Chapter 185
Summer's POV
I should have gone to find him immediately—that was what I'd told myself when I left the house, my mother's worried eyes following me out the door. But by the time I got to school, the certainty had curdled into something else. I walked the hallways with my hand in my blazer pocket, fingers wrapped around my phone, and couldn't make myself pull it out.
Because what if the truth was worse than I'd imagined? What if Diane had been right about something, even if she'd been wrong about everything else?
More than that—what if he hadn't told me because he didn't trust me? What if I'd imagined this whole thing, this closeness between us, and he'd been dealing with all of it alone because I wasn't really someone he turned to?
I hated that thought. Hated that even for a second, her poison had gotten under my skin. But there it was, making my feet heavy as the first period bell rang and I slid into my seat instead of going to find him at his locker.
My phone sat heavy in my blazer pocket. I stared at my notebook without seeing it.
Then I got up, walked out of the classroom without checking to see if anyone noticed, and locked myself in the ground floor bathroom. The one by the gym, always empty this time of day. I leaned against the cold tile and finally pulled out my phone.
Evan's mom came to my house this morning.
His response was immediate: What did she want?
I hesitated, staring at the cursor blinking in the message box, replaying the past week in my head. The evenings he'd said he was tired and gone to bed early. The one time I'd mentioned coming by the cart and he'd deflected, said they were doing inventory, maybe next week instead. I'd assumed he meant it. I hadn't pushed. He'd been falling apart, and I'd been too busy complaining about my own life—about Evan, about the party, about everything that suddenly felt so trivial—to notice.
When this all falls apart, Diane's voice echoed in my head, and I shoved it down hard.
I typed quickly: To convince me to get back together with him. She said you were "beneath me." I hit send, then added: I told her to leave.
The three dots appeared and disappeared several times. Finally: Are you okay?
Me: I'm fine. She's delusional.
Kieran: I'm sorry.
I frowned at the screen, something tightening in my chest. Why are you apologizing? You didn't do anything wrong.
Kieran: She's not wrong about me being from South Boston.
The tightness became a sharp pain. I called him without thinking.
He answered on the first ring. "Summer—"
"Don't," I said, my voice fiercer than I intended, cutting through whatever he'd been about to say. "Don't you dare apologize for who you are or where you're from. Diane Whitmore is a snob who thinks money equals worth, and she's wrong."
Silence on the other end, then a soft exhale that sounded like relief mixed with something else I couldn't quite name. "Okay."
"She also said your mom's cart got shut down." I paused, trying to keep my voice steady even as my heart hammered against my ribs. "Last week."
The silence stretched longer this time. I could hear his breathing, slow and careful. In the background, a locker door slammed, then another—the distinctive echo of the boys' changing room, muffled and distant. Someone shouted something I couldn't make out, laughter following.
He was at school. Of course he was at school. And he'd been sitting with this all morning, the same as me.
"Kieran."
"Yeah." His voice was rough, stripped of its usual careful control. "Yeah, it did."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
Another pause, longer this time. The background noise continued—footsteps, the groan of a bench being moved. "I was going to," he said finally, and I could hear him moving too, probably stepping into a quieter corner. "I just—you've got so much going on. National Piano Competition, college prep, all the stuff with your mom and the boutique. I didn't want to dump more on you."
The mention of the piano competition sent a jolt through me, sharp and unwelcome. The National Piano Competition in August—I had told everyone it was my ticket to proving myself to conservatories. It was supposed to be a big deal. It was a big deal, objectively speaking, the kind of thing that could make or break a college application to places like Yale or Princeton.
But I'd barely thought about it in weeks. Barely touched the piano except for my regular lessons, and even those had felt perfunctory, my mind elsewhere. On Kieran. On us. On this fragile, complicated thing we'd built together that felt more real than any performance ever had.
And now he was using it as a reason to shut me out, as if my own negligence of something I was supposed to care about was somehow his responsibility to manage.
"That's not your decision to make," I said.
"I know." He sounded tired now, really tired, the kind of exhaustion that went bone-deep and couldn't be fixed with sleep. "I know, Summer. I just needed to figure things out first. Figure out what to even say. It's a mess."
"What happened?"
A long exhale. "It wasn't my dad. Someone reported us. Rodent problem, improper storage—none of it's true. But they found an old violation from two years ago. Supposedly got cleared, but somehow it never came off the record." He paused. "That old one, plus these new complaints—even though they're fake, it triggered an automatic suspension under the three strikes policy. They pulled our license."
The pause stretched too long.
"Anyway. Hearing backlog. Weeks. Maybe months."
"Do you know who reported you?"
"I have guesses." His voice was careful now, too careful. "No proof."
Evan's friends. Blake. Someone who wanted to hurt him, to send a message. The thought slid into place like a knife finding its sheath, sharp and certain. I didn't say it out loud. Not yet. But I filed it away, adding it to the growing list of things I needed to deal with.
"I should have told you," he said into my silence. "I just kept thinking I'd fix it first, then explain. I didn't want you to look at me like—" He stopped.
"Like what?"
"Like I was trouble," he said quietly. "Like it was only a matter of time before my life leaked all over yours."
My eyes burned. I pressed my free hand against the cold tile, grounding myself. "Kieran."
"I know it's stupid."
"It's not stupid." I took a breath. "It's wrong, but it's not stupid. I get why you didn't say anything. I don't like it, but I get it."
"You're mad."
"I'm not mad." I paused, considering. "Okay, I'm a little mad. Not because you have problems. Because you thought you had to deal with them alone."
Silence again, but this one felt different—less like a wall and more like a space opening up between us, somewhere honest could finally live. Then, very softly: "Yeah. I guess I'm still learning how to do that. The not-alone part."
Something in my chest unknotted, just slightly.
"Meet me at the library? Fourth period?"
"Yeah." His voice sounded steadier now, more like himself. "I'll be there."
I hung up and stood there for a moment, phone pressed against my chest, listening to my own breathing slow. Then I unlocked the bathroom door and walked back to first period, slipping into my seat without anyone asking where I'd been.