Free Summer (Four Seasons #2) by Frankie Rose

she’d had a girlfriend for a whole nine months? Was I pissed that she thought I would be judgmental and rude about her life choices? Abso-fucking-lutely.  
    My first inclination is to text her back and tell her to go fuck herself. I’m not stupid, though. That would just cause a level of grief I am not equipped to handle right now. Amanda is still paying for my college tuition and sending me an allowance. She also financed the fancy Mazda 3 I’ve been driving around for the past few months, but she seems to have forgotten all about that since she’s now offering me access to a car service I never even knew she had.  
    Thinking of my lovely new car makes me desperately want to be in it, driving back to the city and my apartment where I feel safe. Except it’s not my apartment. It’s Luke’s apartment, and everywhere I look, there he is, the ghost of him lurking in every shadow. In every goddamn corner.  
    Damn it. The world feels like it’s tilting on its axis, and I can’t seem to fathom which way is up. I run out of the building, knowing all of a sudden that I need to move out of Luke’s apartment. It’s madness that I’ve stayed there so long when he and I aren’t even speaking. It occurs to me that he probably thinks I’m a total psycho, refusing to leave his home, refusing to let him go. Surely he must know I’m still living there, right? Somehow?
    I scramble inside the car, and I press my forehead against the steering wheel, holding onto it with both hands for dear life. This is so, so fucked up. Everything. All of it.  
    I don’t know how long I sit there, but it can’t be long. Morgan turns up after a while, opening the passenger side door and climbing into the car. “Avery? Hey, what are you doing out here? The session’s over.” She places her hand on my back and the contact is grounding. I just sit there, nodding. I should probably say something, but I can’t push a strangled word past my lips.  
    After a while, I start the engine and pull out of the parking lot, heading in the direction of Morgan’s place. I don’t feel like eating anymore. Plus spending time with anyone, even my best friend, is too much for me to bear right now. “I’ll drop you off at home. I’m not feeling so well,” I say.
    “Okay. But please, Ave…promise you’ll call me later? Promise you’ll call and let me know you’re all right?”
    I glance over at her, allowing a weak smile to form on my face. “I’m all right.”
    “Liar.” She laughs, but the sound falls flat. She knows I’m hurting. I want to explain it to her, but I can’t. I can barely contemplate taking my next breath. As I drive us back to her place, all I can do is replay the moment when all of this went wrong. The moment I tried to avoid at all costs. The moment that spelled the end for me.  

    “DAMN IT, AVERY, TELL ME THE TRUTH!”
    “Fine! I love you, Luke. I love you so much I think I might die sometimes! Are you happy now?”
    “Do you mean it?” he whispers.  
    I can’t answer. Tears streak down my cheeks as I nod my head, yes, my heart breaking, suddenly feeling like a little girl. This is the most exposed I’ve ever been in my life, and there’s no turning back.  
    “Thank God,” he whispers. And then he made me his.

NINE

    NEVE

    I drive to my mother’s, dreading the thought of spending time with her. I don’t even know why I’m obliging her command to attend dinner. We never have anything to talk about, and honestly I can’t remember the last time she spoke to me and not at me. Her obscenely large house screams money, which makes me so fucking uncomfortable. I park outside the front of her brownstone, my stomach in knots, breathing past the panic rising in my chest. As I climb out of the car and walk to the door, I’m rehearsing how to greet her, the woman who gave birth to me. How pathetic is that? Calling her mom only seems to piss her off, but anything else seems like I’m being sarcastic. Which I