We'll Always Have Summer

I stepped toward him and filled the space between us. “I think—I think I’ll always love him a little bit. I’ll always have him in my heart. But he’s not the one I choose. I choose you, Jeremiah.”

All my life, I never felt like I had a choice when it came to Conrad. Now I knew it wasn’t true. I did have a choice. I chose to walk away, then and now. I chose Jeremiah. I chose the boy who would never walk away from me.

His head was still bowed. I willed him to look at me, to believe me just one more time. Then he lifted his head and said, “That’s not enough. I don’t just want a part of you. I want all of you.”

My eyes filled.

He walked over to my dresser and picked up the letter from Susa

“I didn’t even know if you were coming back!”

He ran his finger along the edges, staring down at it. “I got one too. But it wasn’t for me. It was Con’s. My mom must have mixed up the envelopes. In the letter she said—

she said she only ever got to see him in love once. That was with you.” He looked at me then. “I won’t be the reason you don’t go to him. I won’t be your excuse. You’ve got to see for yourself, or you’ll never be able to let him go.”

“I already have,” I whispered.

Jeremiah shook his head. “No, you haven’t. The worst part is, I knew you haven’t and I still asked you to marry me. So I guess I’m partly to blame too, huh?”

“No.”

He acted like he didn’t hear me. “He will let you down, because that’s what he does. That’s who he is.”

For the rest of my life, I was going to remember those words. Everything Jeremiah said to me that day, our wedding day, I would remember. I would remember the words Jeremiah said and the way he looked at me when he said them. With pity, and with bitterness. I hated myself for being the one who made him bitter, because that was one thing he’d never been.

I reached up and laid my palm on his cheek. He could have pushed my hand away, he could have recoiled at my touch. He didn’t. Just that one tiny thing told me what I needed to know—that Jere was still Jere and nothing could ever change that.

“I still love you,” he said, and the way he said it, I knew that if I wanted him to, he would still marry me. Even after everything that had happened.

There are moments in every girl’s life that are bigger than we know at the time. When you look back, you say, that was one of those life-changing, fork-in-the-road moments and I didn’t even see it coming. I had no idea.

And then there are the moments that you know are big.

That whatever you do next, there will be an impact. Your life could go one of two directions. Do or die.

This was one of those moments. Big. They didn’t get much bigger than this.

It ended up not raining that day. Jeremiah’s frat brothers and my actual brother moved the tables and chairs and hurricane vases in for nothing.

Another thing that didn’t happen that day: Jeremiah and I didn’t get married. It wouldn’t have been right.

Not for either of us. Sometimes I wondered if we had rushed into getting married because we were both trying to prove something to the other and maybe even to ourselves. But then I think no, we truly did love each other. We truly did have the best of intentions. It, we, just weren’t meant to be.

a couple of years later

Dearest Belly,

Right now I am picturing you today, on your wedding day, looking radiant and lovely, the pret-tiest bride there ever was. I picture you about thirty or so, a woman who’s had lots and lots of adventures and romances. I picture you marrying a man who is solid and steady and strong, a man with kind eyes. I am sure your young man is completely wonderful, even if he doesn’t have the last name Fisher! Ha.

You know that I could not love you more if you were my own daughter. My Belly, my special girl.

Watching you grow up was one of the great joys of my life.

My girl who ached and yearned for so many things … a kitten you could name Margaret, rainbow roller skates, edible bubble bath! A boy who would kiss you the way Rhett kissed Scarlett. I hope you’ve found him, darling.

Be happy. Be good to each other.

All of my love always, Susa

Oh, Susa

You were wrong about a couple of things. I’m not thirty yet. I’m twenty-three, almost twenty-four. After Jeremiah and I broke up, he went back to live in the fraternity house, and I ended up living with Anika after all.

Junior year, I studied abroad. I went to Spain, where I did have lots and lots of adventures.

Spain is where I got my first letter from him. Real letters, written by his hand, not e-mails. I didn’t write him back, not at first, but they still came, once a month, every month. The first time I saw him again, it was another year, at my college graduation. And I just knew.

My young man is kind and good and strong, just like you said. But he doesn’t kiss me like Rhett kissed Scarlett.

He kisses me even better. And there’s one other thing you were right about. He does have the last name Fisher.

I am wearing the dress my mother and I picked out together—creamy white with lace cap sleeves and a low back. My hair, my hair that we spent an hour pi

He’s got one high-but-not-too-high heel in each hand.

He runs ahead of me and opens the car door.

We are just married.

“Are you sure?” he asks me.

“No,” I say, getting in. Everyone will be expecting us at the reception hall. We shouldn’t keep them waiting.

But then again, it’s not like they can get started without us. We have to dance the first dance. “Stay,” by Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs.

I look out the window, and there is Jere across the lawn. He has his arm around his date, and our eyes meet.

He gives me a small wave. I wave back and blow him a kiss. He smiles and turns back to his date.

Conrad opens the car door and slides into the driver’s seat. His white shirt is soaked through—I can see his skin.

He is shivering. He grabs my hand, locks my fingers into his, and brings it to his lips. “Then let’s do it. We’re both wet already.”

He turns on the ignition, and then we’re off. We head for the ocean. We hold hands the whole way. When we get there, it is empty, so we park right on the sand. It’s still raining out.

I jump out of the car, hitch up my skirt, and call out,

“Ready?”

He rolls up his pant legs, and then he grabs my hand.

“Ready.”

We run toward the water, tripping in the sand, screaming and laughing like little kids. At the last second he picks me up like he is carrying me across a threshold. “If you dare try and Belly Flop me right now, you’re going down with me,” I warn, my arms tight around his neck.

“I go wherever you go,” he says, launching us into the water.

This is our start. This is the moment it becomes real.

We are married. We are infinite. Me and Conrad. The first boy I ever slow danced with, ever cried over. Ever loved.