Page 45 of The Summers of Us

I suppose I should just tell him. He came all this way.

“I had a nightmare. It was me out there. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t reach the surface. I was close enough to push my fingers out, but deep enough to drown anyway. I died.”

If I look hard enough, maybe I’ll see dream-Quinn’s fingers poking out from the sea foam. Maybe in my dream, a real version of me watched from the pier, too afraid to do anything. That’s why dream-Quinn died: Real-Quinn is a coward who doesn’t know how to save herself.

“I’m sorry.” Everett turns to me, his elbow on the back rest. His knee leaves mine cold and lonely. “You didn’t die. Not for real. You’re right here.” He touches my shoulder, gives me a supportive shake. “You’re with me on the pier. Alive.”

“I know, but it felt so real. I’m sorry if I woke you up.”

“Some jackass who slammed my front door did.” He smirks and nudges me with his elbow.

“They must be the worst.” I keep my smile contained until it falls with guilt. “Sorry.”

“It’s all good. This is much prettier than my ceiling.”

“Good.” What does his ceiling look like from that angle? Surely just like the guest room ceiling, but not as warm and safe. If it could speak, it would certainly say a lot about what happened last night.You were in his room all alone. You tried to kiss him. He didn’t let you because he wants to kiss you sober.

Quinn, I dare you to tell me a secret. The strain in his voice will haunt me forever. I can’t believe I didn’t have a nightmare aboutthat.

No matter how good of a distraction this nightmare is, we both know the implications of last night. We both know he tried to pry the truth from me last night. We both know I wouldn’t let him.

But I can’t dodge the conversation anymore. The collective game of pretend is too much to bear, too awkward not to just jump headfirst into. It’s easier than merely dipping my toes in.

“I’m sorry about last night.” I finally manage to look at him.

His expression matches the sound of his voice from last night—glass shattered on the floor, void of the sun to mend it with light. This is what he would have looked like in the hammock if I hadn’t been close enough to feel him breathe. “You’re sorry? About what exactly?”

“For trying to kiss you.”

He flits his tongue between his lips, then purses them in a tight line. He nods his head, in deep contemplation over what he’s just heard. “You think the problem with last night was that you tried to kiss me?”

“Well, what is it then?”

He squints his eyes at me like I’m a putrid zombie who washed up on the beach this morning. “That you need to be drunk to want me.”

“It’s not that, it’s—”

“It’s what, Quinn?”

The sound of my name. The twitch of his eyebrow. A question I wish were rhetorical. All of this is too much.

I don’t know which scenario I’d prefer: drowning with the whales or telling the harmless boy in front of me that I’m scared ofhim. How do you explain that happiness feels like a sign that the ground is about to cave in and swallow you whole? That life is a pile of eggshells one must float across to keep intact? That the only thing alcohol does is take away my fear, not add desire? The desire has always been there…but Ican’t.

I already traded the love of my life for the loss of another one once.

Not again.

I swallow a lump in my throat, drowning despite the land. “I can’t.”

“Then neither can I.” Everett’s face is bleak in the incandescent dawn. “I have to go.” He offers me a thoughtless smile and walks down the fishing pier, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders slumped.

It’s the wrong way. You’re not supposed to walk away from the sun before it rises.

He’s not supposed to let me get away with this.

I’m not supposed to let love slip from my fingertips, watch him disappear inside the pier shop doors and imagine the rest of his day without me.

I look down at the space that used to be filled by him, blink away the tears that have surfaced so I can see what he left behind.

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