Page 26 of The Summer I First Saw You
I have no idea who this titled asshole is that she’s moved onto, but if she wasn’t smart enough to see what she already had in Harrison, and decent enough to honor the commitment she’d made, she didn’t deserve him in the first place.
And I’d already suspected that anyway.
I leave Harrison alone after his revelation, mostly because I think he prefers to be left alone, and because he isn’t the type of guy who’d want to hear me trash-talk his ex, no matter how badly she deserves it.
Also because I don’t think I could stop myself from trash-talking his ex, no matter how badly I tried.
I walk down to the backyard and sink into Harrison’s delicious hot tub with a sigh, thinking about what an amazing life Audrey could have had if she hadn’t blown it up, living in this oceanfront mansion with a weekly cleaning lady I’ve only seen in passing.
She could have learned to surf. She could have climbed into this hot tub after a long day or simply dragged Harrison to beda few hours early. She always seemed so intimidatingly smart. Now I think she’s the dumbest human who’s ever lived.
The wind picks up, and the temperature starts to drop. It’s too cozy to climb out of the hot tub, much like it was too cozy to shirk off my comforter last winter when my life was imploding. The difference is that I’m happy now. I’m not in here because I’m trying to vacate my life but simply because this is one more way to enjoy it.
Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between those things. I had to figure it out at my own pace, and maybe Harrison does too. I’ve got no business telling him how to live anyway. We both torpedoed our lives, but at leasthe’smade some progress toward fixing his.
I doze off and am woken by his hand on my shoulder. “Hey,” he says quietly. “I just heard thunder.”
My eyes open. His gaze is on me in that way it often is, as if I’m simultaneously something he wants to see and something he wishes would disappear forever.
I climb from the hot tub. He keeps his gaze averted until I’m wrapped in a towel. “I’m gonna run to the store before it gets bad,” I tell him. “Do you want anything?”
His mouth presses flat. “You don’t have to do this shit, you know. Shop, cook, all that. We can just order pizza tonight.”
I give a small shrug. “I like it.” What I really mean is “I like taking care ofyou.”Generations of hardworking Doherty women toiled away over hot stoves and ironing boards on behalf of men who took them for granted, all so I could…toil away on behalf of a man who doesn’t want me around in the first place.
I guess at least the blackmail aspect gives it a modern, independent twist.
“Then take my credit card. I don’t want you paying for it.”
I smile. “You don’t want to offer me that. I’ll just come back with locally grown honey.”
A single brow lifts. “Honey?”
I nod. “We’ll get salmonella, but I’ll be the only one of us to die from it because you can afford decent health care.”
He grins, reaching for his wallet. “In that case, buy several.”
I makebaked potato soup for dinner, an old family recipe and the perfect food for tonight, with rain lashing the windows and the temperature dropping so fast that I begged Harrison to turn on the fireplace.
“I remember you making this for us when you were a kid,” Harrison says as he sits down to join me. “You were always cooking when you stayed at the beach house.”
I grin. “That’s because my mom wasn’t around then. Anytime she saw me do something domestic she got scared I wasn’t going to fulfill all her big plans.”
He laughs quietly under his breath. “I remember that. She tried to convince us all that you should become an artist because you were so good at drawing in preschool, and then she showed us one of these supposedly amazing works of art…”
I already know exactly where this story is going—the same direction these stories always went with my mom. I’d learn a smattering of Spanish from Harrison’s dad’s staff and she’d decide I would one day be a translator for the United Nations. I’d try to rescue a wounded animal and suddenly, I was destined to be a vet, and if I built a decent sandcastle, I was born to be an architect.
Except I didn’t want to be a translator or an architect or a vet. My dreams were smaller: I wanted a home at the beach, a kitchen counter lined with sandy, sunburned kids, and a husband who couldn’t wait to join us. I dreamed of making them potato soup and tucking them into bed.
There’s a throb in my chest for the things my mom and Iwill never have. My mother’s efforts to make me into something big have gone nowhere and my silenced dreams of a quieter life will probably go nowhere as well.
He blows on a spoonful of soup. “Have you talked to her?”
“Not really. She’s texted a few times to apologize and I told her it’s fine.” I shrug. “I guess it makes sense that she’d choose him over me…He’s the one who’ll still be here in three months.”
He winces. “Daisy, I’m an outsider here, but…I’ve known your mom most of my life. I’ve known her asyourmom since the day you were born. I can’t imagine her ever choosing anyone over you.”
“I know.” I’ve backed myself into a corner and this corner is where I’ll stay—missing the mother I adore; looking like a petulant child to everyone on the outside. There’s no point in discussing it when I always end up in the same place.
