Free Falling for Summer by Bridget Essex

rather than watch my sister and her slumber party.  I was so selfish,” I whisper.
    And then I'm crying.  Really crying.
    I don't cry.  Not since that night.  I've locked away all those parts of myself that allow myself to cry, and when tears came to my eyes on the drive up to Lake George, I thought it was the strangest thing in the world, and I only shed a few of them because of how unpracticed I was at it.  I've trained myself, over all these years, not to let on how deeply hurt I am.  I hide it all away.
    Summer reaches up and brushes the pad of her thumb over my cheek gently, gently, breathing out at she holds my gaze, her eyes growing warmer as she looks at me.
    “I want you to know that It's not your fault, Mandy,” she says, the words so gentle that I cave against her, crumpling against her, holding her tightly to me, as tightly as she now holds me.  “ None of it was your fault,” she whispers.  “Tiffany was going to do what she was going to do, and she would have snuck out to do it, even if you'd been there,” she says, brushing her hand over my hair over and over again, fingers soft against me.  “You have to know that.  It wasn't your fault.”
    “But I wasn't there ,” I say, the anguished words that I've repeated over and over to myself, probably a trillion times within my lifetime.  “I should have been there, but I wasn't .  I'm so empty when I think about that...that I should have been there, and I left .”  My voice cracks, and I shake my head, a sob rising in me.  I squash it down, but my body is wracked with emotion as I hold tightly to the girl grown into a woman.  As I hold tightly to Summer.
    “It wasn't your fault,” Summer tells me simply.  And then she whispers it to me again, and again, and again, saying the words over and over until they become a mantra between us, her voice soft, soothing and gentle.
    I don't know how, but I fall asleep cradled in her arms, the wash of those gentle words covering me in peace until I'm relaxed enough to drift away.
    I fall asleep, but I do not dream.
     
    ---
     
    I wake up to a perfect morning—or as close to perfect as any morning can get.  The sky is a brilliant, luminous blue, and there are puffy white clouds banked along the horizon, like the whole world is a beginner's painting in blue and white.  The sky's sapphire color is reflected in the lake, and everything smells like ozone and fresh water, the pine trees overhead dripping gently onto the loam beneath.  I can see the sky through the window above the bed, and I stare up at it for a long moment, surprised by how beautiful I find it.  I'm not usually this sentimental, but then again...I'm in a really good mood today.  I finally stretch a little, yawning as I sit up. 
    In that  very first instant of waking, I couldn't remember where I was, but I knew, then, as I heard a pot gently clang on the wood stove.  These are the comforting sounds of camping, the plinking of water off of the pine trees, the splash of lake waves soft and gentle against the shore, the sound of pots and pans over an open fire...
    I sniff the air, my eyes rolling back in my head a little in pure pleasure as my mouth begins to water.  There is the most incredible smell of frying eggs wafting in the air...
    “Good morning,” Summer tells me warmly when I sit up on my elbows to take in the small room in the back of the Main Office cabin at Lazy Days.  Summer's already dressed, wearing what I'm thinking might be her usual attire of capri pants and a tank top that hugs her gorgeous curves.  Her hair is replaited and braided, smoothed back behind her ears, and she flashes me a wide, brilliant smile as she turns the eggs in the frying pan on top of the wood stove with a wooden spatula.  “I hope you like eggs,” she tells me companionably, flipping the eggs onto a plastic plate, where they sizzle and steam temptingly. 
    “Oh, yes—I love them,” I tell her, drawing my blanket up over my bare