Once Upon a Summer

by Brooke Moss

  EPILOGUE

  Preston

  The familiar tune of Pomp and Circumstance started playing, prompting everyone on the risers to turn and watch for their graduate. Head after head covered in the flat, square caps covered in gold satin filtered into the stadium, but none beheld the short, dark hair I was looking for. The hair that belonged to the girl I loved so hard it made me dizzy.

  We’d been together for three years and eight and a half months, and it still felt like the first time I’d walked into Petal Pushers and she’d taken my breath away. So different from any girl I’d ever envisioned winding up with, and yet—the one girl who completed me like the final piece of a puzzle.

  We moved in together after I’d graduated from BSU, and came back to Coeur d’Alene to teach in the elementary school. We wanted to stay local. She liked to keep an eye on her mom, even though she didn’t need to anymore, and I got it. I felt the same way about my dad. We walked to the beach every evening after work, discussing every little thought that popped into our heads, and then some. It seemed like we never ran out of things to talk about. Even when we weren’t talking, we still communicated.

  “There she is!” Aubrey’s mom held up her phone to take pictures in rapid succession.

  I followed her line of sight, and felt my insides tighten when I saw Aubrey’s trademark red lipstick in the crowd. I put my arm around her mom and squeezed. “Congratulations!”

  There were times when Aubrey didn’t think she wasn’t going to make it. She’d started off at the local community college, then completed her education at Eastern Washington, which required two hours of travel every day. She’d struggled with some of the required classes, preferring art and creativity over practicality and numbers any day of the week, but we’d gotten through it together.

  “She looks so beautiful,” Aubrey’s mom gushed, putting her phone back into her purse and waving furiously. “Can she see us? Oh, I hope she knows we’re here.”

  “She knows we wouldn’t miss this.”

  I felt the lump in my slack pocket, knowing that the antique opal ring inside was going to make her scream with joy. The question I would be popping with it would be the real clincher. My mom and dad were back at their house, preparing for the surprise engagement party Liza had helped me plan. “Wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

  I sure as hell wouldn’t have. Every day with Snow White was better than the last.

  Aubrey’s eyes finally caught mine, and she offered me her wide, unabashed grin. My heart swelled, and all the oxygen in my lungs escaped. She was my everything. And as soon as she accepted her diploma, I was going to get on one knee, and make her mine forever…

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Brooke writes complex, character-driven stories about kismet, reunited lovers, first love, and the kind of romance that we should all have the chance at finding. She prefers her stories laced with some humor just for fun, and enough drama to keep her readers flipping the pages, and begging for more! When Brooke isn't spinning tales, she spends her time drawing/cartooning, reading, watching movies then comparing them to books, and, of course, wrangling four kids, mugging on her hubby she lovingly refers to as her "nerd", and attempting to conquer the Mount Everest of laundry that is the bane of her existence. Find Brooke elsewhere on the web at www.brookemoss.com

  Wishing on Water

  Liz Ashlee

  OTHER BOOKS BY LIZ ASHLEE

  Step Toward You

  Wishing on Water

  Copyright © 2018 Liz Ashlee

  All rights reserved.

  DEDICATION

  For my role model, best friend, and mom, Geoia Gauck, who helped me brainstorm this idea while we were grocery shopping—and who’s talked me down many of times when I’ve felt exactly like Hope does. Love to you the moon and back, Meme.

  WISHING ON WATER

  Facebook isn’t for the faint of heart. Neither is Twitter, Instagram, or any other type of social media. In fact, the whole idea of being social is a stab-in-the-back waiting to happen.

  They're a reminder that life is happening all around me, while mine stagnates.

  Boring.

  I'm a creature of habit—I like boring. I like how I can count on eating dinner with my parents and brother every night, being in bed by nine to enjoy some reading, and sleeping in on the weekends. Between school and my part-time job, my hopes and dreams center on pure laziness. Eventually when I graduate college, I’ll have a degree in math but also one in how-to-be-a-bum.

  Everyone I've ever possibly known is doing things—life things.

  Having babies.

  Getting engaged or married.

  Buying houses, new cars, couches, animals.

  I might as well be a meme people share when their “single” status has been the same for so long it's dusty.

  Just today five of my friends announced their engagement. I have about five-hundred friends, which means if five people got engaged every day, it would take only a hundred days for everyone on my social network to find another person to love forever, while I worry about keeping my fish alive.

  Somehow, forever alone feels more fitting as eternally alone, because even in death I'll be dancing with singlehood.

  "Hope," my mom says, knocking on my doorframe. "Are you wasting away in self-pity again?"

  I throw my hand over my face and drop my phone to my side. "Why do I do this to myself?"

  She sits on my bed. I already feel one of those your-time-will-come speeches coming on. She'll say how I'm only twenty and have a lifetime ahead of me. True, but it seems bleak when literally everyone you know already has a life.

  "Because you're off from school and you have nothing else to think about," she tells me gently.

  Her words only make me feel worse. "Great, now I sound more pathetic."

  "You're not pathetic, sweetie. You're just on a different path."

  I squeeze my eyes closed beneath my hand. "A different path," I repeat.

  "Yes," she says. "One where your life starts when you least expect it."

  She tucks my hair behind my ear. I inherited the red color from my dad. My mom always tells me she's jealous of it, but I've always wished I could have the blonde hair her and my brother, Sam, have. Not that I don't like my hair color, just how along with it, I also inherited my dad's freckles, pale skin, and fear of the sun. "Don't be so down on yourself. Your big moments are coming. I promise."

  I smile. "I'll hold you to it."

  "You should," she agrees. The doorbell rings downstairs and my mom's face scrunches up. "I should answer it because Sam won't. We really need to get him into a twelve-step program for gaming." She stands and points at my phone. "Speaking of which, how about you put that thing away?"

  "I should, shouldn't I?" When she leaves, I do. I silence it and put it face down on my desk. My angst is only the summer blues. I feel lost without school. Eventually things will straighten out. I won't be panicking over babies, marriages and real social media things. Even if it doesn't feel like it, my life is on track. Mom's right—I'm just on a different time line.

  "Hope? It's Chloe!" she yells.

  In all of my moping and self-pity, I don't remember any texts from my best friend asking if she could come over. We're not spur of the moment people. It's why we gravitated toward each other in the first place, over a mutual fear of substitute teachers back when we were in elementary school.

  My worrying, type-A friend doesn't just show up. I walk into the hall then down the stairs. Chloe’s standing at the bottom with a huge grin on her face. She's wearing a blue dress, which is much nicer than my tank top and ratty shorts. Even her brown hair is out of its usual braid and is straightened. She doesn’t look like she's had a boring day.

  Before my foot hits the bottom step, she holds up her hand. Right there, on her ring finger, is a gold band with a sparkling diamond. My heart somehow defies modern medicine as it flutters with excitement for her and plummets to the ground.

  "You're engaged
?" I ask, trying to pretend my squeal is out of excitement.

  My mom's face pops out of the living room. She probably knows exactly what I'm thinking.

  Chloe nods happily. "As of this morning!"

  "What? How?" Why?

  Don't get me wrong, I'm beyond excited for her. She's been dating her boyfriend, Andrew, for a year now. When they got together, she gave me an inkling of hope I could find someone, too. Like me, she'd been dancing miserably with single-hood for a while, but then the Significant Other Gods decided it was her turn.

  It's hard to think of her as being ahead of me. We've always been neck and neck when it comes to life. Same grades, same personality, same obsessions, same life goals. We even had our first periods within a week of each other. But now, she's getting married—starting a life.

  And I'm...exactly where I've always been. What's wrong with me?

  "This morning, Andrew took me to the park—the one we met in. He had a picnic set up and we went for a walk. He proposed to me on the bridge near the pond!" She continues to chatter excitedly about the details of the proposal and I fight to listen. All I can hear is the ticking of the clock on our living room mantle.

  I'm only twenty. I have a whole life ahead of me. Maybe I'll be one of those people who wait until they're thirty to settle down. I mean, a Buzzfeed quiz I took last week said that I'd get married between the ages of twenty-six and thirty-two.

  "So, what do you say?" Chloe finishes.

  I blink.

  "I say...okay?" I answer, hoping for the best.

  She starts jumping again. "Thank goodness. I know should've done something cute to ask you to be my MOH, but we're not really like that."

  My heart stammers. Maybe we're not quite as alike as I thought, because I have a whole Pinterest page dedicated to asking her to be my maid of honor, just like I do for the rest of my someday, maybe wedding.

  Then again, that could be what's gotten me here. Some people are doers and others are planners. I'm a planner, not a doer. I make lists and Pinterest pages, but nothing comes of it. They don't do anything other than make me sad.

  #

  Chloe leaves an hour later, still over the moon. I managed to put on an excited face. I felt genuine happiness for her. Andrew's a good guy and they belong together—it's not their fault I'm in the mood to feel sorry for myself.

  We glossed over some of her ideas for the wedding before she had to leave for a celebratory lunch with Andrew and her family.

  The second she’d left, it felt as if she took all of the excitement with her. Now I’m hallow and sad. Lonely.

  Mom’s clearly trying to cure me because she's treating me like I'm defective. She's given me a mug of hot tea, despite it being warm out, and some chocolate chip cookies. She even drug Sam down to sit with us, although he's got his headphones in while he plays on his cell. I'm half-surprised she didn't order my dad to come home from work.

  "Mom, I'm fine," I lie.

  She rolls her eyes and sits down to the side of me, across from Sam. "No, you're not. Usually you're happy, a little snarky, but overall a good kid. Right now, you look like your fish died."

  "Thank God, he didn't. He's all I have."

  "And you're being dramatic."

  "Sorry," I say. "I don't like being a drama queen."

  "It's okay," she says. "What would make you feel better?"

  I think about her question as I nibble on my cookies. When they're all gone, I take a sip of the tea to give myself some more reflection time. All the while, Sam plays his game. He's a senior in high school, but I wonder if he has the same fears as I do. Maybe he doesn't—maybe guys are wired differently. Then again, this might just be me. I think that’s my biggest fear.

  "I want to be different," I answer slowly. "I want to do something."

  "Alright," she says. "That's a start."

  I bite my lip. "I want to find myself."

  "Like in the hippie sense?"

  "Yeah, I think so. Is that weird?"

  "Not if it would make you happy."

  "I'm not sure how to do it, though. I feel so...it's like I don't change. My life stays the same. I do the same things, live in the same place. I just want something different." I wrap my fingers around the handle of my mug. "I want to get away from everything and start fresh."

  She stares at me. I'm not sure if it's because she had me young, but she's always treated me like I'm an adult. The older I get, the more she feels like a friend and less like a mom. We've reached this stage where she's no longer raising me, she's helping me raise myself. She's not quite there with Sam yet, since I somehow matured in dog years and he still hasn't gotten out of his puppy phase.

  "Okay."

  "I said the same to Chloe when I had no idea what she said," I point out. "Which I feel really guilty about."

  "No, I heard you. I'm thinking."

  She stands and goes into the kitchen. She starts rifling through our pile of old mail, looking a little frazzled. When she finds what she's searching for, she holds it up and does a little dance.

  "What's that?"

  "A letter from your great-aunt Isla."

  "No, I meant the dance."

  She waves me off and walks back to her chair. She sits down and puts the letter on the table, then taps it. "This is your solution. Every year she offers for us to come stay with her and we always turn her down, because there's not enough room for all of us. But you? One person? Hope, you should go stay with her. Enjoy a summer on a beach, away from here, and away from social media."

  "Seriously?"

  "As serious as serious can be," she says. "I'll even pay for the plane ticket."

  "Great-Aunt Isla lives in a retirement community—" I stop my complaint and reconsider. Which, now that I think about it, wouldn't be such a bad deal. Most of them aren't getting married, they're definitely not having babies, and they're in their forever homes. Their lives are figured out already. They've been figured out. If I'm lucky, it might even rub off on me. "Are you sure it's okay?"

  "I'll call and ask, but I'm sure it is."

  "What about work?" I ask. I'm a little interested to see how she'll explain away this one.

  "Well, I don't usually support letting somebody down, but they're constantly calling you in on your days off and your manager loves you. I say you just reap what you're owed."

  Well played, Mom. I draw in a deep breath, then let it out with a shaky smile. "Am I really going to do this?"

  #

  I'm actually doing this.

  Strangely, it didn't sink in when I asked my manager if I could take two weeks off (or when she said yes and told me I deserve the time off, even though all I do is take coffee orders). It also didn't sink in when I kissed my parents and Sam goodbye at the airport or when I was sitting on the plane, traveling alone for the first time in my life.

  Nope, it finally hits when my cab drops me off in front of an expansive three-story building which looks more like a high-end hotel than a place for the elderly. Not that I really know what a retirement home looks like. But if this is how they all are, I'm cashing in my student ID for an AARP card.

  The only issue is I don't think I could afford the rent Aunt Isla pays.

  She's my maternal grandma's sister and probably the coolest person I know. Instead of getting married and starting a family, she traveled around the world, visiting at least seventy countries. Her passport is a colorful collage of a life well lived. It led her to starting a popular travel company. Before she retired, she'd made good investments which would've easily made the second half of her life livable, but she also sold the company for more zeros than I've ever seen. No one in my family knows the exact amount of money in her bank account, but I don't think we'd be able to comprehend it if we did.

  Spending a few weeks with her might be good for me. I think I have a narrowed vision of how my life should be and Aunt Isla has an expansive view. She lives a life completely outside of the box and outside expectations—most importantly, she's happy.r />
  I wheel my suitcase behind me as I walk up the roundabout and into the building. There's a sitting area to my left and an "information" desk to my right. There's a set of doors straight ahead, but you clearly can't just walk through them without permission. I turn to the desk and am met with a smiling middle-aged woman dressed in blue scrubs.

  "Hello," she says.

  "Hi." I stand my suitcase on end then walk up to the desk. "I'm Hope, and I'm here to stay with my Aunt Isla."

  The woman claps. "Oh, yes. You have no idea how excited she is to have you stay with her. It's all she's been talking about."

  "I'm excited, too," I say, taken a bit aback. I was worried she didn't really want me to visit as much as she felt it was kind to offer.

  "Let me give her a quick call." She uses a phone on her desk and has a quick conversation telling my aunt I'm here. "Isla will be right down," she says after she hangs up.

  "Thank you," I say and go wait in the common area.

  Eventually, the door opens and Aunt Isla walks through. She's trendier than ever, in a large olive-colored poncho and a pair of black pants. She has on an array of clunky bracelets and necklaces, with earrings to match. Her short red hair—not natural like mine—is exceptionally cute and styled. She’s the type of woman we all aspire to be when we get older. Also, one who gives Helen Mirren a run for her money.

  "Hope!" she says cheerily as she comes toward me, arms open. She hugs me tightly. The smell I always associate with her, fresh gardenias, infiltrates my senses. "I'm so happy you're here!" She pulls back and looks me over. "You're absolutely gorgeous!" She peeks over my shoulder. "Isn't she pretty, Mary?"

  "She is, Isla," Mary answers. "I'll bet she'll turn a few heads around here."

  I blush. I needed to hear that, because I tend to identify most with a class-A troll, which isn't pretty on the ego.