Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 97073 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97073 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
I’ve never lived with a girlfriend, and my last relationship was serious enough to warrant it, serious enough to send me into a downward spiral when it ended.
I’ve been so private for so long now, isolated and lonely. I’m not sure if things would have ever changed had Summer not arrived. There’s never been someone who embodies her name as much as she does. I didn’t want to see it before, but now it’s so obvious she’s been a muse to me, a light to draw from—summer in the midst of a harsh winter.
Alice gives me a funny look. “You seem like you’re thinking over something really difficult.”
Yes, well, I am.
CHAPTER 21
SUMMER
Patterns in relationships don’t form overnight, and I don’t know exactly when my sister and I set our roles in concrete. The way Emma decides where we meet for dinner, what time we should see a movie, how I should wear my hair, the color of eyeshadow that most complements my features. It’s not a two-way street, and if I were to mention that I don’t really love that French bistro she’s obsessed with or that I actually don’t think I like my hair pin-straight, it would unsettle the balance of our relationship beyond recognition.
I idolized Emma as a child, naming my Barbies and dolls after her. I wanted to be just like her: older, smart, cool. There was a big enough age gap between us—eight years—that I heard about her successes the way people hear about Napoleon’s conquests or Einstein’s genius.
My brother Ben was just as successful, but he didn’t shine like Emma. He wasn’t the star of our family—she was. Is.
Emma set me up with Andrew. After our blind date ended, she was the first person I called.
“Well? How did it go?!” she asked excitedly.
“Umm…”
“I bet it was overwhelming,” she supplied for me.
“A little,” I admitted sheepishly.
“I knew it would be. Don’t sweat it. He’s a little older than you and at a different stage in his life, but that’s a good thing, Summer. That’s what you need.”
Emma’s high opinion of him was contagious to the point that it became impossible to extricate my feelings for Andrew from hers. We collectively thought I should go on a second date, and when that went well, it only made sense to accept a third.
She’s been Andrew’s and my biggest cheerleader. Andrew and Lincoln’s parents belong to the same sailing club in Connecticut. On more than one occasion, Emma has mentioned how fun it will be to spend summers there together as a family, letting the cousins grow up on the water. That seemed as nice a future as any I could envision for myself.
But as Andrew’s car pulls up outside Nate’s cottage and I step through the doorway in my jacket and gloves, I realize just how far from that idyllic New England summer I’ve found myself.
Andrew unfolds out of the back seat and stands. He’s wearing jeans and nice, freshly oiled boots. His cashmere sweater is tucked beneath a sharp camel-colored jacket, and despite having just taken an international flight and a long car ride north from Leeds, his short brown hair looks immaculate, his smile handsome and wide as he takes me in on the doorstep.
Andrew is not so handsome that he would draw attention on the street, but he’s attractive enough that paired with his personality and work ethic, he’s a real catch, especially for some Upper West Side socialite looking to sink her teeth into an investment banker whose upbringing and pedigree check all the right boxes. All of that is wasted on me.
He’s come such a long way to see me and I should go to him, so I do, walking up until I’m close enough that he can wrap me in a tight hug. I haven’t seen him in a few months, but there’s still so much comfort and familiarity: his subtle cologne, the specific placement of his arms around my back, his voice as he leans down and tells me, “I’ve really missed you.”
The driver gets Andrew’s suitcase out of the trunk, and Andrew steps away from me in time to wince as the driver sets it on the snow. The suitcase is new. I remember sitting beside him on the couch when he bought it. It took weeks of researching the very best, top-of-the-line luggage, a detailed comparison chart between colors and sizes. The amount of thought people put into say, having a baby, Andrew puts into every single decision in life, weighing the pros and cons, wanting everything perfect.
It bothers him that I don’t put the same care and attention into decisions. We’re opposites in that way. I’ll wash a pan after dinner and set it out to dry. Andrew will come up behind me and find all the ways I managed to screw it up royally. “Summer, it’s not even close to being clean.”