Our Beloved Summer | A TSITP Story

Chapter 29

The entire drive home, I wasn't actually thinking about driving. My mind wasn't on the road but somehow I made it back to the house. And I made it back to my mother who was still sitting in the same spot on the couch from when we left. I didn't have to look at her to know she was looking at me.

"Dani, we need to talk." She said to my back as I took my shoes off at the front door.

"I'm kind of tired, Mom." I replied without hesitation.

"You need to take what your counselor said seriously. She told me that you would've been valedictorian this year, but then your grades started dropping and you got snappy at teachers?" This made me turn, confused by how elated she was getting. She had been so mundane the last few months that hearing emotion in her voice was a little startling. I could see her face contorted in a confused and angry look. "You can't just give up when things get hard, Dani. You have too much at stake."

"Jesus, Mom. I got one B minus on a final, and Steven kept straight A's. That's all it was."

Mom always found a way to blow things out of proportion. I never had the goal to be the best in our senior class, it was just the way it was. But this year it stopped being that way and I was okay with that. It was everyone else that had the goals for me. The expectations.

"You've been really disappointing me lately." My mother shook her head like she would do when something went wrong. And hearing those words come from her, yet again, made that anger in me from the party rise up again.

"You know, Mom, you say that a lot. And I don't deserve it, because in case you forgot, which I don't think you did, but Susannah died and it's changed all of us."

"You do not get to use Susannah's death as an excuse."

"This whole year has been hard for me, too. You can't blame me for not being able to keep up with everything when my whole world fell apart." I couldn't believe she was doing this to me. Or maybe I did, because she was perfect at deflecting. And I always the one standing right next her, by her side, but she just chose me to bring the world down on.

"This isn't about blame, this is about taking responsibility for yourself." She started to yell.

"Oh yeah, you're right, it is. But that's kind of hard when I had to take care of this family while you were away taking care of someone else's. And I understand, Mom, I understand. Susannah needed you, but you do not get to blame me for having different priorities than school, okay? You weren't here. I was. I've done everything for this house and Belly and Steven, on top of school. You completely shut down, Mom, and you left me to pick everything back up. I've been waiting all year for you to step up and be a parent, but you didn't. You gave up way before I did."

I left her to sit with my words. I'd been wanting to say them since the first volleyball game she missed for Belly. I could see it on her face as she looked through the bleachers for mom. I know she wasn't disappointed that me and Steven were there, just that mom wasn't. It was a week later that we found she was at Jeremiah's football game. The three of us, Steven, Belly and I, we understood that mom was needed elsewhere, but it still felt like a stab in the back to hear her doing so much for another family that she wouldn't do with us.

I was simply just the one who would say something. Steven and Belly were too afraid. But I was too angry to feel afraid. Susannah is gone, there's no need to tiptoe anymore. Not around my mother, the person who always wants to get over the past, but she sits there and wallows in it. I recognized myself in her. Wallowing in the past of Susannah. I wouldn't do it anymore, I wouldn't be my mother.

I had to face it. Nothing was the same and it would never go back to the way it was. And that's just life.

But no matter how much life moved, I missed Susannah. I missed Susannah when I missed my mom, really just who I wished she was. Susannah was who I wished my mother was. That made it hard to let her go. No matter how enlightened I wanted to be, I wanted to keep her here with me forever.

So, I did the closest thing to having her with me. I took her note from the basket she sent and went outside. Sitting under the stairs, I read it and wept.

My magic little star, congratulations on your graduation. I know you think of your life in chapters, and I think this next one will be the best of your life. I never knew what it was like to feel complete and infinite love until I saw your beautiful face the day you were born. Your eyes sparkled like the stars in the sky and I knew you were destined for greatness and adventure. You may not be a princess or a knight, but I know you will live an extraordinary life. You will see the world and you will love it all. My special baby, please don't be afraid. The future is only as big as you let it. Just go one step at a time. One small step. I'll be there with you for each and every one. You just have to look for me.

I love you so much Dani, Susannah

And there she was, giving me the right words at the right time. My perfect, Susannah.

I held the note close to my chest and looked to the sky. It may have been the tears in my eyes, but I saw a twinkling star. All I had to do was look, and she'd be right there with me.

—

When the phone rang early in the morning, I thought it was Conrad for a second. And for that second I couldn't breathe. But it wasn't Conrad, it was Jeremiah.

"Dani," He said. "Conrad's gone."

"What do you mean 'gone'?" Suddenly I was wide awake and my heart was in my throat. Gone had come to mean something different, in a way that it hadn't used to. Something permanent.

"He took off from summer school a couple of days ago and he hasn't come back. Do you know where he is?"

"No." Conrad and I hadn't spoken since Susannah's funeral.

"He missed two exams. He'd never do that." Jeremiah sounded desperate, panicky even. It was rare that I'd hear him sound that way. He was always at ease, always laughing. And he was right, Conrad would never do that, he'd never just leave without telling anybody. Not the old Conrad, anyway. Not the Conrad I had known my entire life and had been able to love in a whole new way.

I sat up, and rubbed at my eyes. "What do you want to do, Jere?" I tried to make my voice sound calm and reasonable. Like I wasn't scared out of my mind, the thought of Conrad gone. It wasn't so much that I thought he was in trouble. It was that if he left, really left, he might never come back. And that scared me more than I could say.

"I don't know." Jeremiah let out a big gust of air. "His phone has been off for days. Do you think you could help me find him?"

Immediately I said, "Yes. Of course. Of course I can."

Everything made sense in that moment. The way I saw it, this was what I had been waiting for and I hadn't even known it. It was like the last two months I had been sleepwalking, and now here I was, finally awake. I had a goal, a purpose.

Even so, as scared as I was at the thought of Conrad being gone, as eager as I was to find him, the thought of being near him again terrified me. No one on this earth affected me the way Conrad Fisher did.

As soon as Jeremiah and I got off the phone, I was everywhere at once, throwing underwear and t-shirts into the first bag I could find. How long would it take us to find him? Was he okay? I would have known if he wasn't okay, wouldn't I? I packed my toothbrush, a comb. Hope.

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Authors Note: omg guys I'm terrible. Uni has been so hard for me this semester but I'll try to be more on top of updating