Just for the Summer (Part of Your World, #3)

by Abby Jimenez

He’s a little Brussels Griffon, so he’s got that deep frown—he looks like a judgmental gremlin.

“You know how when something bad happens to someone you love, and you wish you could take it from them instead?” “Yeah.” “What if the universe listened? What if you or your mom or the kids were supposed to die in a car crash and your dad said ‘Take me instead’—and the universe did. And nobody remembers the way it was supposed to be because that’s the deal. You never get to know that he’s a hero. The fates are reversed and the tribute takes the thing he asked for to save someone he loves. If you think of it that way, instead of being sad that he’s gone, be happy that he got what he wanted. And that somebody loved you enough to take your place.”

It was after 11:00. The mosquitoes were long gone. The sky was crystal clear and the stars were out. The air was perfect. One of those nights where you couldn’t even feel it on your skin. The water lapped quietly on the shore and lightning flashed in the distance, some far-off storm, beautiful and ethereal, like the horizon of a different world.

“He’s just going to run it to the car,” I said, unwrapping it. “No, he’s not, ’cause you’re not gonna be in this car. Get out.” “What?” “Get OUT.” She leaned over and unbuckled me. “Get the fuck out. I mean it.” I put the mint in my mouth and looked at her, amused. “Emma, go meet him at the door, or I will lose my shit. I didn’t push a clunky car stroller around the universe’s largest mall for five hours so you could shake hands with this guy on the way out. As soon as he shows up, I’m going to park around the front at the lobby to give you some privacy. Go get your damn forehead kiss.”

Not everything that comes out of crisis is bad. Sometimes your traumas are the reason you know how to help.

“You are not what happened to you. You are what you do next.”

The best kind of love doesn’t happen on moonlit walks and romantic vacations. It happens in between the folds of everyday life. It’s not grand gestures that show how you feel, it’s all the little secret things you do to make her life better that you never tell her about. Taking the end piece of the bread at breakfast so she can have the last middle piece for her sandwich when you pack her lunch. Making sure her car always has gas so she never has to stop at the pump. Telling her you’re not cold and to take your jacket when you are in fact, very, very cold. It’s watching TV on a rainy Sunday while you’re doing laundry and turning her light off when she’s fallen asleep reading. Sharing pizza crusts and laughing about something the kids did and taking care of each other when you’re sick. It isn’t glamorous, it isn’t all butterflies and stars in your eyes. It’s real. This is the kind of love that forever is made of. Because if it’s this good when life is draining and mundane and hard, think of how wonderful it will be when the love songs are playing and the moon is out. I was grateful that the life I’d been forced into taught me this lesson. I just wish I hadn’t learned it with Emma. Because nothing and nobody else would ever compare. With anyone else, it’s just folding socks on a sofa.