Page 9 of Five Summer Wishes

WILLA

T he high after the potluck didn’t last long.

I woke up late, disoriented and overheated, with a pounding headache and glitter still stuck to the side of my face. There were three empty LaCroix cans on the nightstand and an unfinished sketch across my lap—half a table, two loosely outlined chairs, no people in them.

Typical.

Downstairs, the house was already alive. I could hear Harper clacking at her keyboard and June humming some soft, sad song while she made breakfast like the weight of the world could be baked into a frittata.

I didn’t move.

Not because I couldn’t. Because I didn’t want to face what came next.

The day after joy always hit harder. The contrast. The come-down. The sharp edges of reality that waited for you once the lights dimmed and the music stopped.

It had been good last night. Better than I expected. But I could already feel myself bracing for the unraveling. I’d made it through one full day without messing something up, and that made me nervous. Nervous people ran. I’d always run.

And here I was. Still here.

Still scared.

Still trying.

God, it was exhausting.

When I finally emerged into the kitchen—post-shower, post-caffeine, post-denial—Harper was sitting at the table with her third cup of coffee, reading something on her phone that was clearly pissing her off.

June was by the sink, arms elbow-deep in soapy water. Her hair was tied up, her sweatshirt sleeves rolled past her elbows. She looked like she’d been up for hours.

I slipped into a chair without a word.

Harper glanced up. “Rough night?”

“I was emotionally supporting people with my whole chest. That requires recovery time.”

June didn’t look up. “There’s French toast.”

“Is it made with real bread or whatever health crime you usually use?”

“Brioche. With cinnamon. Don’t push your luck.”

I grinned. She was tired, but her voice had that gentle, dry rhythm I loved best. It meant she wasn’t spiraling. Not yet.

Harper was another story. She was already dressed. Hair done. Laptop open. That meant she was managing her stress by building a fortress of to-do lists and spreadsheets. Predictable.

“You look like you’re about to file a restraining order,” I said.

“I got a message from Daniel.”

I blinked. “Your Daniel?”

Harper nodded, her expression flat. “He says he’s ‘thinking about things.’ Whatever that means.”

June handed her a fresh cup of coffee. “It means he doesn’t know what to do without you but doesn’t want to admit he already let you go.”

That shut everyone up for a second.

Harper accepted the mug without speaking.

And for once, I didn’t try to make a joke about it.

We spent the rest of the morning cleaning up what the party had left behind.

June tackled the kitchen. Harper organized the leftover food into labeled containers. I went outside to deal with the wreckage of my fairy lights and paper lanterns, most of which had tangled themselves into something that resembled my mental state.

As I wrestled with a string of lights that had somehow knotted itself around a tree branch, I heard a familiar voice behind me.

“Looks like your yard has a hangover.”

Grant.

I turned.

He was holding a paper bag and a to-go cup. His hair was damp, his jeans slung low on his hips like he hadn’t quite finished waking up yet. He looked unfairly good for someone who’d worked a full day and probably didn’t even own moisturizer.

“You brought reinforcements?” I asked, nodding to the bag.

“Donuts,” he said. “And coffee. No one should have to untangle string lights sober.”

I took the coffee gratefully and sank onto the back steps.

“You really came back.”

“You didn’t think I would?”

“I wasn’t sure,” I said honestly. “Most people don’t.”

“Maybe they just didn’t have a reason to.”

He sat beside me, careful not to crowd.

We didn’t speak for a minute. I drank my coffee. He tore a glazed donut in half and passed me a piece like we were ten and sharing contraband during recess.

It shouldn’t have felt intimate. But it did.

“Do you always leave?” he asked after a while.

I didn’t flinch. “Yeah.”

“Why?”

I stared out at the backyard, now mostly back to normal. Chairs stacked. Table cleared. Lights down.

“Because staying means things get complicated,” I said. “And I’m better at exits than maintenance.”

“You ever want to be good at the maintenance part?”

I didn’t answer.

Not because I didn’t know.

Because I did.

Too much.

He helped me finish detangling the lights. Said goodbye without making it a big deal. Left me with half the donuts and a sense of weight in my chest that I didn’t know what to do with.

By the time I went back inside, June had gone to take Lily to the bookstore, and Harper was on the phone with a client in what sounded like a voice three degrees removed from her own.

I slipped upstairs, into the guest room, and pulled out my sketchbook.

I started drawing before I knew what I was making.

Not people. Not yet.

Just… moments.

Two cups on a porch railing.

A hand holding a fork over a table.

Three heads bent toward a string of tangled lights.

Small things.

But they felt like proof.

That I was still here.

That I hadn’t run yet.

That maybe—I didn’t want to.

The sketch took shape without asking permission.

It was bolder than my usual lines—more pressure, less polish. Like my hand knew something I hadn’t caught up to yet. I’d always drawn people from the outside in; profiles, posture, gesture. But this one was different.

It was a woman sitting at a kitchen table.

Alone. Hair loose. Hands wrapped around a mug. You couldn’t see her face, but you knew exactly how she felt.

I stared at it, breath tight.

Because it was me.

And for once, I wasn’t making her funny or cool or beautifully tragic.

Just… human.

Just real.

I went downstairs after that, needing movement. Distraction. Proof that the world was still turning.

Harper was on the couch, a legal pad balanced on her knee, her mouth set in that familiar hard line she used when she didn’t want to talk but desperately needed someone to notice.

“You okay?” I asked, gently.

She didn’t look up. “Fine.”

“You’re allowed to be not fine.”

She scribbled something hard enough to tear the paper.

“You can’t plan your way through grief, you know.”

“I’m not grieving,” she snapped, too quickly. “I’m just… reorganizing.”

“Uh-huh.”

She shot me a glare. “ Don’t .”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You said everything with your face.”

I walked to the bookshelf, pulled down one of Iris’s old photo albums, and set it in her lap.

“I’m just saying, if you’re going to fall apart, maybe pick a softer place to land.”

She opened it. Flipped a page. Her jaw worked tight.

“I don’t know how to do this,” she said, barely a whisper.

“Yeah,” I said. “Me neither.”

And then I left her there. Not because I didn’t care. But because I knew she needed space, not solutions.

We were all learning that, one breath at a time.

I wandered outside again just before sunset.

The yard looked tired. Like it had hosted something bigger than it knew how to hold.

I kicked off my sandals, walked barefoot through the grass until I reached the swing. It creaked when I sat, the chain shifting just enough to remind me that it had been broken and fixed and was still, somehow, holding.

Grant pulled up not long after. No warning. Just a quiet engine, a familiar shape, and the sound of his boots on gravel.

“Hey,” he said, stepping onto the porch.

“You always show up after the dust settles.”

“Only when I’m invited.”

“I didn’t invite you.”

He smiled. “You didn’t not.”

He sat beside me. The swing shifted, but didn’t tip.

We didn’t speak for a while.

There was something safe about the silence. Not performative. Not tense. Just… honest.

Finally, I said, “I used to think if I stayed in one place too long, people would start to expect things from me. Things I couldn’t give.”

“And now?”

“Now I’m starting to wonder if I left too soon to ever find out what I could’ve given.”

He just said, “Then maybe it’s time to stay a little longer.”

And I didn’t say no.

That night, I lay in bed with the window cracked and the sketchbook open on my chest.

The page I’d drawn earlier was still there. That woman. That stillness. That moment I hadn’t realized was mine until it was already down in ink.

I flipped the page and started again.

This time, I drew three hands—mine, June’s, Harper’s—tangled but still touching. Holding on. Holding in.

And just beneath that, I wrote one line in the corner, as small as it could be and still exist:

I don’t want to run anymore.

I stared at it for a long time.

Then I closed the book and turned out the light.