Summer Went Away | Cam Cameron (2)

Who You Are

I made Conrad and Jeremiah an Easter basket. I went on Esty and got custom-made baskets with their names on them just like mom would. I made myself a small one too, just so the scrapbooks looked the way they would when mom would make them.

I selfishly wish that I would have said yes to Cameron's offer to spend Easter with him.

I checked all of the baskets at least thirty times making sure that they were perfect, as perfect as they could be when they were made by me, not Mom.

Conrad's basket has a little green stuffed bunny, green eggs filled with various candies, a new football, a deck of cards to bring with him to college, and a light blue shirt with pink accents.

Jere's was a mirror of Con's. A yellow bunny, yellow eggs with candy, a football, cards, and the same shirt as Connie.

I just gave myself a matching dress and a purple bunny. That was enough, Easter baskets aren't any fun when you make them for yourself.

I walked upstairs and laid in my bed, Connie was on an air mattress just like he said he'd be when we talked on the phone a few weeks ago

"Hey Peaches," he smiled, throwing a stuffed animal at me.

I turned to look at him with a fake smile. Why didn't I just go to Cousin's where I could cry to my boyfriend about missing my mom? "Hey, Glasses."

"Are you okay?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

I nodded and laid in my bed, pulling my blanket to cover my whole body. "It's just weird."

"Making the Easter baskets isn't as fun as mom making and pretending the Easter Bunny snuck in our house at night?" He asked, reading my mind.

I took a deep breath and looked down at him on his makeshift bed, "Yeah...that."

He reached up and put his hand on mine, "Only like two months before you get to go move in with Cam Cameron.."

"Yeah, that. Cameron."

He shot up, "Did something happen to you two? I'll kill him."

I shook my head, "Nothing happened, he's still perfect as ever even though my whole world has been taken over by stress. Jere just doesn't want me to move in with him and he really doesn't want me to take the summer house."

He was silent for a while. A lot longer than I found to be comfortable. He took a deep breath and finally spoke, "I understand where Jere is coming from...but I understand why mom left you the house."

"Okay, then what do I do?"

"You move in with Cam Cameron. You are the one who will take the most care of it. You are the one who will force us and all of our future children to come up in the summers and have an old-fashioned summer. Even Mom knew you were mom junior. Jeremiah just can't handle that you're the one taking over now," he said simply. Like he knew everything going on and had a simple fix to everything falling apart around us.

I sat up to look at him better, "I'm sick of being mom junior. I am sick of putting everyone and everything else before me. Because the one person who always put me first is dead. So now it's just me stuck trying to keep everything together and keep everyone happy and I'm so fucking sick of it. I can't do it. I can't keep doing it, it's going to kill me."

His face fell and his eyes softened, "Why didn't you tell anybody?"

I felt a tear escape my eye, "because if no one saw me falling apart then maybe I wasn't. Because if you thought I was fine, I clearly was. I did everything I was supposed to to be fine but I still wasn't and I'm still not."

He moved to my bed and wrapped his arms around me, "Being fine is not because you crossed off a list of boxes. Your mental health isn't a to do list, Emilia. You need to be with the people who care about you. You need to tell them you are struggling and if they are really your people then they won't leave you for that. You need to live your dreams."

I bit my lip, "How am I supposed to be myself when I have no idea who the hell I am."

"Maybe," he whispered, kissing the top of my head. "Moving away from Boston and spending some time with Cam will help you find yourself. You are such a happier person when you're with him because he doesn't hold you back. As much as I don't want to live even farther away from you, I think it's what you need so you can be okay again."

There was no stopping the tears now. I couldn't even form words. Was he right? Is Boston holding me back? Is this idea I have in my head that I have to be just like my mom what's stopping me from thriving?

Of course, it was, how the fuck can I be the best version of me when I am trying to be some backup version of Mom. I'm not mom. I'm not mom junior. I'm Emilia Fisher. Now I just have to figure out who the fuck that is.

"Thank you," I told him.

"For?" He asked, still holding me close to him.

I looked up at him and smiled, "Being so smart. Giving me good advice. Acting like a best friend more than a brother."

"Anytime, baby sister," he smiled.

I flicked his forehead, "Three minutes. Three of them."

"Best three minutes of my life," he smirked.