by Nyrae Dawn
“Gutted? What about Marisol? You moved on.”
“The way you did? You just admitted to me that you were with people you didn’t want, so fuck you, Brandon. I love her! We had all these plans and…and you all knew. Everyone knew, but me.” Now it’s me who’s pacing the room. “I was the only one in the dark. I was wrecked and all three of you could have said something to ease it, but no one did!” Another thought hits me and it takes everything inside me not to tackle my brother and kick his ass. “I lost her so you could what? Keep Alec? So you guys could have your secret?”
“No. That’s not it! We didn’t talk last year. It didn’t feel right. You don’t fucking get it, Nate!”
The downstairs door opens, and Alec and Charlotte walk in.
“You didn’t tell me,” is the first thing I say when she walks in.
Charlotte looks at Brandon, then at me and back to Brandon again, putting all the pieces together. Alec is right next to her. I can’t read the guarded expression on his face and I don’t want to.
“How could I, Nate? I wanted to, so bad, but it was their secret to tell. It…it wouldn’t have been right.”
I’ve always felt like I fit with Charlotte. Like we belonged, matched even though there are things about us that are so different. We made sense and I felt like I would always fit with her.
But I was wrong. Just like last summer, they’re on one side, and I’m on the other.
“No matter what, I would always do anything to make sure you weren’t hurt. Do you know what it felt like to see you with him? It was like you punched through my chest and ripped my heart out. You could have found a way. Someway to tell me something at least so I wouldn’t spend all that time wondering what I did wrong or if everything was a lie.”
“I spent months the same way!” Charlotte steps closer to me. “After the first summer you just dropped off the face of the Earth and left me hanging. Don’t you think that whole time I wondered what I did wrong?”
“No.” I shake my head. “That was different. We hadn’t spent the summer saying we loved each other.”
“So? Saying it doesn’t make it truer! I always knew I loved you. I did everything I could to tell you I didn’t want to kiss Alec, without telling something that wasn’t mine to share. You’re the one who chose not to trust me.”
At that, the room goes silent. I’m breathing heavy. Alec has walked over to Brandon. Charlotte and I are standing about five feet apart, staring at each other. She’s right. I’ve probably always known it. I’ve thought about it lately, how I didn’t trust her, when I should have.
Words are lost. I don’t know what to say. Brandon’s cell ringing makes it so I don’t have to.
“Dad? What’s wrong?” I hear my brother say. He pauses. “We’ll be right there!”
Brandon pushes around me and heads for the door. “We have to go! Mom’s having the baby and they can’t stop the delivery.”
Alec drives Brandon’s truck because we’ve both been drinking. How screwed up are we? Our mom is in the hospital, trying not to go into preterm labor, and we’re getting drunk. Not that I feel any kind of buzz now, but still.
No one says a word, except for Brandon reminding Alec how to get to the hospital. We go to Labor and Delivery.
One of the nurses we’ve seen before is at the desk when we get in. She gives us a sad look.
“You guys are going to have to wait here. They’re delivering right now. I should have some news for you soon, okay?”
My hands are shaking as I nod. We take a seat in the waiting room. My right leg bounces up and down, but I can’t make it stop. I feel like I’m going to shake out of my skin.
I don’t know what to feel right now. I’m scared to death for Mom and the baby. For Dad. Scared of losing the baby. Hurt from Charlotte and Brandon. Confused. Guilty for not believing her or not realizing my brother held such an important part of himself from me.
I lean my elbows on my knees, head down, and try to take a couple deep breaths. Without letting myself think, I reach over and grab Charlotte’s hand. None of our problems matter right now. She locks our fingers together and leans into me. Kisses my shoulder and whispers, “I’m here. Whatever you need, I’m here.”
Just knowing there’s someone there to share some of the pain, helps.
My eyes find Brandon. Tears stain his face. He’s shaking just like I am. I see the fear in his eyes. Alec sitting beside him…yet he can’t comfort Brandon the way Charlotte does me.
Or I guess he can, but they’re scared. I cock my head, trying to figure out what that would feel like. To be so lost and freaked out of your own mind, but the fear of letting someone else see who you are is stronger.
It’s not only my pain that Brandon’s fear won the battle with, but his own. Yeah, he wasn’t honest with me, but it wasn’t to hurt me. And seeing him hear and knowing he’d probably like to have someone share some of his burden the way Charlotte does with me, shows me he’s suffered too. Longer than I ever have. Alec is within his reach, but he can’t go to him. Someone to support him, but he’d suffer alone. I hate it.
“Go somewhere,” tumbles out of my mouth.
“What?” Brandon asks.
“We’ll stay here. Find a room or whatever you guys need. Just stay close. The second Dad comes out, I’ll text you. You shouldn’t be alone in this.”
Brandon rushes to his feet, grabs me and pulls me into the tightest hug. “Thank you. I’m sorry. Thank you.” Something tells me he’s thanking me for more than just this. Maybe this whole time, he’s been afraid we wouldn’t accept him.
“There’s nothing to thank me for,” I tell him.
When we pull away, Alec looks at me. The guy I’ve hated for four years. The one who’s hated me and maybe loves my brother, holds my stare and says, “Thanks, man. You’re all right, you know?”
I nod. As they’re walking away, I sit down again. I pull Charlotte to my lap, wrap my arms around her waist and bury my head in her neck. “I want my brother to be okay. Both of them.”
“They will be. I think the Chase boys can do just about anything.”
That one sentence gives me hope. It’s not the exact same, but close enough to the same thing I said before.
There are so many words that could be said right now; I’m sorry, forgive me, I trust you, I love you, but I’m not now is the time. Eventually? Yeah, but I think deep down, we all already know them, regardless.
Only twenty-five minutes after we get there, Joshua is born. He weighs 1.5 pounds. His lungs are weak. He has to have tubes all over him, but he’s here. And I know he’ll be okay. He’s a Chase.
Charlotte and Alec stay all night with us. Charlotte doesn’t let go of me the whole time. I don’t want her to. Alec is never more than a foot away from Brandon either.
In the morning, she and Alec make plans to leave. Their plane leaves to take them home in two days and they have things to take care of before they go.
Alec and Brandon have disappeared again. They’ve done that a lot over the summers, I realize, and it makes me feel even worse for them. So many times I could have tried to get to know my brother better. Maybe if I would have, he would have realized he could trust me. That I would always love him no matter what.
Charlotte and I walk outside. They’re taking Brandon’s truck back to our house for their things, and then a cab to the train station. It sucks not to be able to take them ourselves, but we need to stay here with our family.
When Charlotte looks at me, tears fill her eyes. “You’d think I’d get used to saying goodbye to you.”
I cup her cheek; brush her tears away with my thumb.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“No, I’m sorry. You’re right. I could have found a way.”
“Maybe you could have, maybe you couldn’t. I was selfish and jealous. I’m pretty sure I made it too hard for you to be honest, anyway. I don’t think it matters. None of us are perfect, Star Girl. I forget that sometimes. I think we all do, but
that’s life, right? You make mistakes and you learn from them and you grow up.” That’s what we’ve done together—grown up. The first time I saw her, she was this skinny tomboy, who stumbled over her words in front of me and I kind of liked that I made her react that way. That I gave her something that no one else did.
And then the next year, she was giving that to me.
We’ve grown and changed, screwed up, but at the beginning of each summer, we found each other again. Or maybe we never really lost each other.
“Over the past four years, nothing important has ever happened in my life that I haven’t shared with you. Even if it was months later, or through the computer, or in the middle of a lake, or under the stars. I should have trusted you.”
The tears keep coming and I keep wiping them.
“I’m going to Columbia in the fall,” I finally tell her.
Her eyes go wide, and she kind of shakes her head a little. “What? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I don’t know, but I’m saying it now.” I think back to last year, what I told her while we sat in those chairs by the lake when she wore her yellow bikini. “I want to be with you. I’ve always wanted to be with you. For three years we said goodbye at the end of each summer. We made plans to keep in contact, but that didn’t always happen. We made plans to stay together and that never happened. This time we’re saying goodbye after only two weeks, but at the end of the summer, you’ll be back.”
“We’ll talk every day,” she uses my same words from last year.
“And when you get back, I’ll take the train to see you every weekend.” It’s not perfect, but it’s doable. An hour and a half is nothing compared to everything we’ve been through.
“I love you, Nathaniel Chase. I’ve loved you since I stepped out of that cabin and I dropped the keys in front of you. Every first I’ve ever had is with you and I want to keep having them.”
“I love too, Star Girl. You’re it for me.” I drop my forehead to hers. Slide my hand around to the back of her neck. And then I kiss her, knowing this time, we’re ready. All those other summers and those other kisses and everything else we shared, my dad choosing some random lake in some random town to stay in one year, the fights and the screw ups that helped us learn and gave us experiences with other people. They were all meant to happen, and our paths were supposed to cross over and over again. Until we found that point, the bright star in the summer sky that would be ours forever.
Out of all the years, this is the one she changed and grew the most, the one we both did.
“I’ll see you soon,” I tell her.
It’s not goodbye anymore.
“See you soon.”
As if on cue, Brandon and Alec walk up. My brother hugs her goodbye. I look at Alec and hold out my fist. He bumps it with his.
“What are you going to do?” I ask Brandon, after they disappear.
“I don’t know. It’s hard.”
“You know Mom and Dad won’t care. They’ll support you no matter what.”
“I know.”
“And me.”
“I know that too,” he tells me.
“I feel like shit that you didn’t think you could tell me who you are. Whatever I did, I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault. It’s not always feeling like you can’t trust someone…I think it’s also about being honest with myself. If it was a secret, I could pretend it wasn’t true. Shitty, right? That I’m not man enough to be proud of who I am.”
“What?” I grab his arm. “You’re a hell of a lot stronger than you give yourself credit for.”
Brandon nods. “It’s not just my secret. It’s Alec’s too.”
“You have shitty taste in guys,” I tease him.
Brandon punches me. “Dickhead.”
“I’m kidding. He’s not too bad.”
He opens his mouth as if he’s going to say something about Alec, but I can tell he’s not ready. Brandon takes a deep breath. “Come on. Let’s go see Joshua.”
“I’m here, man. Know I’m always here.”
Brandon nods.
I walk inside with my brother, my best friend and hope he’s able to be himself one day. Hope he sees there is nothing wrong with who he is.
My phone vibrates in my pocket and I pull it out.
I’ll see you soon
I smile at Charlotte’s text. Maybe everything isn’t perfect. I don’t know if it ever is. But if you ask me, it’s pretty close.
For the first time, everything went as planned. Alec and I went back to The Village. We worked all summer, helping Dad. His parents were always there too, even though things are still strained with Alec and his dad. Nate and I talked every day. He told me about his trips to the hospital to see Joshua, who was getting stronger all the time. Josh was a Chase boy, after all. We talked about Brandon and Alec, who kept in touch, but still didn’t now what they were going to do. Brandon had to go back to Ohio for school soon. It wasn’t like it was the moon, I’d told Alec. He looked at me one day and said he finally got it. He understood why I wanted out. Not that there was anything wrong with The Village, but there was a whole other world out there, too. He always thought if he stayed here, stayed with me, he could deny who he really was. I told him to be proud of who he is, I hoped he’d explore the world one day. That there would always be a place for him, for my best friend, with me.
A week before I left for Vassar, Dad told me Nancy was moving in. For the first time in maybe forever, I think my dad was really happy.
Every day, I still think about the first time I saw Nate. About walking out of cabin 3B, and having my first moment. Just like I knew I wouldn’t, I haven’t forgotten it. I relive it every time I see him.
The End
My first thanks always has to go to my family. My husband and two beautiful little girls deal with my obsessiveness when it comes to my writing. To my delayed responses and those days that I just can’t pull my brain away from my characters. I am so lucky they deal with me.
Wendy Higgins for always, always being there. Jolene for the quick read and those two really awesome things you caught that I totally missed! Also thanks to Heather for reading and for your enthusiasm over one of my favorite parts of this story.
To my readers. I can do this because of YOU. Your support, excitement, reviews, tweets and messages never cease to brighten my day. Every day I am thankful for all that you do for me.
From a very young age, Nyrae Dawn dreamed of growing up and writing stories. It always felt as if publication were out of her grasp—one of those things that could never happen, so she put her dream on hold.
Nyrae worked in a hospital emergency room, fell in love, and married one of her best friends from high school. In 2004 Nyrae, her husband, and their new baby girl made a move from Oregon to Southern California and that’s when everything changed. As a stay-at-home mom for the first time, her passion for writing flared to life again.
She hasn’t stopped writing ever since.
Nyrae has a love of character-driven stories and emotional journeys. She feels honored to be able to explore those things on a daily basis and get to call it work.
With two incredible daughters, an awesome husband and her days spent writing what she loves, Nyrae considers herself the luckiest girl in the world. She still resides in sunny Southern California, where she loves spending time with her family and sneaking away to the bookstore with her laptop.
You may connect with me online via
My site http://www.nyraedawn.com
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/nyraedawnwrites?ref=hl
Twitter https://twitter.com/NyraeDawn
Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5784345.Nyrae_Dawn
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