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

by Abby Jimenez

“A few people told me I should have sued you for breach of contract.” I laughed at this. Never. “A bunch of comments said we’re both assholes.” “This is true,” Brad said, looking at his phone. “We are assholes. But only to each other. It’s the foundation of our friendship.”

The moment Emma came into view, my entire world slipped into slow motion. My brain took a screenshot. I felt the moment freeze and save. She was beautiful.

Sometimes the best way to show love or be kind to someone is to meet them where they are.”

“So, why travel nursing?” I asked, watching her take my rook. “The money is nice,” she said. “We want to see the US. We take an international trip once a year too.” “So you fly a lot,” I said, studying the board. “I do.” “Do you clap when the airplane lands?” I asked. “Absolutely not.” “Do you run on the fasty-fast moving sidewalks at the airport?” I slid my bishop over. “I walk fast on the fasty-fast moving sidewalks. Do you run on the fasty-fast sidewalks?” “No. Why? Did someone say something?”

“You don’t want to live somewhere? Like, find a forever home where you can plant things in the earth?” She looked back at her mom’s luggage. “Maybe one day. But so far I haven’t found a home I’d want to stay at forever.” “Maybe home isn’t a place. Maybe it’s a person.” She blew a soft breath through her nose. “Maybe it is.”

“Unhealed trauma is a crack. And all the little hard things that trickle into it that would have rolled off someone else, settle. Then when life gets cold, that crack gets bigger, longer, deeper. It makes new breaks. You don’t know how broken she was or what she was trying to do to fill those cracks. Being broken is not an excuse for bad behavior, you still have to make good choices and do the right thing. But it can be the reason. And sometimes understanding the reason can be what helps you heal.”

“Thank you,” Leigh said. “Christine, how we doing on the list?” Leigh asked. “What’s the list?” Emma asked. “Prison prep,” Leigh said. “Memorizing your important phone numbers, dying your hair back to your natural color so you don’t see your roots come in, fixing anything wrong with your teeth—I’m gonna put money on your books the second they let me, hon. I’m gonna come every week to visit you,” Leigh said. “Press my boob against the glass.”

I slid my hands up his chest. He smelled so good. I’d been leaning into it the whole evening. Something spicy and warm mixed with the scent of mint.

We’d been to the aquarium, then had dinner at the Rainforest Cafe—Chelsea insisted we eat there once she saw the front of it on our way to Bubba Gump Shrimp. Afterward we stopped at a cookie shop and then went to the old-timey photo place. We did pirates and the fedoras.

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

There are so many things in life that exist on a spectrum. Trust. Kisses. Love. You can love someone and still not be willing to give up your way of life for them. And then there are those you love who you’d take a bullet for. It’s all the same emotion, just different levels.

Something was starting to shift inside of me with Mom. Maybe because I hadn’t spent this much time adjacent to her in almost fifteen years, but I was realizing that even though I loved her, I wasn’t sure I liked her. Even thinking this felt wrong. She was my mom.

“Sometimes I feel like the seasons could come and go and come and go, a hundred years could pass, a thousand, the ground could collapse under us, this house could crumble and go back to the earth, and we would still be standing here frozen in time, because every second I’m with you is eternal. I’ve never felt anything like it.”

When I got it together enough to pull away from her, she put her hands on my shoulders. “I want you to know that your empathy is beautiful, Emma. I hope you never lose that. I do hope that one day you get some boundaries though.” I laughed a little but she didn’t smile. “You cannot keep caring about her more than you care about yourself.”

But for Emma, I would make time. It wasn’t even a question. I would fit her into the complicated web that was my life. Because when you’re in love, you do hard things.

The sandwich was what I always ordered. She’d stopped to get this. She’d ordered it for me. She knew what kind of state I’d be in and she’d come prepared. Maddy was like a first responder for my soul.

And there wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t feel her absence like a void in my soul. I missed her like I missed the sun in the winter.

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.

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.