Summer Forever

14.

Last Summer

Austin had a summer fling.

It was kind of becoming his thing. Every other month, he'd show up to the beach with a new girl; one from our grade, one from the year above us, one from out of town. Always someone new.

He'd always been popular, and short-term girlfriends seemed to follow wherever he went, but he'd never had as many as this past year.

I wasn't sure what it was all about. Before Everett appeared and turned Shellside Bay upside down, Austin would tell me everything. Even without telling me, I could read him. I knew his every thought. I could tell how he'd react to something before he even knew himself. Every twitch of muscle in his face, every slight drop of his eyelids—I could read it all.

Last summer, everything changed. Now, I didn't even know his coffee order, much less about why he was seemingly dating every girl that breathed near him.

Maybe he wanted to prove he was over me. Or maybe he was still trying to move on. Maybe he was just having fun before we graduated and officially became adults.

Whatever it was, he was always with a new fling, and this one was no different.

Diane was a tall, local girl just two years older than us who liked to go by Dia—which, with an Australian accent sounded a bit too similar to 'dire' and had the same number of syllables as her full name, so it wasn't really a nickname, but we went with it anyway.

They'd only been together for a month, but one day she showed up to the beach with a gold necklace shining on her collarbones.

"Pretty," Sky said, leaning uncomfortably close to scope out the infinity pendant. "Where'd you get it?"

"I got it for her," Austin jumped in, smirking proudly. He wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her closer, and she giggled, tugging on her necklace. "Nice, isn't it?"

"I love it," Dia said. "Isn't he the best?"

Sky and I nodded in agreement, and she giggled again. For the rest of the day, she kept tugging on her necklace, her fingers unconsciously wrapping around the metal every time I looked at her.

That night, I lay on Everett's mattress beside him, soaking in the air condition of his room. His arm was wrapped under my back and around my waist, his fingers tracing patterns on my stomach as we stared at the ceiling.

"Do you regret choosing me?" he asked.

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Choosing me over Austin," he clarified. "Do you regret it?"

I spun, my heart sinking into my stomach. "What? Why are you asking that? Have you always thought I'd regret it or something?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. I mean, you liked the guy for years. He was your first love. And he liked you back. Why didn't you choose him?"

"You're insane if you think there is any universe where I would choose Austin over you," I said. I leaned down to kiss him. "And besides, you were my first love. He was just—I don't know. He was comfortable."

"Am I not comfortable?" he teased.

"You're... I don't know how to explain it. It's like my life was still and then you came into Shellside Bay and suddenly everything was moving so quickly, and it was all moving towards you, you know?"

"I think so," he said. He paused, his eyes flittering away before returning to mine. "I just think that Austin could've treated you better. He's a local. He could get you nice gifts and take you on dates whenever you want. I can't do that for you."