Page 52 of Cruel Summer

THIRTY-ONE

One year later

It’s a surprise

“Okay,” Sam said, smiling as soon as Ethan sat down in the booth at Texas Roadhouse. “Everybody’s here.”

“Yeah, sorry. My girlfriend wanted to FaceTime.”

“You’re leaving for school tomorrow,” Will said from his position right next to Ethan, across the booth from Samantha. “You’re going to see her then. Maybe prioritize spending a little bit of time with your family.”

“Dad…”

“What? You’re going to see her tomorrow.”

“He’s in love,” Chloe said pragmatically.

Sam and Will exchanged a look, and then she looked at Logan, who was sitting next to her.

“I didn’t know you were a romantic, Chloe,” said Will.

“When it suits me,” she said, smiling at Ethan.

They didn’t do this all the time. Though it was becoming less weird.

The kids had taken the news… Well, it was a mixed bag. Aiden had made jokes. (“Who’s getting custody?”) Jude had been moody and then later had called Sam and been angry. Then called again and apologized that he was the reason they’d had to get married in the first place. Her poor oldest.

Ethan had been surprisingly okay.

All the kids had been home off and on throughout the summer, and she and Will had done their absolute best to make it so they both got as much time with the kids as possible.

And sometimes it was just easier for everyone to get together.

And with Chloe and Ethan and Aiden headed back to school tomorrow, it seemed like a fair enough idea for them to all get together over steak and rolls.

Right where it had started a year and a summer ago.

Will picked his phone up off the table and looked at a message, and smiled.

Maybe it was a girlfriend. She sort of hoped it was.

But he was on his own journey, and he had to figure out what happiness looked like for him. She couldn’t do it for him.

Though there hadn’t been anyone serious in his life since the divorce. Maybe he would get there. But he didn’t seem in a huge hurry to jump into a relationship.

Sam rubbed her thumb over her engagement ring.

She and Logan had decided to wait for a while before they actually made it legal. Create some space between her and Will’s divorce. Give the kids time.

They’d both been certain but this wasn’t only about them. It was about everyone they loved.

Even Will.

He was Logan’s friend. He was the father of her children.

She’d loved him for a long time, and healing the rift between them had mattered to her.

Chloe had been weirded out for about five seconds, and then had been ecstatic. But for her, it wasn’t a loss. It was just solidifying a relationship they already had.

The boys had struggled with it a little bit. Jude had been philosophical (life happens). Ethan had more questions about the timeline between her and Logan than she liked, but she’d answered them. Aiden hadn’t struggled with anything she’d done. He’d been angry at his father. He still was sometimes.

That was a tricky one.

But they were managing. And here they all were at dinner.

Logan and Will might not be best friends again, but everyone was cordial. Who could say? Maybe they would be.

Life was so much more complex, wonderful, terrifying, painful and glorious than she’d realized.

“Mom,” Ethan said. “When your book comes out, are we all going to be famous?”

“Or infamous,” Will said, giving her a side eye.

His side eye wasn’t serious. He knew what she’d written.

About their life and their marriage. She hadn’t simplified it. The good or the bad. He was also pretty understanding about the fact it was her story, which meant it was her perspective.

It was honest, though. All that honestly she’d been scared of for so long.

He probably wasn’t going to read the whole book.

While reading the parts about the two of them had gone a long way in healing some of their wounds, he had been pretty honest about not needing to read about her romance with Logan.

Fair enough.

“No,” she said. “Because the odds of more than ten thousand people buying it are low.”

“So we’ll be niche famous,” said Aiden. “Which is more metal anyway.”

“The gossip is going to start again,” Chloe said cheerfully.

The gossip had never stopped. Chloe just didn’t live here full-time.

They were officially a scandal. Sam and Logan ending up together had created a wave of interest and speculation.

Sam selling a book about it was even more titillating.

(Amy Callahan had an MFA, and was incensed that Sam had gotten a book deal telling her tawdry story of sex and infidelity , or so she’d been told.

Especially when Sam hadn’t even gone to college.)

The good news about everyone being so interested was that her book was guaranteed to sell a full 2,900 copies at least. In keeping with the population of the town.

There were some personal things in there. But it wasn’t really about sex—though she’d written about the sex. It was a memoir about change. About letting go. About living life for yourself instead of a whole town.

Maybe the people reading for shock value could learn something.

But they probably wouldn’t. They’d probably go back to their neat homes, with everything in its place, and sleep with men they didn’t really love, in the name of not making waves.

Sam could never regret the waves.

They finished eating, talked about the kids’ plans, hugged, and went their separate ways. A big, slightly broken family.

This was why she’d written the book. To understand this. To give words to it all.

Not because her pain, her change, her life were unique. But because they weren’t.

If another woman read it and saw something of her own life, her own struggle, then that was what the book was for.

Logan took her hand as they walked through the parking lot, back toward their car.

“So the wedding isn’t until June, but I feel like we might want to take our honeymoon first.”

“ Really ?”

“Yeah. This October.”

“Why?”

“Because I thought you might want to spend a month in Europe.”

“Seriously?” She stopped walking, and there they were, in a parking lot, bathed in a fluorescent glow.

A mirror of other times they’d been together. Fighting, kissing.

“Yes. Really. I don’t want to wait.” His voice dropped lower, and it made her giddy.

“I don’t either,” she said.

Because there was no next time around. There was just this time.

She and Logan were making the absolute best of this time.

It was so funny. She had come to this very restaurant a year and a summer ago, and she had felt like her life had fallen apart.

If she had only known…that she had needed everything to fall apart so she could put it all back together in this different shape.

She started to move to the car, and he caught her, dragged her back to him and kissed her. Hard. Like the first time. Like in Tahoe.

But more. With everything.

With all of him.

He held nothing back. Not with her, not anymore.

They got into the car, and she remembered, viscerally, that first time. That first trip.

She’d been driving into the unknown.

They still were.

But it didn’t scare her. Not anymore.

That day, she hadn’t known who she was. Apart from her marriage, apart from how people in town saw her. Now she did.

She looked down at her tattoo, which had become a reminder of so many things. But most of all, it was a reminder to be herself. It was a change she’d made that she didn’t hide, and didn’t want to.

“Just so you know,” she said. “You’re the love of my life. My real life. I remember once I told you that you, wanting you, wasn’t my real life. That it was just me in a crisis, but it was me not able to hide. It was me without my walls. Without denial.”

He turned to look at her, and he gave her that smile. She could feel it, all the way to her toes, with no reservations at all.

“And I love you. With all of my heart. It’s a hell of a thing. You should look in the back seat.”

“Is this a pickup line?”

“It’s not. Look in the back seat.”

“Our romance is dead,” she said, turning and seeing two pieces of luggage sitting on the back seat. “We’re not going to Europe now, are we?”

“No. But I thought since Chloe and the boys were leaving, we might as well go on another road trip.”

“Where to?”

“You’ll see.”

They drove for half the night and slept in a cheesy roadside motel—Samantha did use the coin-operated bed, just for fun. There were also mirrors on the ceiling, which she tried to be horrified by. But she liked the view. So she couldn’t be too mad about it.

They got up early, and she was cranky and sleep-deprived while they continued on into Arizona. It was amazing, how she felt nostalgia for that time already. There was something she loved about that.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“I remembered how much you liked that outlook in the Painted Desert. I thought we’d do a bigger one. A grand one.”

When they entered Grand Canyon National Park, there was a fair amount of traffic, but she didn’t mind. When they stopped at the first viewpoint, and she looked out into the vastness, her eyes filled with tears.

She could remember standing in a place like this, more than a year ago, feeling so desperately sad at all the wonder she’d never seen. All the lives she hadn’t lived.

A year and a summer ago, she had been Samantha Parker, Will Parker’s wife. A woman who had gotten married to hide a mistake, to hide her shame. Who had tried to be what everyone around her wanted her to be. Expected her to be.

She’d blown it all to hell.

When she looked out at this view, larger and deeper and infinitely vast, she didn’t feel sad for all she hadn’t seen. All she hadn’t done.

She had the important things. The things she chose.

She was Samantha. Just Samantha.

Her life was enough.

All it had taken to get there was one cruel summer.

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