Summer's Never Over

CHAPTER One

NOW

When I found out my mom was dead, I was scrubbing vomit off the floor of the bar bathroom. It was just before midnight, and I'd been at Dogwood House for close to seven hours. I was caked in sweat and chunky glitter, and I bore the battle scars of three beers that had been spilled on me by a bachelor party who hadn't even tipped.

My phone vibrated on the sink, and I shook my head and ignored it. Rig. As if I'd had a change of heart, in the middle of the night. But he called me again, and again, then finally texted the words he knew would get my attention: It's your mom.

I called him back, and he upended my whole life in a few words. It was sudden cardiac arrest, on a late-night walk around the lake. Her cousin-my Aunt Val-had been the one to find her. She'd been only fifty-one. Way too young to die. Healthy and strong, on the brink of the most important summer of her life.

And now, she was gone. Without any warning or preparation.

I shrieked so loudly that people started pounding on the door, threatening to break it down if I didn't open it. I just slid slowly to the floor, feeling the earth shift entirely beneath me.

"No, that can't be right, when the ambulance gets there, they'll-"

"She's gone, ladybug," Rig said, gently cutting me off. "They're already here." His voice cracked, and I closed my eyes, struck dumb by the raw shock of pain.

Rig's voice had always been comforting, and I was briefly disoriented by the wave of nostalgia that came over me. But listening to him now, as he told me that she'd been dead before she hit the ground, was the least comforted I'd ever felt. And the most alone.

The tears were flowing freely down my face, into my mouth and onto my shoes. My mother was not- She could not be- No. She'd texted me just last week, hadn't she? A picture of the new mess hall, which I hadn't responded to.

"This isn't real. Say it isn't real. Please."

"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

"What do I do?" I whispered, though I already knew. Of course I knew.

Rig sighed, the sound terrible and heavy on the other end of the line. "You come home."

I could picture him with shocking clarity, knowing he was sitting hunched over on his heinous plaid couch, the same one Chelsea and I had fallen asleep on hundreds of times as kids; somehow, it had been left untouched by the fire. He'd be running his hands through his hair, helpless, wondering how he was going to run Dread's Cove without my mom. They'd been doing it together for almost thirty years. He'd be looking out the window at the full moon, bright and ominous, seeing the sky lit up with the stars I never saw the full scope of here in Atlanta.

"Do you need me to come get you? I'll drive down there right now. Or I can send Wes."

There was a buzzing in my ears as he spoke, a numbness in my fingers that was slowly crawling its way up my arms, over my shoulders, down my spine.

"No, it's okay." I swallowed the boulder-size lump in my throat, drummed my chewed-up fingers on the cool tile floor. "I can do it. I'll drive myself." Even though the thought of being back there-of seeing camp for the first time in five years, seeing it without her, and without Steph-was enough to steal all the breath from my lungs. Enough to consume me, yank me beneath the surface, down into the depths.

"I know what happened that summer was hard on you," Rig said, like he was reading my mind. "You've got a lot of bad memories here. But you've got good ones, too. This is where you belong. With your family."

The banging on the door was getting more insistent. I hauled myself up off the floor and opened it to a line that was ten people deep; the purple-haired woman at the front looked murderous. But when she saw my face-my bloodshot eyes, mascara and snot-smeared cheeks-she put her hands up in surrender. I barreled past her, down the dark hallway, and out into the night.

On the other side of the alley, at the front entrance of Dogwood House, a group of a dozen college girls were cackling and snapping photos of one another. I watched them for a long moment, slack-jawed, because I couldn't reconcile the fact that the world was still moving, that people were still laughing and happy, and my mother was no longer alive.

I pressed the phone closer to my ear and squeezed my eyes shut. "I'll be there," I said. "I'll be there soon. Give me a few days to get my-to get it together."

"Thank you." There was so much exhaustion in his voice. So much despair. "I know that the timing-I know that this is horrible. All of it. But the last thing your mom would want would be for us to postpone anything. She and Chels have been working on next weekend for months, and-well, getting the Cove reopened is all she's wanted for years. I guess what I'm saying is, we're gonna need you, kid. I'm gonna need you."

I sucked in a breath, overcome with a guilt so strong that it almost knocked me over.

I had sworn up and down that I would never, ever return-that summer had taken far too much from me. But I'd taken things, too. Things I thought I'd never be able to give back.

Things I was so tired of carrying.

CHAPTER Two

NOW

I didn't realize how suffocating it would be, to see her face everywhere.

I kept my head down as I weaved my way through the mess hall, and by the time I made it outside and onto the deck overlooking the lake, I was practically gasping for air.

My mother's photos were hanging on every surface-childhood moments on the tire swing, my grandfather hugging her beneath the hand-carved Dread's Cove sign, and even a few snaps of her ill-fated wedding to my dad. In all of them, she seemed caught in a laugh; the same way she'd been her whole life.

But I'd felt her eyes watching me since I'd gotten in last night. She was blaming me for waiting so long to return. For not being here when she'd died.

Welcome Back Weekend was supposed to be fun, allegedly, even with my mother's funeral now happening tomorrow. While I knew this was how she'd want to be remembered, I couldn't find any sort of peace. Instead, all I felt was grief and shame. And a sense of foreboding that I couldn't shake, living on my skin like a parasite.

Thankfully, there was no one else outside, and I hoped the oppressive heat would be a deterrent for anyone considering following me. As I looked out over the water, I took a sip of wine that was so big I almost choked. The off-brand Riesling was cheap, too sweet, and not at all cold enough, but I was preparing for four straight days of schmoozing and being schmoozed, so I was already on my second glass.

The sky was cotton-candy pink, right before sunset. As a kid, this was always my favorite time of day. I'd stand on this very same porch and watch the sun dip behind the mountains. Standing here tonight felt like stepping into a time machine, if only for a few moments.

Behind me, I heard the squeak of the screen door. I tensed, afraid it was another reporter, foaming at the mouth for an interview I would have to not-so-politely decline. But it was only Wes again, coming to check on me for the third time in the last hour.

"How you holding up?"

I shrugged, resigned, knowing he'd stand next to me, regardless of whether I told him I was fine. I'd already tried.

"I'd be better if Chelsea hadn't skimped on the good wine." I swished some around in my mouth and grimaced, mostly to be dramatic.

In another life, a different summer, Wes would have laughed at this. Bumped his hip into mine, pulled me close. Instead: "Go easy on her, okay? She hasn't exactly been having a good time."

My skin burned like he'd slapped me, though I guess I deserved it. Not that Chelsea had yet given me an opportunity to go easy on her; she'd been ignoring me since I'd arrived.

"Dinner's starting soon," he said after a beat of silence. I could feel him studying me. "Do you want me to get you another drink, and then you can come inside? You don't have to sit up at the front table. You can hang with me and Rig in the back. Lay low for a bit."

He was trying-far harder than I deserved from him-so I made myself look him in the eye. He stood almost two heads taller than me, like he had since his growth spurt when we were twelve. In the years I'd been away, he'd let his dark blond hair grow long, almost to his shoulders. Tonight, he wore a button-down, something I'd seen only a handful of times before. But his hair was loose and tangled, like he'd just gotten out of the water and couldn't be bothered to do anything about it.

It's you and me, we used to say to each other, back when we were together. But that wasn't true anymore. It hadn't been in a long, long time. I'd made sure of it.

"Greer?" he asked.

I flinched, realizing I'd been staring. God, it was weird, being back here. In so many ways, Dread's Cove really was stuck in a time machine-the shape of the lake, the mountains beyond, the sunset, and the squeaky doors-and all of us were, too. I didn't know what to make of it, standing halfway between the past and now.

"I'm honestly surprised you're letting anyone else in the kitchen tonight," I said, a smile that was only a little bit forced stretching across my face. If he was willing to try, then I could, too.

Wes huffed a surprised laugh at my teasing, but I could see he was pleased. "You know I allow myself one night off per summer." For a fleeting second, his grin turned bashful. "Your first official day back in five years seemed like the best excuse for it."

My fingers tightened around my wineglass, though I hoped he didn't notice. I'm sorry, I thought about saying. I missed you. I hate me, too. But I settled on: "I'll see you inside in a second, okay?"

He lingered for a long moment as I looked back out across the water. The years of silence and distance had made things strained between us, and I wondered what he knew about who I'd become. How different I was, how the past had molded me into something practically unrecognizable. I felt all of his questions, unspoken-thousands of them, built on almost two decades of friendship that had been snuffed out, practically overnight.

I wondered if he could really want that friendship back. I wondered if I was capable of giving it to him.

I was still wondering when I heard the door again, and I was back to being alone.

My solitude was short-lived. Two women I didn't know stumbled out a minute or so later; they both had telltale press badges hanging around their necks. Reporters. I wanted to run away and hide myself, though it didn't seem like they were looking for me. They stood at the other end of the deck nursing sweaty wineglasses, their heads pushed together conspiratorially.

"What's the deal with the daughter?" the one on the left asked before open-throating what was left of her drink. "A little snooty, right? So your grandfather was a senator in the seventies, give me a break."

"Well, apparently, she was friends with the dead girl," the other one said. "They shared a cabin."

My whole body tensed.

"Honestly, I wouldn't have wanted to come back, either. That summer was a fiasco, from start to finish," the first woman said. "I can't imagine actually letting your child come here, after what happened. That psycho running around in the woods, luring campers away? I know everyone loved Anita, but she was clearly inept-" Just as she said the words, we locked eyes. She snapped her mouth shut almost comically fast.

I raised a hand in a two-fingered wave, not having the gall to say something mean. Though if they didn't go inside soon, I knew it was more than possible that I would retch into the lake. Or push one of them in.

They disappeared at lightning speed, mumbling something about refills and our condolences. I said nothing as I watched them go, just dug my nails so hard into the wooden railing that I thought they might get stuck that way.

I made myself take a few deep breaths, then went to find Wes and Rig inside. Tucked back by the kitchen, I might be able to avoid prying eyes, at least until my heart rate settled.

I kept a bland smile on my face and dropped down between them, letting my head fall against Rig's shoulder. He put an arm around me immediately, and I felt fractionally better.

"How you holding up?" he asked, patting me gently on the back. I bit back the urge to make a joke about how similar he and Wes had always been. Not that either of them ever took it as an offense; two men, with a twenty-five-year age difference, living the same life on the same timeline.

"I'm ready for this to be over." It was going to be a long four days. But eventually, the reporters would be gone, the memorial would be over, and I would be so distracted by my endless to-do list, by the piles of paperwork and conversations with lawyers, that I wouldn't be able to wallow in this ferocious sadness. One hour at a time. I could manage that. Then, when everyone was gone, I could figure out what the hell I was going to do with Dread's Cove and the rest of my life.

If I was going to stay or go.

Rig squeezed me tighter to him, and tears stung the backs of my eyes. Do not cry, I told myself. I knew the rest of the staff, and especially our donors, were politely unsure about my return. Those bitchy reporters had been right: I hadn't been back in years. In every photo that had been posted of the reconstruction over the past half decade, every social media post, I'd been absent. People had noticed.