Page 12 of The Edge of Summer
Unknown Number
Just get that headlight fixed.
I roll my eyes.
Aye aye, Captain.
Sorry, *Chief.
“Good news?”
I look up, startled. “Huh?”
Clara smirks. “You’re smiling at your phone.”
Am I smiling?Sure enough, my lips are still stretched up in a grin. I shake my head, shoving my phone back in my pocket. “It’s nothing.”
She raises a brow but thankfully chooses not to press me for details. I wouldn’t even know what to say if she did.
“Alright, I’ll see you later. Don’t hesitate to reach out for literally anything.”
This time when I smile, it’s in thanks. “I really appreciate all this.” As she moves down the steps, a sense of awareness prickles my skin. I glance over my shoulder and spot an elderly couple standing a few houses down, quite obviously looking in our direction. “So…am I always going to have an audience now?”
This feels different than the eyes I had on me back in Victoria. At home, everyone knew my story and was already judging me for it. Here, it feels more like a gentle—albeit nosy—curiosity.
Clara notices the same couple I did and she laughs. She begins to walk backwards toward a cherry red Volkswagen Beetle parked on the street as she calls, “Welcome to Kip Island, Delilah!”
The stopper keeping my emotions in check weakens by the hour. After spending the past week driving halfway across the country, the tiredness has seeped into my bones and has left me feeling more than a little raw. When the quiet hits and the night finally settles, I lock myself in my bathroom, the only place I truly have privacy. The rest of my existence is spent being accessible to my siblings, in case they need me.
The past few years, there was an underlying tension between me and our father. I was bitter about everything he missed and he wasn’t satisfied with all the choices I had made. As a result, I distanced myself, and I wasn’t around forParker and Sophia as much as I should have been. After the accident, I didn’t even give myself time to think before I was figuring out what it would take for me to get custody of them. They were staying with me—end of story.
I’m sure that normally, a twenty-five-year-old with a bit of a murky future wouldn’t be an ideal candidate. But thanks to the money we stood to inherit from our parents, I guess none of that mattered. From then on, I’ve done everything for them.
And I amsotired.
I turn the shower on, and the water hitting the tiles acts as a buffer with the thin walls. I haven’t even unpacked my toiletries yet—not that I have the energy to bathe right now anyway. I fold against the counter as a sob works its way free. Buried deep by my incessant need to stay positive, it only emerges now that I’m alone.
While I unpacked earlier, I set Sophia up with some paper and crayons. It wasn’t until I was tidying up after she had gone to bed that I realized what she drew—a picture of us. Our family. Not as it should be, but as it is. That wrecked me.
Questions—the usual suspects—slide through my mind. Have I done the right thing? Was moving really what was best for us?
Yes.
Living in Victoria felt like wandering through an open field, just waiting for a land mine to blow. Everywhere I went, it was only a matter of time before someone recognized me—by face or name, it didn’t matter. They thought they wereinconspicuous, but sound travels farther than people realize. Whispers ring louder than any shout.
The tears fall recklessly, not caring that I want to keep them in. That I don’t want to feel. Not tonight—not ever. Sometimes, something threatens to peel back that layer of numbness, but I don’t want to let it go. I want to hang on. I fear that if I fall apart, I won’t be able to put myself back together. And that can’t happen. Parker and Sophia need stability. I need to be that for them.
I roughly wipe the wetness from my cheeks and stand from the floor. I turn the shower dial until there is nothing but a trickle. Soon, nothing at all. Like a dam stopping the flow of water, I force my emotions in check.
Then I find myself in the mirror. My face is free of makeup—I haven’t had the urge to use it in months. My eyes are dull. My hair, which is in desperate need of a wash, hangs limply in the low ponytail at my back. I look like a poor imitation of the Delilah I used to be. Like a dress you order from a sketchy website that falls to pieces the first time you wear it. It looks alright from afar, but up close you can pick out the inconsistencies—the structural flaws.
Tonight, I let myself crack. But tomorrow is going to be better.
It has to be.
CHAPTER
FIVE
