“He hiked up the bleachers with you, didn’t he? He knows he needs to take it easy when he’s had a joint bleed. But instead, he’s been so distracted by you that he hasn’t infused since you nearly broke his nose. His factor levels were low and blood pooled in his calf. He was this close to surgery.” She held her fingers half an inch apart and practically shoved them in Summer’s face. “Like his leg isn’t damaged enough already!”
Summer sat down on a chair. “Is he okay? Why didn’t he call me?”
“Because I took his phone. The last thing he needs right now is some girl coming along and making him think he’s invincible.”
Mom put her hands on Summer’s shoulders, her cool fingers soothing the fire burning through her body. “I think that’s enough. My daughter cares about your son. She would never do anything to hurt him.”
Mrs. Vega narrowed her eyes. “I did a background check. A sealed record says plenty all on its own.”
Summer brushed Mom’s hands away and stepped forward. “Bas is missing, right? And doesn’t have his phone? My past is totally irrelevant right now. I drove drunk, I got arrested, I’m serving my punishment.”
Mrs. Vega sat again. “He’s done this before. Taken off because he doesn’t like what I have to say.”
“Bastian is his own person. He’s going to do things you disagree with. You can blame me, you can hate me, I don’t care. But Bas can make his own decisions. If he left, it’s because he needs space. Have you called the police?”
“No.” Her shoulders slumped. “It’s only been eighteen hours. I don’t . . . he’s not a runaway. I’m not a bad mother.”
“Do you think something happened to him or not? What if he’s hurt?”
“I’ll call if he doesn’t come home tonight.” Her voice sounded empty. “He hates me. That’s why I need you to help me.”
“By yelling at her and bringing up her past mistakes?” Mom glared at the other woman, switching into full-on momma bear mode.
The fierce look in Mrs. Vega’s eyes waivered. “I need my baby back.”
“I don’t know where he is.” A sick knot of fear twisted her stomach again and she pressed her hands against the churning to hold herself together.
Mrs. Vega blinked a few times, and then hardened her expression. “Of course not. I had to try.” With a slight nod, she picked up her purse from the antique coffee table and stepped toward the front door. “Please. If you hear from him, please let me know. He’ll listen to you. He won’t listen to me anymore.”
The door closed, but Summer remained standing in the middle of the living room, fighting to breathe through her panic.
“I’m sorry,” Mom said, wrapping her arms around Summer’s shoulders.
“What if she’s right? What if I’m hurting him?”
Mom turned her around, staring into her eyes. “You have a good heart, Keiki, and I know you care about Bastian. You’d never hurt him on purpose.”
“That doesn’t mean I won’t.”
“Love always comes with that risk. Would you rather not love at all?”
“No,” Summer said softly.
“What can I do?” Mom asked.
Summer shook her head, like that could clear the fog. “I don’t know. I need to find him.”
“You know Bastian. Where would he go?”
She glanced out the picture window at the earliest beginnings of the sunset. “Golden hour,” she murmured. “If he’s okay, he’s at the beach.”
“Do you need a ride?”
She nodded and squeezed her eyes closed, silently pleading with whatever forces controlled the universe for his safety.
By the time Mom dropped her at the edge of the sand, the sun was sinking into a pool of liquid gold, burnishing the horizon with watermelon and orange.
Bastian had to be there. She needed him to be there. The night was too perfect, the moment too still for him to miss it.
That conviction pushed her onward, down the beach, around clusters of people. Bonfires dotted the sand, orange and yellow and red flames jumping and dancing in the wind. Bits of music drifted around her, buoyed up by the cacophony of revelers, but nothing strong enough to draw her attention away from the shore.
Not quite a silhouette, his dark form stood in sharp contrast to the sun-kissed water and whiteness of the sand.
“Bas?” Summer called over the roar of the surf while she inched toward where he sat beside the water. The desperate tilt of his shoulders set her on edge.
“Summer.” The slur of alcohol twisted her name on his lips. “My mom send you after me?”
“She’s worried about you. I am too.”
“I’m seventeen. I’m not made of glass.” He pitched his beer bottle across the sand and it shattered against a rock.
“But you’re a hemophiliac and you’re drinking. That’s dangerous. You told me it’s dangerous.”
He laughed. “I’ve been a mess since the day I was born. Everything is dangerous. Screw danger. Screw my blood and it’s freaking inability to clot. Screw. It.”
“Hey.” She caught his hands. “I get it.”
He pulled away from her. “Do you, oh secretive one? Do you live in a cage too?”
She knelt beside him in the sand, sending off a quick text to his mother. “You’re scaring me, Bas. You have to stop this. Before you get hurt.”
“I’m always scared.” He laughed again, but it fell heavy and empty. “I don’t want to be scared anymore.”
“I promise you, getting wasted won’t make you less afraid.”
“It can make me forget.” He took her hand and pulled her close, wrapping his body around her. His lips brushed her jaw, just below her ear. “Can you help me forget?”
“Forgetting doesn’t fix anything either.” She slipped out of his arms and stood, reaching for his hand. “Come on, Bas.”
“I don’t want to go home.” He staggered to his feet, unsteady and awkward.
“Then come home with me. You can’t stay here.”
He wrapped his arm around her waist, sliding his fingers under the edge of her shirt and caressing the bare skin of her sides. “Why not? You can stay with me. Keep me safe.”
“I can’t, Bas,” she said. “The tide is coming in.”
He lowered his head, forehead resting against hers and the heavy scent of alcohol overpowering the mint of his breath. “Stop thinking. For one night.”
“I’ve tried that.”
“One. Night.” His lips hovered just above her skin. “That’s all I’m asking.”
“This is stupid.” But she couldn’t leave him, and she couldn’t force him to go.
He caught her hand, just as the sun winked out, dropping below the horizon. “Stay with me. Dance with me.”
“Bas,” she pleaded over the noise of the crowd and the music and the ocean.
His hands circled her waist, pulling her against his body. The heat of his pulse mixed with the thump of the bass, creating a painful, inescapable rhythm that clashed with her own anxious heartbeat.
“You need to go home.” Her voice turned desperate and pleading. “This won’t fix anything. Hurting yourself won’t fix anything.”
Something had shifted inside her until Bastian had become dearer, more precious, than anyone. More than anything, she needed to protect him. To keep him well and safe and whole.
That was the difference between him and the other boys. He mattered, not just what they could take from each other before they went their separate ways.
He slid his hands under the hem of her shirt again and the contact of his bare palms against her skin nearly undid her.
But she could taste the alcohol and desperation on his breath.
God knew how often she’d been there. How often she’d drowned her thoughts in beer and a willing body.
She knew how he’d feel when he woke with a raging headache and even deeper heartache.
If he didn’t hurt himself and end up even worse.
She caught his wrists
and drew his hands away from her sides. “Bas. Bastian.”
Pain carved deep into his face and he closed his eyes. “I want to forget. Please.”
“I can’t.” She kissed his cheek, his nose, his eyelids. “Not like this. We can’t start using each other like this because it never stops.”
“I needed you this weekend. I needed you with me at the hospital.”
“I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
He straightened and pushed away from her. “Sorry doesn’t fix anything. Why do people say sorry? Someone walks into a hospital room and says ‘I’m sorry.’ Why? It doesn’t do anything.”
“Neither does this.” She crossed her arms, raising her voice over the music. “Getting drunk and having meaningless hookups doesn’t make you feel better in the morning.”
“Meaningless?” He stared down at her. “So none of this meant anything to you? You’re only with me because you feel sorry for the poor hemo kid?”
“What? No! You’re not in any place to have this conversation right now.”
“I’m being honest, Summer. What about you? Can you even be honest?”
She swallowed. “When you wake up tomorrow, it won’t matter what I said.”
“Why are you here?”
“Because I care about you, Bas.” She touched her hand to his cheek, willing him to feel what she felt, what her words couldn’t express. “Whatever happens between us, I want to happen because of that, not because you’re drunk. I can’t let you try to stumble home and get hurt. You shouldn’t drink and you are shit-faced right now.”
“Yes, mother.”
“That is unfair and you know it. I’m taking you home and putting you to bed. You need to infuse! Your mom said you haven’t even been home since Saturday!”
“I’m fine.”
“How are you fine? How is any of this fine?”
“You are just like everyone else. I thought you saw past this. I thought I was more to you than my disorder.”
She caught his shirt in her fists. “Let me take you home before you get hurt or either of us says things we’ll regret.”
“I don’t do regrets. Waste of time.”
“Please.” She cupped his cheek in her hand, drawing his head against hers. “Just come home. You can hate me all you want. I just need you to be safe.”
“I don’t need another warden,” he said, stumbling closer to the water. “I need you to be different.”
“Let me help you.” She caught his arm, pulling him back just before he collided with a rock.
Bastian pushed her away, losing his balance and careening toward another boulder.
With a painful twist in her gut, Summer pulled out her phone to send off another text to Mrs. Vega. He wouldn’t even make the short distance home on his own.
A wave hit the shore, shocking Summer with frigid mist. Bastian didn’t even seem to notice the danger, straying onto the damp sand. As the tide rushed back out to sea, it pulled the sand from under his feet, making him sway and twirl to keep his balance.
“Bas!” Summer darted forward, heart pounding, and caught him around his chest, trundling him back to the relative safety of the shore. “Are you trying to die?”
Bastian glared at her and tried to pull away, but his movements were too uncoordinated and he fell into her. “I don’t need you.”
“Stop fighting,” she begged.
“But then what do I have left?” His glasses were askew and his hair fell across his face. In the pale light, anguish reflected deep in his eyes.
“I’ve got you,” she murmured, keeping him upright on the dry sand by sheer willpower. They were both wet with cold spray, but she’d kept him from falling into the water. “Bastian.” She shifted his weight off her body, and he staggered to right himself. “Look at me.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Why couldn’t you let me be?”
“You have to take care of yourself. You can’t act reckless like this. I can’t lose you.”
“Sebastian?” His mother’s anxious voice rang across the beach.
“You called my mom on me?” The anger in his voice outweighed the hurt. “I needed you to understand.”
“Sebastian!” Mrs. Vega ran toward him, pulling him into a stiff hug. “Oh, thank God!”
“I need you to be okay more,” Summer whispered, slipping away before either one of them could stop her.
Chapter 32
“He hates me, doesn’t he?” Summer said, staring at the pile of dresses strewn across her bed.
“Hate is a strong word,” Abby said. She pulled a cream lace thing free from the pile, held it up to Summer and tossed it aside again.
“He won’t return my texts.”
“His mom still has his phone.” She held up two more before grabbing a cranberry, A-line dress in some kind of eyelet. “This one.”
“Have you at least talked to him?”
“I stopped by on my way here.”
Summer swallowed, trying to slow her pounding heart. “Is he okay?”
“No long-term damage. That they know of.”
She knotted her fingers together. “Is he coming tonight? He said he’d come.”
“I don’t know. He really messed himself up. Now strip. The rehearsal is in half an hour and you need to get your mind off the boy.”
With a groan, Summer slid off her jeans and tank top and pulled the dress over her head. “This is the one?” Gathers across the bust and a wide sash gave the illusion of more shape than she actually had.
“That’s the one.”
“What about my hair?”
Abby grinned. “I thought you’d never ask. Sit.”
“Do you think he’ll get over it?” Summer dutifully sank into her desk chair while Abby fluttered around her.
“You did the right thing,” Abby said softly.
“I called his mom on him so she could drag him home drunk,” Summer said. “I’d hate me too.”
“Better that he hates you than he ends up dead.”
A shudder passed through her.
“You have it bad, don’t you?” Abby said, pausing to watch Summer’s face.
“So bad,” Summer said, squeezing her eyes shut. “I have to fix this.”
“People get mad. People fight. If you guys can’t get through this, maybe it isn’t meant to be.”
Summer inhaled, filling her lungs to their full capacity before letting go again. “But how do we get through this if he won’t talk to me?”
“One thing at a time. Tonight, get through the rehearsal. Tomorrow, I promise he will be at the wedding and I’ll make sure you get him alone.”
“I don’t know if that’s going to do it,” Summer said.
“Bas is being dramatic. It’ll blow over.”
“What if it doesn’t?”
“Then we’ll tie him down and talk some sense into him.”
Summer giggled.
“I’ve known Bas for a long time,” Abby said. “He just needs to work through his own head. He gets hung up on his own limitations.”
“I don’t care about that.”
“But he does. He sees a giant H branded on his forehead. You need to accept the way he sees himself as much as you need to accept how you see him.” She spun Summer around to face the mirror. “What do you think?”
“I love it!” Summer turned her head to admire her friend’s handiwork. Abby had somehow braided her hair and looped it around in such a way that covered the bare spot on the side of her head. “You are amazing.”
“I know.” Abby winked at her. “Now. I have to go to work, but I’ll see you tomorrow at the wedding, ’k?”
“Thank you, Abby.”
“Of course.” She folded Summer into a hug. “This is what friends are for.”
“To stand beside you at your mom’s awkward wedding?”
“Exactly!” Abby blew her a kiss before she bounced out the door.
Summer shook her head and turned back to the mirror to do her makeup. She leaned in,
holding her eye open as wide as she could to apply a swipe of mascara. Instead, she jabbed herself in the eye and threw the tube down in disgust. There was a reason she didn’t wear makeup.
Her stomach flip-flopped. Everything had to be perfect—she had to be perfect. Her mom needed her to be perfect.
She swept on a pinky shade of lipstick and stepped back to survey the results. Abby was right about the dress, and with her hair styled right, she looked like a softer, prettier version of herself. She slipped on a pair of silver flats and hurried out the door.
“Summer?” Mom called from her bedroom.
Instead of skipping down the stairs, she stepped across the hall. “Yeah?”
“What do you think?” Mom turned slightly, showing off her rehearsal dress. The deep plum color brought out her eyes and a cream ribbon highlighted her tiny waist. It suited her more than the fluffy white of her wedding gown. With her hair tucked into a neat chignon, she was the perfect picture of an elegant bride-to-be.
Never mind the years she’d spent as the beach-bum girlfriend of a surf god. Never mind the teenage daughter standing in front of her. Right then and there, Mom belonged in Oceanside with Grandma and Pete and all the shiny things her new life afforded her.
“You’re beautiful.” Summer wrapped her arms around her mother and hugged her tight.
“So are you.”
Instead of letting go, Summer tightened her hold. “I don’t like change.”
“I know.” Mom tightened her arms too. “I don’t know when we’ll have another moment with just the two of us.”
“I miss how things used to be,” Summer said, her heart breaking even as it swelled with joy.
“Me too.” Mom kissed her head. “We’ve made a good team, haven’t we?”
Summer tilted her head back and wrinkled up her nose. “Not always.”
Mom laughed. “No. Not always. But we’ve survived.”
“I’m glad you found Pete.”
“Me too.”
“Don’t cry.” Summer pushed away, burying her own melancholy behind a smile. “You’ll smear your makeup.”
“I don’t care.” Mom pulled her in close again. “You’ll always be my Keiki, okay?”
“Okay.” Summer backed away again and dabbed at her eyes. “I’ll see you at the rehearsal, okay?”
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