Summer's Echo

by Robbi Renee

Since I was seventeen years old, she’d been mine. My best friend, my confidant, my homie. But life—and the life-altering mistake that changed everything had reshaped us—twisted our paths in ways I never saw coming.

I was no longer interested in a relationship built on conditions, timelines, and rules—love that came with expectations instead of exhilaration. What I wanted was simpler, yet somehow more complicated at the same time. I just wanted to feel…butterflies.

Summer filled my thoughts. She was like a drug I couldn’t quit, and on her birthday, the craving hit harder than ever.

I had let my biological clock make a decision my heart should have controlled. It was an awful excuse, but it was my ugly truth—and today, I would finally be honest with him.

“Summer is vulnerable right now. Don’t confuse this situation by letting her run to you just because she doesn’t know where else to go.”

His touch was like a song I’d never heard before yet somehow knew by heart.

“I’m going to give you the space you need, Summer, but please understand, I’m going to be pressure. I’m not letting up until you tell me to.”

“Love, when it’s real, has a way of finding you no matter how far or fast you run.