when you’re nine.”

“Quinn, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.” She wrapped her arm around me and pulled me to her.

We were an indistinguishable black blob silhouetted against the front porch light. It was warm in her embrace, in the cloak of summer air.

I breathed in and out. Swallowed the thickness from my throat. “I still haven’t seen or heard from him since he left five years ago. I tried texting him recently, but nothing. Mom’s never been the same. And me, well, you know.”

I knew I didn’t have to say it. To be me was to be a girl afraid of commitment. A girl disgusted with affection and disgusted with being disgusted. A girl who ruined moon jellies because it was easier than the stings that might come after.

“I know. But you should know that it’s not your fault. I know it’s hard to believe, but not every relationship is like that.” She brushed loose hair out of my face. My hair unstuck from the dried tears on my cheek.

“You are worthy of love. Pinky promise.”

She held her curved pinky out to me, glowing yellow under the front porch light.

I finally looked at her, gave her a soft smile and my curved pinky.

I hoped what she said was true. I hoped pinky promises held the same power as cheek eyelashes, flickering birthday candles, dandelion puffs to the wind. Shooting stars. Fountain pennies.

Haven kept her pinky around mine until I let go. Both of us reached for thetres lechesat the same time. We laughed between bites.

“There’s this thing my mom always says: ‘Los amigos van y vienen pero la familia siempre se queda.’ Friends come and go, but family always stays. I love it, but I’ve always had one problem with it. The way I see it, being family has nothing to do with staying. What stays is love.”

She put a lone cherry in her mouth, smiling around it like she’d said something so groundbreaking and magical that I could wish on it. Maybe I would.

“Oh yeah?”

Haven sat up again and pulled her hair behind her ear. “For us, it goes a little something like ‘La familia va y viene pero las amigas siempre se quedan.’”

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