She was surprised at how empty she felt. Shouldn’t she be throwing things, vowing revenge, cursing the names of Seth and Diana? In a soap opera she would get even. She would steal Seth back from Diana, she would make Seth pay for his lies. Or at least get amnesia, adopt a new identity, and return to town as a redhead.
But all she felt was emptiness. It almost disappointed her. Was she such a wimp she couldn’t even dredge up a decent anger high? Marquez would be outraged on Summer’s behalf. Why couldn’t Summer manage to feel anything?
She tried to imagine Diana in Seth’s arms. Tried to imagine them laughing at how naive Summer was, how they’d faked her out. She felt like a computer in need of a bigger memory. A little more RAM—maybe then she’d see the whole picture. Maybe then she’d come up with the appropriate feelings.
She heard a soft motorized whir and looked down to see Jared, the guy she’d been hired to assist, moving slowly down the long cement path to the beach. He was swathed in bandages—his arms, his face, one leg. The other leg was in a cast.
He paused at the sand’s edge, unable to go farther. He looked so alone, even more alone than Summer. She wondered why his family wasn’t here for him. He had no friends, just the people hired to care for him. And now Summer was one of them, his paid companion.
When she’d come running here, suitcase in hand, she’d told Jared what had happened. For him to hurt you like this, he’d said, he must have truly lost his way.
Losing your way. It was a nice phrase. It was how she’d felt a lot this summer, since graduating. Lost. Faced with hard choices and no nice neat plan to guide her—just her hunches about what made sense. As if life were one humongous, unsolvable geometry problem. Which college to choose. Which job to take. Which guy to pick—Austin or Seth.
She’d picked Seth. Out of loyalty, and out of love.
So much for hunches.
She went back into the huge bedroom. A large stone fireplace dominated one end of the room, but it was hard to imagine ever using it here in Florida. Around the fireplace dark wood shelves held thick, leather-bound books. She scanned the shelves, found a couple of promising titles, and pulled them out. She’d promised Jared she’d read to him tonight.
Summer headed down the long, winding staircase. The house was quiet, as immaculate as a hospital and just about as sterile. Even the perfectly manicured garden in the back seemed antiseptic—not a dying bloom or fallen leaf anywhere.
“Hi, Jared,” she said quietly, hoping not to startle him.
He turned his bandaged head an inch or two. Again she was reminded of a mummy. Between the bandages covering his injuries from the car accident, the cast on his leg, and the expensive clothes, the only parts of his body visible were his dark, luminous eyes and his left hand.
“I thought you were napping,” he said in the hoarse whisper caused by his injured vocal cords.
“I was. It was nice too. I sort of forgot everything.” She sat on the white bench at the end of the path.
“I do that,” Jared said. “Then when I wake up, I’m always sort of shocked by all these bandages.”
Summer nodded. His problems were so enormous that she felt her own shrivel in comparison. “I brought Huckleberry Finn,” she said. “And something about spies I’ve never heard of. I thought I could read to you, if you want.”
Jared stared at her in that unselfconscious way he had, as if she were an expensive museum piece he’d just acquired. “We’ll start tomorrow. You relax, sit here. You had a rough day.”
“Not so rough.”
“Your boyfriend and your cousin—” Jared began, letting the rest go unsaid. “That’s pretty rough.”
Summer’s eyes stung, surprising her with tears. She hadn’t cried yet. But the sound of pity in a stranger’s voice was like the starting shot she’d been waiting for. She looked away, down the thin white beach. The sky was the vivid, unreal blue of night starting. Gaslights in the garden glowed like huge fireflies.
“I just feel like such a fool,” Summer said, still looking away. “How could I not have known there was something between them? I can even understand how Seth might have had feelings for someone else, because I do. Did, I mean. But to keep it from me, all these months…”
“Did you tell him?” Jared asked.
Summer turned to face him. He seemed to be straining toward her, leaning in his wheelchair with effort. She wondered if he was so intensely curious because he’d been starved for companionship for many months, or if he was just being polite.
“I told him eventually,” she admitted. She managed a weak smile. “I know, I know. How can I be mad at him when I did the same…but it’s not the same, not really. Diana’s my cousin, Jared. For her and Seth to be together—I don’t know. It feels different. Like a bigger betrayal.”
Again that word. And again she wondered why she couldn’t match her sad, small feelings to the big hurt it implied.
“I’ve done my share of betraying people,” Jared said. “It’s much easier than you’d think. But cleaning up the mess afterward…that isn’t so easy.” The slight movement around his lips made her wonder if he was smiling.
The glass doors to the back porch eased open, and Summer turned to see Stan, Jared’s butler. “A visitor to see Ms. Smith,” he said in his clipped New England accent.
“Visitor?” Summer repeated. Marquez! Marquez had gotten her note and rushed over after work to commiserate. Summer felt a surge of relief.
“It’s probably my roommate,” Summer told Jared. “I hope you don’t mind. I mean, we didn’t really discuss whether it’s okay for me to have guests—”
“Of course,” Jared said. “It’s your house too, for as long as you want.”
She started down the long path that snaked through the garden. Stan was holding the door, waiting so stiffly that she felt a little like royalty. A figure appeared in the dim glow of the porch light. Summer gasped.
“Summer,” Seth said. “We have to talk.”
3
First Love, First Good-bye
“I have nothing to say to you, Seth.”
Seth rushed at her, grabbing her shoulders. His face was grim. “We have to talk. You have to let me explain.”
Summer shook off his hands. “Please, Seth,” she said.
She was terribly aware of Stan and Jared, perfect strangers watching her private drama unfold. She felt like an actor in a very poorly attended outdoor performance of Laguna Beach.
But Seth was adamant. “I’m not leaving.”
“It’s all right, Summer,” Jared said, rolling toward her down the path. His voice was barely audible over the sound of the waves crashing on the beach. “I was just leaving.”
When he reached them, Jared paused for a moment, the hum of his wheelchair suddenly quieted.
“Jared, this is Seth Warner,” Summer said.
“Hi.” Seth gave a terse nod.
“You okay?” Jared asked Summer.
“Fine. I’m sorry about this. Maybe we can read tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” Jared said. He tilted his head, eyeing Seth carefully, then headed toward the door where Stan was waiting.
Summer returned to the bench and sat stiffly. Seth joined her, careful to leave space between them. She realized suddenly that this could be the last time they saw each other. They would call it off. Seth would go back to California. Down the road they might run into each other—say, at a party for a mutual friend. She could picture the awkward, surprised glance, the cold, heavy feeling in her chest. She wondered if they would even acknowledge each other. Would they pretend all their time together had never happened?
“How did you find out?” Seth asked.
“A love letter. From Diana to you.”
He gave a harsh laugh. “I never saw it.”
“She never sent it.”
“Diana wanted you to find out, you know.” Seth was staring at the ocean, not at her. “If we end things over this, it’ll be just what she wanted to have happen.?
??
Summer sighed. She had the strange desire to nestle close to him, not because she needed to, but out of habit. It seemed unreal, the two of them sitting there like strangers waiting for a bus.
“I can almost understand you wanting Diana,” Summer said. She was surprised at how reasonable she sounded. “I mean, she’s beautiful and smart and sexy and…”
“Not you,” Seth finished. “She’s not you, Summer.”
“Maybe that was the whole point.”
“There was no ‘point,’ it was just an…an accident. I didn’t mean for it to happen—”
“Were you…together when she went out to California last week to visit?”
Seth squirmed a little. “We saw each other, yeah.”
“Were you together?” Summer pressed.
He didn’t answer. Well, duh, Summer. Connect the dots. She’d actually been naive enough to encourage Diana to visit Seth. They must have had a good laugh over that. Summer Smith, junior matchmaker.
“As I was saying,” Summer continued in a prim lecturing voice that she’d never heard from herself before, “I could almost understand your going after Diana. The temptation and all. It’s like Austin and me.” She was glad when he winced a little. “But what I can’t understand, Seth, is how you could have kept it from me all these months. How you could have let me feel so rotten and guilty about Austin when you knew what you’d done with Diana was every bit as bad. Worse, even.”
“Why is it any worse?” Seth asked. “Why isn’t it just the same?”
“I can’t explain it—it just is. Because she’s my cousin and my roommate, and you knew, you both knew, how much it would hurt me.”
“You hurt me too, Summer. And I forgave you.”
“Do you love Diana?”
“No,” Seth said automatically. “Not exactly.”
“Not exactly.”
“I’m only in love with you. Doesn’t that make it any better, Summer?”
“In a way it makes it worse, Seth. Because it means you were just using Diana. It makes me feel sorry for her.”
“The using was mutual, trust me. You don’t need to feel sorry for Diana. You think it was an accident I flew back here to see you? Diana’s the one who told me you weren’t wearing my ring anymore. She’s the one who told me about Austin—” His voice cracked.
She watched the tears trail down his cheeks. It scared her how indifferent she felt. How numb. She’d only seen Seth cry a couple of times. But now, seeing him cry over her, it was like watching a movie where you’d already figured out the ending and you wondered if maybe you should go buy some more popcorn.
“Summer.” Seth took her hand. “We can’t let it end like this. This is crazy. We’ve been through too much together. We’re engaged.”
“We were engaged.”
“What about everything you said last night?” Seth cried. He was growing increasingly frantic, but the more agitated he got, the more cool and centered she felt. “About how what mattered most was loyalty and faithfulness and all we’d gone through together? Are you telling me this is it? It’s over?”
Summer thought for a while. The finality of it all began to penetrate, like a tiny flashlight in dense fog. “It just feels like we’ve gone through too much, Seth,” she said softly. “It’s like…like that car of yours that you finally sold to the junkyard for parts. That Dodge? Remember how you kept trying to patch it together and as soon as you did something else would go wrong—the back door fell off or the alternator died? And then that old man rear-ended you in the parking lot at Wendy’s and you just said, okay, it’s time to give up. This is like the final straw. This is our rear-ending at Wendy’s.”
She tried to smile, but the muscles wouldn’t obey. It occurred to her that only a few days ago, she’d told Austin it was over between them. In the space of a week she’d ended relationships with the two great loves of her life.
Last summer she’d come to the Keys just hoping to meet a cute guy, maybe even fall in love. She’d worried about her flirting technique and her dancing technique and her kissing technique.
And now here she was, polishing her breaking-up technique.
Suddenly she felt very old. Older than Seth. Older than her friends. Older even than those actors on reruns of 90210.
Seth reached into his pocket. He held out something small and shiny in his palm, and she knew at once that it was another ring.
“I found it at Woolworth’s today,” Seth said. “A replacement ring for your replacement ring.” He paused. “When Diana came to see me in California, she brought a ring with her. She said it was yours.”
Summer gasped. “She found my ring and didn’t tell me?”
“I was going to mail the real one to you when I got back to California. But now I guess you won’t be needing it.”
“No,” Summer said softly.
Seth pressed the ring into her hand. “You might as well take this. I’ve already got a real one. Besides, I’m not going back to California for a while.”
“What? You have to go back and finish your internship. You said you were learning so much about boat building—”
“Screw all that. I’m going to go hang out with my grandfather on Crab Claw for a while. Finish up the summer there.”
“Look, there’s something you should know, Seth. I reapplied to Carlson College.”
Seth looked at her blankly. “When?”
“Before this. Before I found out about you and Diana. I went for a visit, and I realized I was only going to UW to please you. Well, mostly I realized I was going there because I was afraid I wouldn’t hack it at Carlson.”
“I thought you wanted us to be together. So you were planning on breaking up with me all along?”
“No, no. I knew it was going to be hard, being at different colleges, but I thought you could try to reapply to Carlson next semester and—”
“What does it matter now?” Seth interrupted. “The point is, you were ready to give up on us.”
“No.” Summer closed her fingers around the little ring with its fake diamond. “I just wasn’t ready to give up on myself. And you shouldn’t be either. You should go back to California, finish out the internship.”
Seth just shook his head.
“I’m glad for everything we had, Seth.” Summer touched his damp cheek. “You’ll always be my first love.” She was glad she was being so generous. She didn’t want to feel bad about this later. No scenes, no accusations.
“Maybe if we give it some time?” Seth said hoarsely.
She started to say, No, it’s over, it’s time for you to move on. But when she looked into his desperate, regretful eyes, she couldn’t bring herself to say it.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “Maybe.”
The word was so small and sad, so pathetically hopeful. When Seth leaned over and softly kissed her, she felt something inside shift and crack.
She was almost relieved when she finally started to cry herself.
4
Please Leave a Message After the Beep….
Marquez marched down the sidewalk toward her boyfriend’s apartment, her dark curls bouncing rhythmically. She’d been calling Diver all evening without success. Now she was opting for the up-close-and-personal approach.
Her mind was reeling. After work she’d gone home to her apartment to change clothes, only to discover that Summer, her best friend, had moved out. Marquez didn’t need a scorecard. She’d known all about the little game Diana and Seth had been playing, but she’d kept her mouth shut, hoping things would work out on their own.
Great. Marquez’s boyfriend was AWOL, and her best friend had run away from home. It was not a pretty picture.
She climbed the porch steps to the apartment Diver shared with Austin Reed. Her hand was trembling, but she couldn’t tell if it was from nerves or because she hadn’t eaten anything all day.
She knocked. “Enter at your own risk,” Austin yelled.
Marquez pushed open the doo
r. The room was dense with smoke. Discarded potato chip bags and bottles littered the floor. A tiny fan on a TV tray herded the thick air back and forth.
Austin was lying on the couch, ratty jeans, no shirt. He was reading a TV Guide. His half-grown beard was dark against his drawn face. His long brown hair hadn’t seen a comb in many a moon. He always looked a little edgy—now he looked downright scuzzy. Still, Marquez could understand why Summer was so taken with him. Even when scuzzy, he was attractively scuzzy.
“Hey, Marquez, join the party. You’re just in time. I’ve got Grey’s Anatomy on DVD.”
Marquez waved her arms to clear the air. “Since when do you smoke?”
“I don’t. I’m just experimenting with self-destructive behaviors. Next I thought I’d try the all-doughnut diet. Or else take up skydiving. Of course, that would require moving off the couch, and I think I may be permanently stuck here. I sat on a package of Oreos a few days back.”
“Blythe told me you were late to work and McNair almost fired your butt.”
“Yeah. I was very disappointed when he gave me a second chance to clean up my act.”
Marquez cleared a spot off a chair and sat. “This is because Summer ended things, huh?”
“I know it’s not very melodramatic, eating and drinking myself into a stupor and watching the Weather Channel. I ought to have the decency to fall on my sword or something.”
“You may want to hold off on the sword. Summer and Seth just officially broke up. You heard it here first. Look, have you seen Diver anywhere? I’ve been calling all day—”
“I turned the sound on the machine off.” Austin tossed his TV Guide to the floor. “Tell me more about this alleged breakup.”
“First things first. Diver?”
Austin frowned. “Didn’t he say anything to you?”
“About what?” Marquez asked impatiently. She couldn’t seem to stop her knees from jiggling.
“He left around six or so. He had his backpack and his sleeping bag—which is to say everything he owns, pretty much. Said something about going camping for a couple of days, getting away from the real world.”