It's Not Summer Without You (Summer, #2)

by Jenny Han

I had this fleeting thought that maybe he was mad at me, but I pushed it away as quickly as it had come. I felt guilty for even thinking it. This was Susannah’s funeral, why would he be thinking about me?

I just needed to be on the beach. The beach would make me feel better. Nothing, nothing felt better than the way sand felt beneath my feet. It was both solid and shifting, constant and ever-changing.

“I wanted to help you, too,” I told him. “I meant, I still do. You shouldn’t have to deal with this on your own.” For one brief moment, he didn’t look like himself. He looked like his father.

that's foreboding. jere's father isn't actually a pillar of loved strength so far in this series

Achingly familiar in a way that made me wish I was still eight. Eight was before death or divorce or heartbreak. Eight was just eight. Hot dogs and peanut butter, mosquito bites and splinters, bikes and boogie boards. Tangled hair, sunburned shoulders, Judy Blume, in bed by nine thirty.

eight (infinity)