Page 12 of Five Summer Wishes

WILLA

I didn’t expect to see him at the farmers’ market.

I was just there to get figs and sketch the people buying overpriced bread like they were starring in their own French indie films. The light was perfect.

The air was thick with the smell of cinnamon and wood smoke and a little salt from the harbor.

I was already halfway through drawing a couple holding hands and sharing a crepe when I heard someone say my name.

Not the casual hey, Willa! kind of way. The slow, disbelieving, still-wrapped-in-a-history-we-don’t-talk-about kind of way.

I looked up and there he was.

Sawyer.

Of course it was Sawyer.

Same green eyes. Same lopsided smile. Same everything that made my chest twist when I was twenty-four and pretending I didn’t believe in roots.

“You’re back,” he said, like it was a question. Like I hadn’t been gone long enough to make it complicated.

“I’m here,” I said. Which was safer than yes.

He looked older. Not old. Just older. Like life had finally gotten its hands on him and made him slow down. There was something about the way he stood; more grounded than I remembered.

“How long are you staying?”

I shrugged. “Not sure.”

“Willa,” he said, voice low. “It’s been six years.”

“Five and a half,” I corrected, because that was easier than acknowledging the ache forming behind my ribs.

He smiled, just barely. “You look the same.”

I didn’t return it. “You don’t.”

That hung between us for a second.

Then he looked down at my sketchpad. “Still drawing everyone but yourself?”

I flipped it shut. “Still making assumptions?”

He didn’t flinch. “I just remember how much you hated staying in one place. Thought maybe that changed.”

I crossed my arms. “Did you follow me or just luck into this awkward reunion?”

“I have a booth,” he said, nodding toward the other end of the market. “Furniture now. Reclaimed wood. Artisanal polish. Very adult of me.”

That almost made me laugh.

Almost.

“I should go,” I said. “Fruit to forage. Lives to sketch.”

“Willa.”

I stopped.

“You ever wonder what would’ve happened if you’d stayed?”

I turned. Met his eyes.

“Every day.”

Back at the house, Harper was pacing on the porch, phone to her ear, mouthing something about permits and signage. June was in the backyard with Lily, showing her how to repot basil without murdering it.

I dropped my things on the kitchen counter and headed straight upstairs. I needed time to sort through whatever the hell had just cracked open inside me.

I sat on the edge of the bed and opened my sketchbook, flipping past the hands, past the porch swing, past the half-drawn party scene from the potluck.

I found a blank page and just stared at it.

Then, without fully meaning to, I started to draw Sawyer’s eyes.

Not the romanticized version. Not the way I remembered them in good lighting with the right music in the background. But the way they looked this morning—tired. Certain. Still holding me responsible for a conversation I ran away from five and a half years ago.

I shaded in the lines around them. The softness. The weight.

When I was done, I ripped out the page and folded it in half.

And I didn’t look at it again.

I didn’t tell the others I saw Sawyer at the market.

Not because I was hiding it—at least, not in the way that counted. But because I knew the second I said his name out loud, it would make it real. And I wasn’t sure I was ready for real.

I stayed upstairs most of the afternoon, sketching in circles. Nothing landed. Nothing stuck. I kept going back to that look on his face when he said every day.

I should’ve known it would follow me.

Sawyer had always been the one person I couldn’t outrun without leaving pieces of myself behind.

Later, I found June in the kitchen, icing lemon bars while Lily licked batter off the spoon.

I leaned against the counter and watched them for a minute. The domestic rhythm of it. The safety.

“You ever think about who you used to be?” I asked.

June didn’t look up. “All the time.”

“Do you miss her?”

“Sometimes. But mostly I feel bad for her.”

“Why?”

“She thought love had to be earned. That being good enough was a job title.”

She glanced at me, something unspoken passing between us.

“You okay?”

“Define okay.”

June handed me a bar. “Did something happen?”

“I saw Sawyer.”

She froze for a beat. “ Your Sawyer?”

I nodded.

“And?”

“He asked me if I ever wonder what would’ve happened if I’d stayed.”

She handed Lily a lemon bar and sent her outside, then leaned her hip against the counter.

“Well,” she said. “Do you?”

“Yeah,” I admitted. “I think I’ve always wondered.”

June was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “You don’t have to know the answer today.”

“I don’t even know the question.”

“Maybe it’s not about what would’ve happened,” she said. “Maybe it’s about what still could.”

That landed hard.

Because I hadn’t let myself think of the future as something I was allowed to want.

That night, I took my sketchbook out onto the porch and sat on the swing.

I didn’t draw Sawyer’s face.

I drew mine.

Or at least, I tried to.

Not the curated version. Not the cool-girl, freedom-chaser, always-on-the-move mask.

Just… me.

Hair messy. Eyes tired. Lines softer than I remembered.

Halfway through, I stopped and stared.

She looked like someone who had finally started to wonder if staying could be an act of courage, not weakness.

And for the first time in a long time, I didn’t want to erase her.

I wanted to learn from her.