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

by Abby Jimenez

But now I suddenly really wanted her to like me and be attracted to me, and even after all the things I did to make today special, I worried it wasn’t enough to compensate for me.

“Why not forgive? In a world where you can choose anger or empathy, always choose empathy, Justin.

I think sometimes the key to happiness is framing those things in a different way.”

It was like there was no peaceful place to exist, no emotional safe space. I could have chaos, or I could have worry. I could be in the tornado, or I could be in the eye. But I could never be out of the storm. It was so, so exhausting to live this way and I had always lived this way because when it came to my mother,

If you can choose anger or empathy, always choose empathy. I couldn’t. At this point anger was all I had.

I had this sinking, sickly feeling of being out of control. A gnawing anxiety of what was to come. Mom always made me feel like this, I realized.

This was my favorite version of her. The vibrant, happy, spiritual one who made my Halloween costumes by hand, and they were always so good the other kids were jealous.

I wanted it so badly. Even though experience and common sense told me not to hope, it burst into life inside me anyway.

So I became an island—and the island is small. I don’t need anyone. And I know that sounds sort of terrible, but it’s actually comforting to know that I have this ability to need no one. It feels like a superpower. Like I’m untouchable.”

The one-eighty our lives had taken since then was truly unbelievable. Some alternate universe. A hellscape.

And I was angry. I’d been angry for years. I was angry when Dad died, and then I slid right into being angry at Mom and angry at what was happening to my life and I just… I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t forgive it. I couldn’t understand it and I couldn’t forgive it. And now everyone would pay for it. Alex, Sarah, and Chelsea. Me.

“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.”

“How do you learn to forgive her?” She shrugged. “You don’t have to forgive her. You really don’t. You can still love someone that you’ve decided not to speak to anymore. You can still wish them well and hope for the best for them. Choosing a life without them doesn’t mean you stop caring about them. It just means that you can’t allow them to harm you anymore. But if you don’t think your life would be better without them in it, then accept that they have cracks. Try to understand how they got them and help fill them with something that isn’t ice.” She peered at me. “If you can choose anger or empathy, always choose empathy, Justin. It’s so much healthier than anger. For both of you.”

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

but I was realizing that even though I loved her, I wasn’t sure I liked her. Even thinking this felt wrong.

Memories pinged off me like little jagged barbs. This exact same situation, over and over when I was a kid. She’d have these eruptions, every time things were happy or we were somewhere stable. It was like she hated the calm and I didn’t know why. Why did she always need this? This chaos?

“You’re not asking too much,” he said. “You were just asking the wrong person. Ask me instead.”

That framing is everything. That if you can frame the terrible things in the best possible way, that’s where true happiness comes from.

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

But that’s not what real grown-up relationships are like. They’re like this. Being mature enough to know your limits, and adult enough to accept when someone tells you what they are.

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.