Page 10 of Five Summer Wishes

HARPER

D aniel didn’t say what he wanted.

Not really.

His message had been vague—half apology, half attempt to reset something that had already flatlined. I’ve been thinking. I miss talking to you. I don’t know if it’s too late. He’d left it open-ended, like he was waiting for me to solve the part he didn’t want to say.

That was always his specialty. Leaving the hard parts in a pile like laundry he didn’t want to fold.

I didn’t respond. I’d spent too many years talking to someone who only heard what he wanted.

I went down to the harbor without telling anyone. I needed the wind. The distance. The illusion that walking away from the house meant walking away from everything I hadn’t dealt with yet.

Nate was there, of course.

He had this uncanny timing. Like he could sense the second I needed someone and hated myself for it.

He spotted me from the docks and met me halfway.

“You look like you haven’t slept,” he said.

“I haven’t.”

“Want company or space?”

I hesitated. “Company.”

We walked along the edge of the harbor in silence.

“I heard from Daniel,” I said eventually.

Nate didn’t react. “What’d he say?”

“That he misses talking to me.”

Nate made a low sound in his throat. “That’s rich.”

I looked over. “You always had a grudge against him.”

“Because he was comfortable letting you do all the emotional heavy lifting.”

“He wasn’t that bad.”

“He was just bad enough that you forgot what it felt like to be loved back. ”

That stopped me.

I stared at the water.

“I don’t know if I want to fix it,” I said. “Or if I just don’t know how to be without something to fix.”

Nate didn’t answer right away. When he did, his voice was quiet.

“I think you’ve been carrying so much for so long, you forgot how to want something that doesn’t need saving.”

I turned toward him. “Like what?”

He met my gaze. “Like someone who already sees you. Who isn’t asking you to prove anything.”

It felt like the world tipped a little under my feet.

Not because of what he said.

Because of how much I wanted to believe it.

We didn’t touch.

We didn’t move closer.

But something in me cracked anyway.

And the light got in.

I walked back to the house slowly, every step feeling like a decision I didn’t know how to make yet.

Inside, the living room was quiet. June was upstairs with Lily. Willa had left her sketchbook open on the coffee table—an unfinished drawing of three hands, tangled and reaching.

I sat down across from it, just staring.

That was the thing about Willa. She said more in pictures than most people said in a lifetime.

I reached for my phone, thumb hovering over Daniel’s message.

Then I deleted it.

Not because I had closure.

But because I finally stopped needing it.

The house was still.

The kind of stillness that felt earned. Like a sigh after holding your breath too long.

I made tea, not because I wanted it, but because the ritual helped. Boil. Steep. Sip. It was something to do with my hands while my heart tried to figure out where it stood.

Willa wandered in, barefoot and bleary-eyed, wearing one of Iris’s oversized sweatshirts.

“You’re up early,” I said.

She shrugged. “Didn’t sleep well. Kept thinking about those hands I drew.” She leaned against the counter. “Do you ever get scared that we’re only holding on because we’re afraid of what happens if we don’t?”

I stirred my tea. “That’s kind of how holding on works.”

She smiled a little, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “You know what’s weird? I feel closer to both of you now than I ever have. And it still feels like any second it could all slip.”

I handed her a mug. “It won’t.”

“How do you know?”

“I don’t. But I’m choosing to stay.”

She looked at me then—really looked. And for once, she didn’t deflect. Just nodded and took a sip.

Later that afternoon, I found June sitting on the back steps with a book in her lap and Lily curled against her side.

It was such a quiet moment, so full of everything I usually missed.

I sat beside them.

June closed the book but didn’t move.

“She asked me earlier if we were going to stay forever,” she said, nodding toward Lily.

I didn’t say anything.

“She didn’t mean the house. She meant this. Us. Together.”

“And what did you say?”

“I said I hope so.”

The wind shifted. Lily slept on.

“She’s the reason I stayed,” June whispered. “But you’re the reason I’m starting to think I can stay for myself.”

That undid me a little.

In the best way.

That night, after everyone had gone to bed, I sat on the porch with a pen and a blank notebook. No labels. No plan.

I didn’t try to make a list of tasks. Instead, I made a list of truths.

I don’t want to go back to the life I had.

I don’t know what comes next.

I miss the version of me who used to want more.

I think I’m still in here. Somewhere.

I don’t need to earn rest. Or love. Or softness.

I want to build something different.

I’m scared. But I’m not leaving.

I’m still here.

I sat with that last line for a long time.

Then, without overthinking it, I pulled out my phone and sent a message to Nate

Still here.

He replied almost instantly.

Same.