Page 31 of If the Summer Lasted Forever

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

“You have mail,” Mom says the minute I walk into the office. She waves a plain white envelope in the air. “It looks just like the last one. Who are they from?”

My heart starts beating faster, and I snatch the envelope from her.

“Landon?” she guesses.

I mumble incoherent words and leave the office, heading for the house. As soon as I’m in my room, I sit on my bed and stare at the envelope.

Slowly, I tear it open and pull out another postcard. Landon’s at another beach, this one rocky. Again, we’re together.

He’s using pictures he took of me and purposely posing himself just to make them fit together with a few tweaks.

That’s insane.

That’s…

So Landon.

This time, the back reads, “Still wish you were actually here. All my love, Landon.”

“Another one,” Mom says, motioning to the stack of mail. She’s at the kitchen table, drinking coffee, waiting for me to come home from school. Big, fat snowflakes fall just outside the window, and our Christmas tree stands in the corner, all dressed in red and gold.

“This one’s red,” she says conversationally. “He must have been feeling festive.”

I slide open the card and smile as soon as I see his name.

I finally worked up the courage to call Landon not long after he began sending the cards. We talk almost every day now, but that doesn’t keep him from writing. His messages have gotten longer and longer, and now he usually sends several sheets of paper along with his postcards.

There’s something very personal and sweet about hand-written letters, especially when Landon is so enamored with technology.

“So where are you now?” Mom asks.

“Louisiana,” I tell her.

She takes another sip of her coffee. “I bet it’s warmer there than here.”

I smile. “It looks like it.”