Page 2 of Seven Lost Summers (Broken Oasis #3)

As much as I love those guys and how they've pulled us back from the edge more times than I can count, I would give it all up. Every note we’ve ever played, every stage, every ounce of fame—it’s nothing compared to her.

I’d trade it all, burn it to the ground, just to hear her laugh again.

To see her eyes light up with that spark of life only she carried.

She was our beginning—everything to us before any of this existed.

Even now, after all these years, she’s still the one thing I’d give anything to bring back. No music, no tour, no sold-out crowd will ever fill the void she left behind. Nothing ever will.

Nate’s grip tightens around my hand, his knuckles white, fingers digging in as if I’m the only thing holding him together.

The silence hangs heavy with all the words left unsaid.

We used to talk to her. God, we shared everything. In those first years, we’d stand at her grave, the cold earth biting against the warmth of our tears as we poured out our hearts, begging for a sign, a whisper, anything to prove she was still with us.

That ended a long time ago. Now silence is all we have. We don’t just stay quiet with her, we’ve gone quiet with each other too.

I don’t even say her name in front of Nate anymore.

I can’t. I see the way his body stiffens at the sound of it as if bracing for impact, his eyes darkening under the weight of memories that are still too raw.

So I keep the small pieces of her to myself.

They sneak up on me when I least expect it.

Her soft humming while her fingers danced across the guitar strings, or the stupid, cheesy jokes that had us laughing until we couldn’t breathe.

God, I want to talk about her.

I need to.

I want to say her name without feeling like I’m shattering something inside him, or inside myself. I want to believe that if I say it loudly enough, she’ll come back, even for a moment.

I want to share the stories, to relive every piece of her.

The way she’d bite her lip when she was focused, how her fingers tapped against her thigh when she drifted into thought, the way her presence could turn chaos into something that finally felt right.

With her, we weren’t just surviving, we were alive.

Still, I keep them buried, even as they eat me alive from the inside out, locked away where they can’t hurt Nate, where they can’t crack the fragile shell we’ve built just to keep from falling apart.

The sharp crunch of gravel breaks the silence, and Nate and I both look up.

It’s Quinn Thomas, Bianca’s best friend.

She was part of our tight little crew once, back when we thought forever meant something and time couldn’t touch us.

I often think of Quinn, remembering her grinning behind that damn camera, always snapping photos as if she knew we’d need them one day. Maybe she knew more than we did.

She’s walking toward us, head down, her hair falling like a shield around her face.

It’s been years since we last saw her. And like us, she’s not the same. The weight of it all clings to her, carved into her and weighing down on her shoulders.

And yet, even with all that pain etched into her, she’s breathtaking. The kind of beauty that hits like a punch to the gut, wrapped in too much hurt and too many memories.

Seeing her pulls Bianca into my mind, and I can’t help but wonder what she would look like now at twenty-five.

I bet she’d be every bit as beautiful as Quinn. Bianca was stunning, wild, untamed, a presence that demanded attention.

Quinn, standing here now, is just as striking, but in a different way. She’s softer, quieter, her beauty shaped by the weight of the pain she’s carried all these years.

As I watch her walk toward us, I can still hear the echoes of their conversations.

Quinn and Bianca side by side, dreaming about the future as if nothing could hold them back.

They couldn’t wait for the day they turned eighteen.

“No more asking Mom for permission,” Bianca would grin, certain she had the whole world figured out.

They’d talk about tattoos and piercings.

Every wild plan they could imagine. Their laughter was loud, bold, untouchable, as unapologetic as they were.

Back then, we all believed life would always be that simple.

When Quinn finally looks up and sees us, her eyes flicker with something raw… recognition, regret, maybe even fear.

I feel it, the hesitation coiled around her like chains, every link dragging at her feet.

For a second, I think she might turn and walk away. But she doesn’t.

She steps forward, then another, each footfall hesitant, as if the ground itself might give way beneath her.

She finally reaches us and kneels at Bianca’s grave. Her hands tremble, a fragile betrayal of everything she’s trying to hold in. She sets down a bouquet of bright lilies at the base of the headstone, her fingers lingering against the stone a moment too long.

“I’ll just put these down and leave you with Bianca,” she whispers, her voice thin and trembling, as if the floodgates could burst at any second.

Before I can answer, Nate’s voice breaks the silence, quiet but certain.

“No, Quinn. Stay,” he says, the words so soft they sound fragile, as if they might splinter if spoken any louder. “You were her best friend. You deserve to be here.”

Quinn doesn’t lift her head right away. Her gaze stays down, her breath unsteady, as if she’s trying to hold herself together but can’t.

For a moment, even time feels suspended, waiting with her.

Then, slowly, she raises her eyes, and it all crashes down. Pain. Loss. That suffocating grief that transforms you, reshapes you into something you can’t ever outrun. It’s all there in her eyes, the same way it’s buried deep in us.

She gives a small, hesitant nod, uncertain if she can face what comes next.

Her hands tremble as she reaches into her bag and pulls out a photo.

Leaning forward, she places it gently against the cold stone, her fingertips brushing over it before lingering there, shaking, desperate to hold on to the remnants of a past that keeps slipping further away.

I look down at the photo, and it feels like my chest splits open, ribs splintering as everything inside me spills out. My breath hitches. The air turns razor-sharp, each inhale cutting like glass.

It’s us—Nate, Bianca, Quinn, and me—frozen in a moment so perfect it fucking hurts.

We had no fucking idea.

I’ve never seen this photo before, and it tears me apart.

We look so young, so carefree, untouched by the weight of the world. We didn’t know the truth then. We didn’t know how fast everything could slip through our fingers, how quickly the people we loved could be ripped away.

Less than a week after this picture was taken, the ground split beneath us, and we fell fucking hard.

Bianca was gone, and nothing, no stretch of time, no desperate prayer, could bring her back. We didn’t just lose her that day; we lost pieces of ourselves. The versions of us in that photo… wide-eyed, clinging to foolish dreams, died with her.

Quinn stands there, silent and still, her head bowed.

I watch her and wonder if, in her mind, she’s speaking to Bianca, whispering secrets only the two of them would understand.

When she finally looks up, her eyes meet mine, and something sharp drives into my chest, twisting deeper the longer she holds my gaze. My throat tightens, dry as sandpaper, but I force the words out anyway, even though they burn like acid.

“That photo, Quinn… can I get a copy of it?”

It’s a foolish request.

Selfish, even—as if a picture could ever mend what’s been broken.

But I need it. I need to see who we were before the world split open beneath us. I need that glimpse of a life untouched by tragedy. I want to hold on to a piece of something unruined, something still whole before Bianca was gone.

A flicker of surprise flashes in Quinn’s eyes, gone before I can catch it, replaced by something softer. It’s as if she understands why I’m asking, why I need this.

“Of course,” she says gently. “I have others too, if you want them.”

I nod, swallowing hard.

“I do.” My voice sounds steadier than I feel. I want every photo, every fragment of her I can hold on to, because this is all that’s left. All we’ll ever have.

Quinn’s gaze drops to the ground, her fingers fidgeting with the strap of her bag. A faint smile tugs at her lips, but it never reaches her eyes.

“Do you remember those days when the three of you used to jam in your room?” she asks softly, her voice fragile and wistful.

I don’t have to answer; I can hear it all.

The crash of the drums, Nate’s laughter when he missed a beat, Bianca shouting at us to play louder because she didn’t give a damn about the neighbors. And Quinn, clapping along, grinning like we were unstoppable.

Nate chuckles softly, and for a moment his laughter cuts through the heaviness, a fleeting spark of warmth. His eyes brighten as he drifts into the memory, and for that instant it feels as if Bianca is here with us again, laughing, teasing, making everything seem lighter.

“Yeah,” he says, his voice softer now. “Bianca always pushed us to try every song we could think of. Even the ones we had no clue how to play. I remember she made us do ‘Wonderwall’ because it was her favorite. We absolutely butchered it.”

He laughs, shaking his head.

“But she didn’t care. She was singing at the top of her lungs, arms thrown around us like it was the best performance of her life.”

I can almost hear her voice, off-key and unapologetic, filling the room. I can see her hair falling into her eyes as she danced. She had this way of turning the shittiest moments into some of the best times of our lives.

That part of him, the wild, reckless Nate who used to feel just as untouchable as the rest of us, flickers through in his laugh.

And it breaks me, because I miss him. I miss her, but I miss him too. I miss the Nate who didn’t carry that constant shadow in his eyes, the Nate who didn’t sometimes feel like a stranger to me.

“Her laugh was the best part,” I say. It’s the one thing that hasn’t faded, the only piece of her I still hold on to.

Quinn bites her bottom lip, her jaw trembling just enough to show she’s fighting to hold it together. But she’s losing. I see it in the shine of her eyes, the rapid blinks as she tries to force the tears back.

“I have some photos from those days,” she says, her voice cracking. “They’re back at my apartment. You can come by and I can show you.”

I nod, but what I’m really holding isn’t relief—it’s desperation. I need those photos, need to cling to whatever remnants of her are still within reach. Because if I keep losing pieces of her, I’m terrified there won’t be anything left of me either.

“I’d love for you to have them,” Quinn says. “I can make more copies, but those photos… they’re treasures. They caught the happiness we had before everything fell apart.”

Nate and I lock eyes. No words pass between us. None are needed. The silence says everything.

“Yeah… we’d love that,” Nate says, his voice soft, cracking just enough to show the vulnerability beneath it.

I nod, the knot in my throat choking me. My gaze drops to the photo Quinn placed at Bianca’s grave.

Our sweet girl. The one Nate and I loved so deeply, so easily as if it had been written into our bones, as if she was always meant to be ours.

And she was… until she wasn’t.