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She laughs suddenly, forcing me to look at her to fully grasp the sound. I thought a laugh from Summer Preston was the last thing I’d ever get to hear.
She shifts to look at me. “Not talking to me is punishment?” “The worst kind.”
“Good to know. I’ll throw out all my hair ties because Aiden Crawford likes it when girls wear their hair down.” Wrapping the bandage around her ankle, I glance at her. “Not girls. You.”
“This is another thing I can hold over your head to make you do what I want.” I flutter my lashes. “You don’t need blackmail to get me to do what you want, Summer.”
“So you came to the farthest library on campus?” she presses. “Took me three tries.” “For what?” “To find this one.” “The others didn’t have what you were looking for?” I smile. “Not even close.”
“And how long does it take for you to like someone?” She thinks for a minute. “How long have I known you?” “A month,” I say. “There’s your answer,”
“You dance?” I ask when he lifts my hand onto his shoulder. “No,” he says. “But I want to with you.”
But I can’t shake the feeling of comfort and safety when I’m with him. I can’t deny that he feels like home.
My heart sinks into the acid of my stomach when I finally spot Aiden getting on the Ferris wheel. With Crystal Yang. A Beta Phi sorority girl.
WHAT?!
She’s fucking pretty. Like really pretty. Just being this up close feels like a violent hit to the chest. I can feel this image making a home in every part of my brain.
Donny averts his eyes, and a weird tension looms in the air of her office, as if I’m missing a large piece of a puzzle.
“Don’t stop,” she says breathlessly. I could be having a damn heart attack, and I still wouldn’t stop.
Nothing I’ve imagined holds a candle to the reality of her.
I’d speed through every traffic light just to see you play, Crawford.
When I cry over my father, I wonder if eight-year-old Summer, the little girl who thought that if superheroes existed, her dad had to be one, ever feels disappointed.
Because just before Summer knocked out, she whispered, “I forgot how much you feel like home.” Home. She thinks I feel like home.
I need to feel useful for her. Summer likes to carry all her problems under a heavy rain cloud.
“I’m yours, Aiden. Treat me like it.” She’s mine. And she’s perfect. “You are,” I say, my throat thick.
Summer’s presence is luminescent. She’s the last fragment of sunlight in the overwhelming darkness.
There’s a warmth to them. Like whatever’s behind them is all good.” Nestling into my neck, Aiden kisses a point that always makes me squirm. I can feel his smile against my skin. “You think I’m good?”
Her five-year plan has been thoroughly dismantled, but mine has just begun, and she is its focal point. Summer is my sun, and I’m the simple planet revolving in her orbit.
