❛ this love is good, this love
is bad. this love is alive, back
from the dead. these hands had
to let it go free, and this love
came back to me. ❜
꒰ 🐚 ꒱ؘ ࿐ ࿔*:･ﾟ
𝐈𝐍 𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐂𝐇... ꒱ ↷🖇
tatum smith comes back to cousins
after a year and a half...
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──────────── this love. 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍, 𝘚𝘜𝘔𝘔𝘌𝘙 𝘓𝘖𝘝𝘌 𝟢𝟤𝟦. this love
TEARS STREAM DOWN Tatum Smith's face like hot lava as she cries into her mother chest. She was better, Tate keeps telling herself in her head. Susannah was better. She beat the cancer. Why is it back now?
Tate was mad at herself for not noticing. She was mad at herself for being so caught up in herself and her own problems that she hadn't even noticed Susannah being sick, or Conrad's reaction to it. Looking back at it now, it was so obvious, but so hidden.
Tate was also mad at the world. Why? Why did such a bright, heavenly light have to be flickering? Why did the sweetest person have to go through so much pain?
Tate couldn't loose Susannah. None of them can. She was the epitome of summer and this house. Without her, it wasn't really summer. It could never really be summer without Susannah Fisher.
Marie laid in her bed with both her children latching onto her like koalas as they sobbed like babies. Adrian never cried, and even he was a wreck. "Is she ever going to get better?"
Marie shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know."
Those three words were enough to let every sob Tate had been fighting back run free. Her body felt like it was being squeezed of every drop of liquid she had in her. Every memory she had with Susannah flashed through her mind like it was the end, because it very well possible have been the end.
For all Tate knew, Susannah wouldn't last another week. Nonetheless, next summer.
══════ ∘◦❁◦∘ ══════
It was early in the morning when Tate ventured out to the beach. There was a week left of summer and Tate could feel it all coming to a close like it always had.
There was a familiar sting in her heart knowing she would be leaving this house and this place again. She would return to school for her senior year where she started the countdown all over again because summer was really the only thing that mattered.
She took the last few strides to the beach before seeing a black blob already sitting there. She squinted and took a few steps closer before realizing it was Conrad, still in his suit.
Tate sighed as she sat down beside him. He didn't need to look over to know it was her. The sunrise. Always the sunrise.
"My Mom's doing the treatment."
Tate looked at him, "What?"
"She's going to do the treatment."
Tate chuckles lightly. "Oh, my God. I can't believe it. You did it. You changed her mind."
"Oh, it wasn't me. It was Jere. He did it."
Tate sighs and turns back to the water, watching the sun peak above it made her heart warm. Conrad looks at her and sees the golden glow casting in her face and he feels the same heat in his chest.
The wind breezes past them at Tate's hair flies in front of her face, causing Conrad's hand to instinctively reach up and brush a piece of her hair away. She looks at him and they smile at each other.
"Is this it?" Tate asks after a few moment of silence. "Is this how it ends between us? Summer love slipping away with the summer sun?"
"No." He tells her. "This isn't the end." Tate bites her lip and her eyes slowly graze over his features before landing on his lips. "We let us go, but it came back to us. And I don't plan on ever letting you go again."
Tate smiles when Conrad cups her cheek, brushing his thumb over her cheek bone. His lips press to hers and Tate lets out a satisfied hum. This is it. This is how their story starts. This isn't the end for them. It's the beginning. Their love and their story.
And even if it doesn't work, they'll always have this place—a place to come back to.
They'll always have summer.
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KAY SPEAKS ! it's over! (season one, at least).
no excuse me while i get emotional....
oh, my oh my. i could go on and on and on and on (😉) about this book, but let me just say one thing. this book truly has my heart. it was a spur of the moment decision to write it, but now, it is my favorite of all my works. and it is all thanks to you, dear readers.
thank you so much for loving this book and supporting it. my heart is full.
