The Summer We Fell (The Summer, #1)

by Elizabeth O'Roark

THEN MAY, 2013 It’s nearly the end of the school year, and the road outside the diner looks like a poorly organized parade—Jeeps and pickup trucks full of kids and surfboards, blasting music that flashes to life and fades just as fast.

I don’t care that she’s implied Danny could do better than me—it’s a sentiment I agree with. It’s the subtext I tire of: “Be more grateful, Juliet. You’d be nowhere without them, Juliet. Prove to us that you’re worthy of the favor they’ve shown you, Juliet.”

The Allens think I’m quiet, but I’m not sure that’s true. There’s just so much I can’t say that it’s easier not to talk.

with Luke acting like I poisoned the town well, the small appeal this trip held is completely nullified.

The idea of him dying causes a pain so sharp that I’d reach into my chest and rip it out if I could.

There’s something smug about her, and now that I’ve given up on trying to be an Allen, I’m not going to restrain the urge to judge her for it.

You didn’t call this meeting. Donna called this meeting. I was there when she fucking emailed you.

“She said no,” Luke growls. Hilary blinks rapidly. Apparently, Luke’s “No” carries weight mine did not.

I suspect my ankle is sprained, but I just keep moving forward, holding my shirt together, because I know how this goes. If you stop to notice the pain, it’ll drag you under. And when the tears finally begin to slip down my face, it still isn’t because of the pain. It’s simply that no matter how old I get, no matter how safe I think I am, I doubt there will ever come a day when I’m not hit from behind by something, when I’m not limping off toward safety, wondering if I’m somehow at fault.

memory. As if I can stand here long enough to carry myself back in time.

can’t tell them I dread school and dread work and that I have this strange, constant ache in my chest that just won’t go away.

I pass a group of men on the darkened main road and their faces gleam with that ugly kind of interest, which I know more about than I should. It terrifies me, so I break into a run because what else am I going to do? I can’t walk back into that party with my tear-streaked face, begging someone to help me find Danny.

He winces. “I’m not trying to get rid of you.” I round on him. “Of course you are. It’s not even surprising.” Tears clog my throat but I no longer care. “Why do you hate me so much, Luke? What did I do?” That muscle in his cheek contracts. His eyes squeeze shut, and when they open, they land on me in a way they never have before, as if I’m made of glass and a thousand times more valuable. He’s showing me, at last, something he’s hidden so well for months. He swallows. “I don’t hate you.” For a fraction of a second, the truth rests between us.

This is a good life. There’s a spark of something in my heart, a taste of that contentment Donna and Danny find so easily. I silently pray as we start eating, that I can help build that spark into a fire. That I can convince myself it’s all enough.

the pastor revisits his thoughts on indulgence. He suggests we all look at 2014 as the year of restraint, the year we don’t give into our whims. I wonder if Danny told him what happened at the sorority house.

It doesn’t matter what I claim to the world: the things my mother has said, the things Justin has said—I carry all those words like a stain, and I already know it’ll never wash away. I seethe—at all of them and at everything that’s happened—but when my tears finally dry, I feel the start of something else, something quiet and hopeful. Because as terrible as it all is, it’s also beautiful. Someone finally took my side. Someone knows what happened and took my side. It allows for the possibility that I can be stained and poisonous but, someday, be loved in spite of it. It almost feels like I already am.

Our eyes meet and my heart hammers, but I can’t look away. It was never like this with Danny, a burning in my veins. I feel stretched thin waiting for something I can’t allow to happen, and the burning continues, grows, making me feverish and blind with it. By the time he finally reaches the bed, I am so strung out, so needy, that I’m past saying no. Incapable of it.

alone. I breathe deep, wishing I could save this forever, wanting everything to slow and also to move faster before one of us is stricken by our consciences.

sinking his teeth into my shoulder as he comes.

His weight sags as he collapses, crushing me beneath him, and I relish it. I want this, I want the smothering wholeness of him. I want to stay like this forever.

I hurt him. It’s probably for the best.

but who the hell am I to judge anyone’s motivations? No matter how bad Hilary is, she isn’t as bad as me.

We’re back to hating each other. Good. That’s just as it should be.

Luke is like me—he’s alone in ways the people around us are not.

I remember you were here. I remember every word you’ve ever said. I see you.

“Just because they say it,” his eyes tell me, “doesn’t mean we have to listen.” I smile in response. He’s right.

I lie in bed waiting for the sound of his footfall against the wood, for the sigh of the mattress as his knee sinks into it. When he arrives, I’ll tell him to leave. I will. Even if it’s the last thing I want to do. But I fall asleep waiting, and when the bed sighs and his weight is above me, I’m somehow unable to form the words I need to form. I want him to stop and I don’t want him to stop, and it’s only as my eyes fly open that I realize I’m alone.

He watches me approach, and when I get close enough, he moves fast, his hand coming from behind his head, reaching out to wrap around my waist as he pulls me on top of him. I feel his low groan as much as I hear it. He slides his fingers through my hair, pulling my mouth to his.

He smells like soap and salt, his chest damp with sweat though the night is cool. His cock is a thick steel rod between us, ready long before this moment. Did he know I’d come, or has he just waited like this, night after night, the same way I’ve waited for him?

His hands grip my hips, pulling me up an inch and back. Up two inches and back. He releases a small groan, desperate for more. “Jules. Fuck.” I brace my hands on his chest and begin to move, and his hands continue to grip my hips, slamming them against him, harder and harder, faster and faster.

We say nothing. I’d like to tell him how good it is, how it’s never been like this with anyone else, but I don’t. I just dig my nails into his skin as I break, hoping this was enough to drive him out of my system so I can finally move on.

Except he won’t always be around. Whether I’m still in Rhodes or somewhere else, I’m going to have to fend for myself eventually.

YOYOK

“Do you…still talk to them?” I bite my lip. “Sorry. You don’t have to discuss it if you don’t want.” “I’m an open book.” I laugh. “No one is less of an open book than you, Luke.” A smile flickers over his face. “For you, I’m an open book. And no, I don’t still talk to them. But I have an older sister. I talk to her sometimes.”

“Do you miss them?” He shrugs. “My mom, yeah, though I don’t know why. You know what my last memory is of her? Her hunting under the couch for a tooth my stepfather knocked out. And then her taking his fucking side when I kicked his ass.”

Danny doesn’t like to argue, but for the first time, I resent it—the way he’s choosing to let this discussion go as if he’s right and I’m wrong and he’s being big about it.

Luke steps closer. “He doesn’t understand you. It’s nothing against Danny. But his mind doesn’t work the way yours does.” I rise, picking the guitar up with me. “What do you mean?” His eyes fall to my lips, slow as a caress. “He doesn’t want depth, Juliet, and he doesn’t need it. Not everyone does. There are people who skim the surface their entire lives. But you’re not one of them. That’s why you write a bittersweet song that’s full of fucking layers and he comes away with one word—sad, and Donna would use the same word. It doesn’t mean they’d be right, and that’s why you’ve got to stop listening to them.”

“You look like something rare and wild,” he whispers, pushing the hair back from my cheek. My breath catches at the feel of his fingers on my skin. “Something they locked up in a cage. And I think you were so relieved to find a safe place to land you didn’t even realize it happened. I thought I could save you if I came here this summer, but even if someone opens the cage, you’ve got to be willing to fly away, too, Jules.” He swallows and steps away from me, looking down as if he’s said too much. And I’m pretty sure he did.

Best line of the entire book

“Has it ever been like this with anyone else?” He buries himself inside me. The words are a low growl against my ear. No, it’s never like this. Not even close. “Shut up,” I hiss. His hands grip my thighs, lifting me higher, making him go deeper. I gasp as he hits the exact right spot. “Answer.” He stops moving entirely, holding me pinned, still inside me. I’m so close. “Answer me or you won’t come.” I wish I had more pride, but I’m too desperate for it now. “No,” I admit, flinching. His hips snap backward and forward so hard that I hear the echo of it inside the garage. “Oh.” My eyes fall closed. “God.”

Before I can say another word, he’s closed the distance between us, one hand wrapping around the back of my neck as he pulls my mouth to his. It’s not a sweet, gentle peck on the lips. It’s as if I’m his only source of oxygen, as if he’ll die without it. Something desperate, something magical, is pulsing in my blood, blooming as his hands grip my jaw, framing my face in his palms. “I thought I was going to die, and the only thing that mattered, the only thing I wanted, was you,” he says against my mouth. “You were all I fucking thought about.”

“My sheets smell like you,” he says against my ear, his fingers grazing my neck as he pushes my hair away, “and I have your claw marks on my ass. I could follow you to your room right now and have you begging me to fuck you in seconds. It wouldn’t even be an effort. So, explain, exactly, how it would be the wrong thing for anyone to think.”

“You’re something wild and magnificent, and he has no idea how to take care of you, so he spends all his time making sure your cage is secure because he has no idea what else to do. And that’s why this kills me, Juliet. Because I think I do know how to take care of you, and I want to take his place so bad that it fucking hurts to look at you sometimes.”

“God,” he whispers. “Yes.” It’s different than what he just did with his tongue, and as satisfied as I thought I was, I can already feel my belly tightening, my muscles clenching around him. Those nerve endings wake to life again and my hands slide down to grip his ass. “Go slow,” I beg. “You’re gonna come again?” The words are a grunt, disbelief, hope, and desperation all at once. I gasp at his next sharp thrust. “Yes.”

I don’t know if he’s punishing me for the way I refuse to let this be anything more than it is, or showing me how full of shit I am—because he can prove it’s more. He can prove I’m his. I slide onto the floor, on my knees. He stands, shoving his boxers down and grabbing his cock, bringing it to my lips. “Open wide,” he demands, and when I do, he thrusts inside my mouth, weaving my hair through his fingers. “Take the whole thing,” he grunts. “All the way to the back of your throat.” He’s treating me like a whore, and I’m soaking wet anyway, participating eagerly because I’m so turned on. He uses his hand to move my head, faster and faster, going far enough to trigger my gag reflex. “You love this, don’t you?” he hisses. “You’ll do any fucking thing I ask, any hour of the day, but you can’t tell me the fucking truth a single goddamn time.”

Libby grabs Donna and spins her too. “He’s singing ‘Jingle Bells’,” I call over my shoulder to Libby and Donna. “I can’t believe you don’t know any other songs.” “I know lots of other songs,” he argues before launching into “The Wheels on the Bus”, loudly. Donna starts to sing along, and Libby and I are laughing so hard we’re nearly bent over. “You’re proven your point. We need a bigger floor,” says Hilary sharply, cutting into our silliness.

I try to grip the moment, seal it into my memory.

His words are polite, but his tone and the chill in his eyes send a clear message.

“Juliet, you don’t have that feeling because it’s not going to work out. You have that feeling because you still don’t believe you deserve a happy ending. Just this once, for me, have a little faith.” I rise and hug her for a very long time. People are the thing that will grind your trust down to nothing. But they’re also how you to discover a small seed of something inside yourself again, something soft and hopeful and full of love, something that will grow.