Then I realized—maybe he hadn’t done it for me. Or at least not only for me.
He’d done it for him.
Whatever retort I’d been about to bite back at Amanda, it died on my tongue and I swallowed the words back down. “Yeah. Yeah, I know that. It was hard for me, too. But like he said—I guess loving each other isn’t always enough.”
“Guess not.”
She squeezed my shoulder. “I know you’re working tomorrow and you’ve got plans with your family, so I don’t think I’ll see you before I go to the airport. I know we had, um…Well, I think it’s safe to say we didn’t exactly get off on the best foot, but I’ve really loved getting to know you, especially this summer. And I think you’re really bloody brilliant, Elle Evans, so even if things with you and Noah are a bit weird at the minute, please stay in touch. And we’ll hang out next year, yeah? When you’re at Harvard.”
I gave an awkward smile and decided that was a conversation for another time. I was honestly touched by her little speech—and Amanda was, even after everything last Thanksgiving, a good friend.
“Next time I’m in Boston,” I told her, “I’ll look you up.”
* * *
• • •
With the beach house stripped almost bare, Rachel was right: it did feel like it was all ending. The front door was open, and Lee and Noah were going back and forth loading up the cars with boxes—or trash bags, which we’d had to use to pack up all the bedding after we’d realized we didn’t have any boxes left.
I left the rumpus room after giving it one final sweep to check we hadn’t missed anything, not even a pen cap, and stood in the hallway with an empty box, surveying the wall of framed photographs.
My breath shuddered as my eyes roamed over the wall, drinking in each and every photo. I knew we weren’t just tossing them out, but I also knew that June had no plans to re-create the gallery wall back at their house.
Our whole lives, right here on this wall.
I looked at each photograph, watching us grow up. Baby Brad, toddler Brad, all the way up to a ten-year-old Brad holding a jellyfish on the beach, beaming at the camera, Noah kneeling next to him and June with a stiff smile, looking warily down at the creature. My dad, standing with his arm around my mom, then without her, the lines quickly appearing on his face, then some of the grief on his shoulders disappearing as the years went on. Matthew and June, that one summer they were particularly frosty toward each other…
And each year, a photograph of me, Lee, and Noah. The three of us down on the beach. The start of summer, Fourth of July, the end of summer, some random day that meant nothing and everything—every summer of our lives, immortalized on this wall.
I blinked away the tears and sniffed.
Today I was determined not to cry.
(Lee had cried. Several times. Noah or I just handed him tissues each time—or toilet paper, when we discovered we’d packed the last box of Kleenex.)
At a noise in the doorway, I tore my gaze away from the photographs to watch Noah stepping onto the porch. He stretched his arms over his head and cracked his neck. Long, strong limbs and a flash of the skin of his toned abs as his shirt rode up. His hair shone in the sunlight.
Lee was carrying one last box past him and paused to say something. Lee, with his mischievous, easy smile and dancing eyes, looking so like Noah and yet so not, his hair a mess and his nose red with sunburn.
Just like that. The blink of an eye, and they were all grown up. We were all grown up. With fall and college and new beginnings and new adventures on the horizon, this glorious, golden summer—it was ending.
“Hey,” I yelled, and the Flynn brothers I’d loved so differently and so deeply both looked at me. “What do you guys say to one last photo?”
Chapter Thirty-Five
We still had time before summer was over, but not much.
With the beach house behind us, today felt like The Day for tying up loose ends. It was still pretty early when I got home. Two cars were in the driveway: Dad’s and a shiny dark blue one I guessed was Linda’s.
Inside, I found the three of them chattering in the lounge. Brad was jumping about as he told a story, a plate of half-eaten snacks and empty glasses on the table alongside a pack of cards, some game they’d abandoned.
“And then—pchwwwww!” Brad scrunched up his face, arms swinging. “He hit it right out of the park!”
Linda gasped. “Whoa! No way!”
Dad was laughing, and then spotted me in the doorway. “Elle! We weren’t expecting you for another hour. Did you guys finish up early?”
I nodded.
His face fell. “Everything okay, bud?”
“Sure. Sure it is. Hi, Linda. Hi, Brad. Um, could I just…Dad, can I talk to you for a minute? In the kitchen?”
He got a look on his face, like he was bracing himself for bad news. My stomach fizzed, like a bath bomb that had been set off and wouldn’t stop. I fidgeted with my hands, hearing my dad’s sharp intake of breath as he followed me to the kitchen and closed the door.
“What’s this all about?” he asked me gravely.
“It’s about college.” I took a deep breath. Today was a day for saying goodbye to things and looking forward. Today was a day to put everything right. Or as right as it could be. I closed my eyes for a second to compose myself, and then met Dad’s serious, worried gaze before launching into the speech I’d prepared in the car.
“I’ve decided not to go to Harvard. I know you’re going to be disappointed, but I’ve made my decision. I didn’t pick it for the right reasons and I don’t think I really even want to go there. And it was the same with Berkeley—I didn’t pick it for the right reasons. But I’ve looked into it, and I’ve put in a late application to USC. I can start in the fall. Majoring in video game design. I know Berkeley and Harvard are great schools, but I really think this is what I want to do, and USC is the top school in the country for game development. Plus, I’ve already spoken to May and I can keep my job at Dunes while I’m studying, and I’ll be around to help out here when you need, around my class schedule. I’ve got it all worked out.”
There were several long, awful moments of silence when I finally stopped for breath. Dad blinked owlishly at me from behind his glasses, his mouth slack.
I bit my lip, shifting nervously from one foot to the other. “Dad? Dad, come on, please say something. I know it’s not what you were expecting—”
“I’ll say!” he interrupted with a burst of laughter that caught me completely off guard. He sighed, shaking his head. “Elle, the look on your face, acting so serious…I thought you were going to say you were pregnant! God!”