Boyfriend for the Summer

“How was I supposed to do that? She showed up and was head over heels for you. What choice did I have?”

He shakes his head. “You could have told her who I was. You could have told her that I was taken.”

“And you could have told her no.”

We’re both quiet for a moment, the absence of our voices loud in the woods. The waterfall and the wind in the trees only serve to emphasize the fact that neither of us is speaking.

“Maybe it would have been different, if we had been together. If you’d asked me to be your girlfriend.”

“Seph, you can’t put that on me. I tried. I was the one who wanted to stay together. I begged. I told you that I would make the drives to see you. That I would call. I would have done anything for you. You were scared and you wanted to see if we still felt the same way after time apart. I didn’t want that.”

A tear slips out of my eye. “I know that I fucked up too. I know I did. But I wanted you, Eric. I wanted you to tell me that you loved me and that nothing else mattered but the two of us. You didn’t do any of that. Not even before we left. You disappeared without a goodbye, and the next time I saw you, you were with her.”

Eric covers his face with his hands. “There’s so much that I can’t change. That I won’t be able to take back. I’m sure that you feel the same. It’s in the past. Is there any way that we can find a way past it? Cause I want that Seph. I want you. I want what we’ve never been able to have.”

Everything feels like it’s crashing down around me. It doesn’t matter what Mabel says. This is complicated, even after facing it. There’s no way through these thorns without getting snagged and torn. “This is the past, Eric. Look where we are. What are we doing? We’re reliving it.”

“And that’s bad? We have a second chance.”

I’m really crying now. It feels like my chest is cracking open because how am I supposed to do this? How am I meant to go back to my phone and that unanswered text message and tell my best friend that I’ve been fucking her ex, even if I loved him first. “It’s too much,” I say.

“It’s not. We can draw a line under everything.”

I shake my head. “I thought I could, but I would have to choose between you and her. And I can’t do that.”

“Leena—” Eric cuts himself off, holding back whatever was going to say. “Persephone please. Please don’t do this.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, tears pouring down my face. “I can’t do this.”

I’m a coward, and Mabel would be ashamed of me, but this hurts too much. I knew when he asked me why I was being cold that it was for a good reason. That it would end up in pain. I was too stupid and hopeful for this to actually work out. And so I leave. I run away.

19

Eric

Six Years Ago

It’s the last day of camp, and my heart is heavy. I don’t want this to be the end of everything that Seph and I have, and I don’t want the summer to be over. I’m excited for the possibility of some of things to come this next year, but this has been the best time of my life.

I’m eating breakfast with my parents, as is our tradition on the last day of camp. “So,” my father says, “we thought that you might introduce Persephone to us.”

I swallow the bite of pancake that’s in my mouth. “How much do you know?”

My mother chuckles. “You two aren’t as subtle as you think you are. But we like her. She seems sweet. We figured there was a reason.”

I sigh. “It’s just hard. I want more than camp, and she’s nervous that the real world will ruin us. I thought that meeting my parents as my parents might be a little much in the middle of that.”

“Fair enough,” my father says, taking a sip of his coffee. “What are you going to do to convince her?”

I smile, because he already figured out that I was going to try. “I have a couple of ideas.”

“And we have something that might help,” Mom says, holding up a set of keys.

Keys to the family RV.

“What are those for?”

She passes the keys across the table to me. “Your father and I went to get the camper yesterday so that we could use it to haul things tomorrow. If you want to use it tonight, your father and I are okay with that.”

I gape at my parents. Are they seriously saying that they’re fine with me sneaking my girlfriend into the camper and having sex? “Really?”