by Ivy Smoak
He laughed. “No. I tried to end all this on my own. I didn’t think I needed any help. It turns out that a team is a lot better than working solo.”
“Yeah. It definitely is.”
“Speaking of which, they’re all in the waiting room. And I need to get going.” He stood up.
“You’re not going to stay?”
He smiled. “I’ve spent a lot of time trying to fix a wrong that I was a part of so many years ago.”
“None of it was your fault.”
“Your mom choosing me was the start of all of this.”
I shook my head. “It wasn’t your fault,” I said again.
He patted my shoulder. “Regardless, I finally feel free. And so should you. Go live your life, Summer.” He smiled. “I’ve been waiting to say those words to you for so long.”
“Will I ever see you again?”
“The number I originally gave you is to my cell phone. It should be working again shortly. But there’s still one last thing I need to do. After that, I don’t think you’re going to need me.” He winked and walked out of the room before I could ask him what he meant. And I had the strangest sensation that he was my guardian angel.
Liza came running into the room before the door even closed. “We didn’t make the evening news, but we did make the morning news.” She grabbed the remote and turned on the TV. “How are you guys?” she asked, but her eyes were glued to the TV screen.
“We’re good,” Miles said.
I turned around and smiled at him. I didn’t care about the news report. Mr. Crawford had put it exactly right. I was finally free.
Kins, Patrick, and Eli all came into the room with smiles on their faces.
“What now, Summer?” Kins asked and sat down on the edge of Miles’ bed. “Are you going to re-enroll for classes next semester?” She looked so hopeful.
I wanted to tell her yes. That everything would go back to normal. But there were some things I needed to do first. I walked back over to Miles and grabbed his hand. “All I can think about is going home.”
He squeezed my hand. “And we’ll figure it out from there.”
I wanted to see where so many of my favorite memories had evolved. And I had never been to the cemetery that my parents were buried in since the day of the funeral. My grandmother had always said it was too far of a trip. But really, I knew it was just too painful for her. It would be painful for me too, but I needed to do it. And I really wanted to see Miles’ parents again. They had always felt like family to me. And I needed to thank them for trying to find me.
“Do you think you’ll come back?” Liza asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Honestly, I kind of hate New York.”
They all laughed.
Maybe I would come back eventually. Miles and I had a lot to talk about. I wanted us to make our decisions together from now on. But he was more than halfway through getting his bachelor’s degree from Eastern University. Surely he’d want to come back in the fall. He’d be even closer to being done school if he hadn’t taken the semester off to help me.
“We’re going to miss you,” Kins said and threw her arms around me. “Both of you.”
“We’re all going to miss you,” Liza said and joined in on the hug.
“I’m going to miss you guys too.” And I would. So much of my life I had felt so alone. But now? My life was full of people that I loved.
Goodbyes were hard. But they were easier when I had the chance to say them. This didn’t feel final. I wasn’t losing them.
Chapter 47
Friday
“What if they don’t remember me?” I asked as we stepped off the plane.
Miles squeezed my hand. “They’ll remember you. I never stopped talking about you.”
“What if they hate me? You hated me. I caused you so much pain. Surely they’ll hate me for hurting you.”
“I don’t think my parents know how to hate anyone. Besides, they know how much I love you. And they’ve always loved you too.”
“Maybe I should at least book a hotel room. They probably don’t want me to stay at their house. God, we really should have told them I was coming. You should have at least told them you found me. You’re going to give your mom a heart attack.”
He laughed. “Summer, you’re being ridiculous. This is going to be a great surprise.”
“But what if…”
My words died away when I saw them. Mr. Young was standing there with a sign in his hands that read: “Welcome home, Miles.”
Welcome home. Those two words made my heart swell. My name wasn’t on the sign. They didn’t know that I was coming. Hell, they didn’t even know that I was alive. But it still felt like they were welcoming me.
Mrs. Young gasped and put her hand over her mouth. Tears started streaming down her cheeks.
“Summer?” Mr. Young’s voice sounded far away, like he couldn’t process that I was really here.
I felt tears falling down my face too as Mrs. Young ran over and threw her arms around me.
“Oh, sweetie. You’re okay. You’re okay, right?” She pulled back and grabbed my face in both her hands. “You’re okay?” She kept crying.
“I’m okay, Mrs. Young.”
She shook her head, keeping my face in her hands. “I never thought we’d see you again. Oh my, you’re so grown up.” She patted my cheeks. “You’re a beautiful woman.” It looked like she was about to cry even harder.
“We’ve missed you, Summer,” Mr. Young said. He stole me away from Mrs. Young and hugged me so hard it almost hurt. But I wouldn’t have changed a thing.
“I’m here too,” Miles said with a laugh.
I stepped back and Miles wrapped his arm around my waist.
Mrs. Young’s eyes lit up. She put her hand on her chest. “And you two are together? Yes?” She nodded like she didn’t even need a reply.
I looked up at Miles. “I can’t imagine my life without him.”
Mrs. Young started bawling again.
“Mom, stop crying.”
“I can’t.” She fanned her face. “You didn’t tell us you found her. Why didn’t you tell us you found her? Summer, he never stopped thinking about you. He’s loved you since he was what…eight years old?”
Mr. Young laughed. “Now you’re just trying to embarrass our son.” He put his arm around his wife and squeezed her shoulders. “Let’s get home, okay?”
Home. I was scared to see my old house. Scared of the memories it would bring to the surface.
“You’ve got this,” Miles whispered in my ear.
I looked up at him. I didn’t know how he always knew I needed him. But I felt so lucky.
Snow was falling when we stepped out of the airport. I breathed in the smell. It was different than snow in New York. It smelled like home here. I couldn’t keep the grin off my face as I nestled into the backseat of the car next to Miles.
And somehow I kept smiling through a very short story about what I had been through. I was done telling it. I was done with the pain. I glanced at Miles as his phone buzzed yet again.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
He glanced at his phone for a second before sliding it back in his pocket. “Yeah, everything’s great.” He smiled at me. “Dad, could you take the next right?”
His dad hit his turn signal. “Are we stopping somewhere?”
Miles stared at me. “The graveyard is actually on the way home, Summer. I know you said you wanted to visit it.”
Seeing his parents was so uplifting. I had planned on just visiting with them today and saving the hard stuff for tomorrow. But maybe it was better to do it now when I was smiling. Before I saw my old house. Before I had a chance for the memories to come to the surface.
I turned to the front seat. “If that’s okay, Mr. Young?”
He looked into the rearview mirror to see me. “Of course.” He made the right turn and in a few minutes he was pulling up to the graveyard.
I needed to do this, but
it didn’t stop my hand from shaking when I opened the car door.
“Do you want me to come with you?” Miles asked.
“No.” I swallowed down the lump in my throat. “I need to do this on my own.” I stepped out of the car before I could change my mind.
Even though I had only been here once, my feet remember the path. I left a trail of footprints in the soft snow as I wound my way through the gravestones.
I stopped and stared at their names. The last time I stood here, I had felt so numb. I didn’t cry at their funeral. I think part of me didn’t even believe it was happening. Because their memories seemed so close. But now? I struggled to hear my mom’s laugh. I struggled to feel the joy from my dad’s smile.
I wasn’t numb anymore. My tears felt hot on my cold cheeks. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. There were so many things I wished I could have said to them before they died. “I’m sorry I practically shoved you out the door that last night. But I know that you knew it. I know that.” I shook my head. “I love you both so much.”
I wiped my tears away. “And I’m sorry that I was mad at you for leaving me alone. I know you didn’t want to. I know that. I know that you loved me back.” They got caught up in something terrible. They tried to keep me safe. And I knew they tried their best. It felt like my heart was bleeding.
“I didn’t let him win,” I said. “I didn’t let him turn me into someone you wouldn’t be proud of. I’m still me. And I finally got justice for you.”
I put my hand on my father’s gravestone. It made me feel closer to him. Almost like he was here with me. I closed my eyes and tried to picture his laugh. But I couldn’t remember. I started crying harder.
“You better turn that frown upside down.”
The words he said to me so often swirled around me like the snow in the wind. But it wasn’t a memory. And I was suddenly aware of the fact that I didn’t feel close to him because I was touching his gravestone. I turned around and saw a ghost of a man.
His face was gaunt. His hair was gray and there were wrinkles creasing the corners of his eyes. He looked like he was starving. There was a scar down the left side of his cheek and neck that disappeared beneath his coat. He was so pale that his skin almost matched the color of the snow. He looked absolutely dreadful. Yet I had never seen such a perfect sight in my whole life.
“Dad?” The word came out of my mouth even though I knew it couldn’t be possible. This isn’t real. This can’t be real.
He smiled and it was the one thing that was the same. There had always been so much warmth in his smile. It always made me smile too. And seeing it for the first time in ten years was the greatest gift I could ever ask for. He nodded, like he didn’t believe the sight in front of him either.
I ran over to him. “Dad!” My voice cracked as I threw myself into his arms.
He caught me, despite how frail he looked. I felt his hot tears fall into my hair. “Baby, girl.”
He smelled the same. He sounded the same, even though I had never heard him cry. And he was sobbing even louder than me.
“Summer.” He held me even tighter. “I tried so hard to get to you. I tried.” His voice broke.
I believed him. He had clearly been tortured. For years. He looked so much older than his age.
“I’m so sorry, Summer. I’m so sorry that I couldn’t get to you.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for. I just can’t believe you’re alive. You are, right? I’m not imagining this?”
“It’s really me.”
“What about mom?” I pulled away from our hug. “Is she…”
He put his hand on the side of my face. “She died instantly in the car crash.” His eyes seemed to focus on the gravestone behind me. They were red from his tears. “Don was trying to kill me, not her. If I had died that night instead…”
“Then I’d still be alone.” My heart ached. I knew how much he loved my mom. I thought I had lost Miles a few nights ago. I knew that feeling of loss. But at least she died in the car crash and never had to be tortured by Don. She got to die happy.
My dad’s eyes focused back on me. “You were never alone, Summer. I was always thinking about you. And your friends are the only reason I’m standing here.”
“What?”
“They thought that your mother and I might still be alive. They told William. You remember William…I guess you’d remember him as Uncle Billy?”
I smiled. “I remember.”
“Don was keeping me in some storage facility in Colorado. William showed up this morning and found me.” He looked up at the falling snow. “It feels so good to breathe fresh air.”
His words broke my heart. “What did Don do to you?” I didn’t want to start crying again, but there was so much pain in my Dad’s face.
“Knowing you were out there without me was worse than anything he did to me.”
“I can’t believe you’re alive. I feel like I’m dreaming.”
He leaned down and hugged me again. “Is that Miles Young?” He released me from his embrace.
I looked behind me to see Miles walking toward us.
“Welcome home, Mr. Brooks.” Miles held out his hand.
My dad shook it. “Thank you for bringing us back together, son. I knew you’d find her even if I couldn’t.”
Miles looked over at me and smiled.
“You helped find him?” I asked.
“Mr. Crawford did all the hard work.”
I knew that wasn’t true. I walked over and hugged him. “Thank you, Miles,” I whispered in his ear. “Thank you for always believing in the impossible.”
Chapter 48
Friday
I tossed and turned in one of the Youngs’ guest beds. I was thankful that they let my father and me use their guest rooms. But I didn’t know how to fall asleep without Miles’ arms around me.
I slid out of bed and walked over to the window. I always found snow calming. Maybe watching it fall would help me sleep. But when I looked outside, I saw that the snow had stopped falling. The night sky was clear. I smiled to myself. Miles wouldn’t be in his room anyway. He’d be in his tree house.
I pulled my winter coat on over my pajama top and shoved my bare feet into my boots. I felt silly slipping out the back door. We weren’t kids anymore. It was possible that Miles was fast asleep in his bed. But I still climbed the rickety ladder up to his tree house. I knocked twice on the boards above my head.
“Secret password,” he said.
I laughed. But it didn’t stop me from trying to remember what the smallest constellation visible in the sky would be right now. “Caelum.”
The floorboard door opened above me and I climbed up. “I can’t believe you remembered,” he said.
“I can’t believe you’re out here. It’s freezing.”
“The sky’s clear. Where else would I be?” He patted the spot beside him. “Come here.”
I curled into his side and looked up at the sky. “I never stopped looking at the stars. It made me feel close to you when you were so far away.”
He kissed the side of my forehead. “Me too.”
“Geez, this tree house is smaller than I remembered.” If I stretched out I’d probably be able to touch all four walls at once.
“I think it’s more so that we grew up. Speaking of which, I have something for you.”
“Is it another pendant? Because I’m happy with the one I have.”
“No, I promise I didn’t buy you more jewelry from the quarter machine at the grocery store,” he said with a laugh. “Close your eyes.”
I stared at him. “You’ve already given me so much.”
“Close your eyes, Summer.”
I smiled and finally closed my eyes. I had no idea what he had gotten me. But I knew it couldn’t top today. Getting my dad back. His parents accepting me. Finally coming home after all these years.
“Okay, open your eyes,” he said.
I opened them and looked down at his two outstretched fist
s.
“Pick a hand.”
I laughed. “Not this again.” But really I was loving every second of him recreating that night that we first held hands. When we first admitted that we both wanted to be more than friends. I tapped his right fist.
He opened it. There was a piece of paper folded multiple times. “Read it.”
I lifted it out of his hands and started to unfold it. I scanned through the letter as fast as I could. He was being signed by Manchester United as a striker.
“It’s the third offer they’ve sent me because I didn’t respond to the other two,” he said. “I was waiting until everything with Don was over. But I have to decide by tomorrow…”
“This is your dream.” I waved the paper at him. “This is everything you’ve always wanted. How have you not responded to this?”
He shook his head. “You’re my dream. Soccer is a very very distant second.”
“Don’t you want to go?”
“Only if you’ll come with me.”
“Miles, I’d follow you to the ends of the earth. You know that. Of course I’ll go with you.”
“What about college?”
“Are you kidding? I’ll take classes online. I meant what I said earlier. I hate New York City. I don’t want to go back there. Let’s go to England!”
He looked so happy. “Really?”
“Yes, really! We’ll just get Liza to ship all our stuff over there instead of here. What is the temperature over there? Could I ask my dad to come with us?”
“Thank you.” He leaned forward and kissed me. “And to answer your questions: cold and yes.”
I laughed. Coming back here had been wonderful. But we needed a fresh start. More distance between Don would be nice too. I had moved around a lot as a kid. But I had never gotten to choose the place. England was somewhere I’d always wanted to go. “When do we leave?”
“As soon as possible. We’ll need to find a flat.”
I laughed. “This is going to be so much fun.” I looked down at his other hand. It was still closed in a fist. “What was in your other hand?”
“Nothing much.” He opened his palm and tossed something at me.
