Page 46 of Summer’s Echo

Amusement curved her lips, and she nodded.

I lifted my hand, brushing my fingers along her jaw, then stroking her cheek with my thumb.

I memorized her face, committing this moment to memory because I wanted to remember her just like this—strong and brave and broken.

She melted into me as I wrapped my arms around her, holding her like I could somehow keep her from slipping through my fingers.

Her face pressed into my chest, her fingertips gripping the fabric of my t-shirt, a silent request to stay a little longer.

We didn’t speak. We didn’t need to because our bodies spoke for us.

The slight tremble in her hands. The lingering touch before pulling away.

The way we stalled, standing only a mere inch apart, just enough to feel the air between us again.

Neither of us looked at each other right away.

Because looking would mean acknowledging the turning point we were facing, but I couldn’t leave without one last thing.

I bent, pressing a soft, reverent kiss to her forehead, then let my lips glide over the curve of her nose before finding her mouth.

I didn’t care that her mother was in the car watching us.

I kissed her slow, unhurried, my hands cradling her face like she was the most precious thing I had ever held.

I tasted her tears, absorbing them like medicine, as if they could heal me.

She traced over my chest, then down my stomach, resting at my waist. I parted her lips with my tongue, and she moaned softly, breathlessly.

Our mouths moved in perfect sync, tongues dancing to a flawless melody.

This wasn’t a heated, reckless kiss. This was devotion.

By the time we pulled apart, I was gasping for air, but breathing for her.

Our foreheads touched, and we exchanged one last embrace, holding each other a little tighter, knowing that when we let go, we would never be the same again.

Echo

October 2019, The Day After the Wedding that Wasn’t

Summer wouldn’t let me go. Or maybe I wouldn’t let her go.

I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that it was midnight, and we were still tangled together on the couch in the sunroom.

The Knights’ house had long since fallen into silence, the soft chirps of crickets outside the only thing breaking the stillness.

After her sisters’ funny interruption, no one else had bothered to check on us, as if they already knew we weren’t ready to leave whatever moment we had found ourselves in.

Summer was burrowed under my arm, her head resting on my shoulder, and I let myself sink into the peace of it.

The peace of her. The disclosures we’d shared tonight had unearthed old bones, skeletons of emotions I had buried deep, only to realize they had never really stayed dead.

Every year, around the first week of August, my mood would shift, a restless, unnamed ache burdening me, like something missing.

For years, I hadn’t understood why. Then I’d remember.

That last kiss. The way Summer had felt in my arms. The way she had slipped through my fingers before I ever had the chance to hold on.

I kissed her forehead softly, and she stirred, mumbling something incoherent before curling in closer.

“Are you asleep? I should go,” I said, though I didn’t move.

A sleepy, stubborn whine answered me. “No.”

I chuckled as she tightened her grip on me, her arms locked around my waist as if she could physically keep me from leaving.

“It’s late, Sun.” The words dragged, my reluctance thick—I didn’t want to leave.

“I don’t want your parents waking up to find me still here.

Besides, I promised mine I’d have breakfast with them in the morning. ”

That made her pause. Slowly, she shifted, tilting her head to look at me in the dim light. “What do you think they’re going to say?” she asked. “About us.”

The question shouldn’t have surprised me.

But still, I stiffened. I’d been asking myself the same thing.

Summer had always been welcomed in the Abara house.

My siblings adored her, my mother had once treated her like she was part of the family.

But my father…he had never seen it that way.

He had never been shy about his opinion, never hesitated to remind me that we were too much, too fast, too young.

I exhaled slowly, my fingers trailing lazily down her arm as I gave myself a second to answer.

“I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter. I’m grown. I make my own decisions, and my choice is you.”

The tense lines of her face mellowed, but something flickered in her eyes—unease, doubt, guilt.

“They wouldn’t be wrong to be concerned, you know,” she said, her fingers tracing unhurried, absentminded circles against my chest. “What kind of woman plans a wedding just to not show up, then in the same day tells her first love he’s been her only love all along?”

I should have been angry at the self-blame in her voice, but I wasn’t.

Instead, a quiet warmth came over me, because she was finally saying the words I had always known to be true.

“The kind of woman who needed time,” I said simply, brushing my thumb over her cheek.

She shrugged, doubt lingering in her expression.

She wasn’t convinced. Worry was etched across her face, her lip caught between her teeth as if she were bracing for words she didn’t want to speak.

Her fingers found her ear, tugging lightly—her silent confession of angst.

“I don’t really give a damn what they think, Sun.

Or what anybody thinks, for that matter,” I said firmly, cutting off whatever argument she was about to make before she could even voice it.

“We’ve been through too much, wasted too much time to start worrying about other people’s opinions now.

” She halted. The hesitation was in every breath, every small shift of her body.

“But they were right back then,” she said, the weight of the past pressing into her words “Your parents weren’t wrong, E. We were really deep really fast.”

I let out a short, humorless laugh, shaking my head. “They weren’t right either, Summer. They were scared. And yeah, we made mistakes, but damn, we were just kids—kids who didn’t know better, who never even got the chance to figure it out.”

My chest felt tight, the old frustration creeping in—the years we’d lost, the choices we didn’t get to make. We had been too young, but we hadn’t been wrong. Summer ran a gentle hand across my face, her touch grounding me.

“Maybe he was just protecting you,” she said, her gaze drifting into the darkness, like she wasn’t really speaking to me but to something…someone who would listen to her muted thoughts.

An unsettling riddled my stomach. I reached for her chin, tilting her face back up to me. “Summer, what are you not saying?”

Her lips parted, but no words released, only uneven breaths, as if caught between what she could say or what she shouldn’t say. Aimlessly, she swiped her fingertips up and down my stomach, but she remained silent. I raised a brow, urging her to talk to me.

“I came to your house before I left for Atlanta,” she said finally.

My brows drew together in confusion, then tightened with something heavier—anger, dread–because I already sensed this was heading somewhere I wouldn’t be able to shake. I sat up on the couch, bringing her with me.

“What?”

“The night before I left for Spelman. We hadn’t talked since the clinic, and I couldn’t leave like that. I needed to see you. To talk. To say goodbye.” Her breathing was labored as she spoke, her legs instinctively tucking over mine. “But I never got the chance.”

A bitter, acidic burn settled in my gut. My voice came out sharp. “Why?” But I already knew. My fucking father.

“Mr. Abara…your father wouldn’t let me.”

I went still, my breath escaping in ragged intervals. All this time, I thought Summer just left. Just said fuck me and went off to live her life without looking back. All this time, I thought I hadn’t meant enough to her to say goodbye. And it was him.

“My father,” I said, the words hollow as they left my mouth.

Summer swallowed, the memory dancing just beneath the surface of her expression.

“He answered the door. And before I could even say anything, he stepped out onto the porch.” She paused, her lips pressing together before she forced herself to continue.

“I don’t know if you were there or not, but he told me to stay away from you—that you had your whole future ahead of you, and I would only hold you back. ”

The words sliced through me like the sharpest blade. I sat back, stunned. Speechless. Barely holding on to my sanity.

“What else did he say?” My voice was controlled, but rage churned beneath my skin. My father was the smartest man I knew and a great provider, but he could be a heartless son of a bitch.

Summer debated, shaking her head. “Nothing.”

But I knew that was a lie. I leaned forward, my jaw tense. “Tell me, Summer.”

Her gaze faltered, as if she was searching for a way to soften the truth.

Then, her voice came quiet, strained. “He said that you deserved better than a girl who…” She left the rest unsaid, but I already knew how it ended.

It hit me like a punch straight to the ribs, knocking the air from my lungs.

I already knew the ending to that sentence.

My family was traditional. Strict and sometimes unforgiving.

My father, especially. Marriage preceded pregnancy under any circumstance.

In our village, an unmarried, pregnant girl would have been disowned, sent away, a walking disgrace. A stain on the family’s honor.

“My fucking father.” The words were guttural, bitter, filled with something between nausea and fury. I needed air. Needed to move. I quickly shifted her legs off me and stood.

“Echo, it doesn’t matter now.” She tried to convince me, but it wasn’t enough to cool the fire spreading through me.

“The hell it doesn’t, Sunshine.” I was pacing now, dragging a rough hand over my face. “I spent years wondering why you left without a word. Years thinking I didn’t mean enough for you to even say goodbye.”

She reached for me then, wrapping a hand around my arm, halting my erratic pursuit of relief.

“E, I would never do that. I wanted to… God, I tried, but he looked me in the eye and told me you didn’t need me anymore.

” Her voice cracked, breaking me open. “I felt so dirty…like a cancer poisoning you.” The way she said it, like she believed it, nearly crippled me.

“He said the best thing was for us to go our separate ways.”

“And after everything we’d gone through, you just listened?” The bitter words left my mouth, and I immediately wished I could swallow them down because this wasn’t her fault. Summer’s arms dropped to her sides. She exhaled shakily, taking a step back.

“Echo, I was eighteen.” Her voice was biting and pained. “My world had already fallen apart. I thought…maybe he was right. Maybe I had done enough damage. Maybe walking away was the best thing to do. For you. For both of us.” She turned away from me.

“Sunshine,” I said, unable to quell the rawness in my voice. “Summer, look at me.”

She stood at the window, motionless, focus fixed on the night, as if searching for answers neither of us could grasp.

I couldn’t take it. The distance, the ghosts of everything we’d lost pressing between us. I closed the space, wrapping an arm around her waist, drawing her back to me. She didn’t resist.

“You were never something I needed to be protected from,” I said, my lips brushing against the shell of her ear. “You were the only thing I ever wanted, Sun.”

She exhaled, her head tipping back to rest against my shoulder. “Every day, I thought about marching to Morehouse, banging on every dorm room door to find you. Wishing that maybe we’d just run into each other at an event or homecoming.”

I let out a bitter snicker, but not a damn thing was funny. “He took Morehouse away from me, too.”

Her head snapped up, those wide, pretty brown eyes locking onto mine. Confusion. Concern. The beginning of something breaking open inside her. “What?”

I clenched my jaw. The anger simmering beneath my skin was old, but it still burned like fresh embers. “He didn’t trust me to stay away from you, so he tightened the leash. Made me stay home. Forced me to go to WashU.”

A sharp, quiet inhale slipped through parted lips, regret threading through the space between us. “E…I’m so sorry,” she whimpered. “I didn’t know. I chose not to chase after details. I knew enough to know that you were okay.”

I shook my head. “It’s cool, Sunshine. I had the experience I was supposed to have, but like you said, it doesn’t matter now.

” It was a lie. It did matter. The years, the choices, the love stolen from us under the guise of protection.

I kissed her temple, my grip constricting like I could make up for the time we had lost. “We lost years because of them. Because of him. Because they thought they knew what was best for us.”

Summer nodded her silent agreement. I ran my thumb along her cheek, guiding her gaze back to mine. I needed her to see me—to hear me. “But I’m telling you right now, nobody decides for us anymore. You hear me?”

Her lips trembled for a moment, but when she spoke, her voice was stable, certain. “Nobody.”