Bea asked me to collect the greenery from the shop after Nate finished work.
“He can carry it,” she said. “It's in two buckets.”
I was sitting on the kitchen step, picking a loose thread from my sleeve. Mother had gone out. We hadn't spoken since breakfast.
“I'd like to talk to him,” I said.
Bea stopped folding the cloth in her hands.
“About that summer. Now we know.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
“I don't want you finding out afterward.”
“Thank you.”
She told me where she'd left the buckets. I took Nate's old phone from my room and put it in my bag. Mother had admitted sending the message. I didn't need to keep his phone to make it true.
He met me outside the florist at half past five. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, and there was a dark mark on his wrist that he'd missed when he washed.
“Oil?” I asked.
He looked down. “Probably. Unless I've been fighting a squid.”
“Were there many in the garage?”
“It's been a difficult day.”
I smiled. He saw it and smiled too, a little cautiously.
We collected the buckets, put them in the boot of his car and stood beside it for a moment. The street was still warm. I could see the top of the riverside trees beyond the roofs.
“Bea knows I wanted to talk to you,” I said.
“She told me.”
“Would you walk down there? For a bit.”
He followed my glance.
“Yes.”
The bench looked smaller than I remembered. One of the boards had been replaced, and somebody had scratched a heart into the old paint near the arm. It wasn't ours. We had never needed to carve anything. At sixteen, I had thought being there together was enough to make a place belong to us.
I sat at one end. Nate sat at the other, leaving the middle clear.
“She admitted it,” I told him.
He breathed out. “All of it?”
“The message. Deleting it. Making up your call.”
He looked toward the water.
“Bea stayed with me,” I said. “She stood up to her.”
“Good.”
I handed him the old phone. He took it and put it in his pocket without checking the screen.
“When did you leave that day?” I asked.
“About five. My cousin helped load the car.”
“I thought you might still come to the bench.”
His head turned.
“Did you wait?”
“No. I wanted to. I sat on the edge of my bed with my shoes on, trying to decide whether it would make me pathetic.”
“It wouldn't have.”
“I know that now.”
He rubbed his thumb against the seam of his trousers.
“I checked my phone before we left,” he said. “Even though I'd blocked you. I knew that didn't make sense. I wanted something that wasn't that message.”
The river moved slowly beyond the railings. I could see a leaf floating past, spinning when it caught a little current.
“I could have come here,” I said.
“I could have come to your house.”
“We could have asked one more question.”
“Yes.”
I looked at him. “But you were the one who said goodbye.”
“I was. I'm sorry.”
He didn't put the blame back in my hands.
“I thought all the nice parts had been stupid,” I said. “That you'd been bored and I'd made it into something.”
“You didn't make it up.”
“You don't have to say that to be kind.”
“I'm not.”
He looked at the empty part of the bench between us.
“Do you remember when it rained?” he asked.
I laughed before I could stop myself. “Which time? It was a wet summer.”
“The day you made me stand under that tree.”
“You said it was good shelter.”
“I said it was better than nothing.”
It had been one of our first dates. The rain had come suddenly, and we'd run under a broad tree with our hands over our heads. Then a gust had shaken the branches and dropped everything they were holding onto us at once. Nate had looked at his dripping shirt and announced that we had chosen a tree with a grudge.
I'd laughed so hard he started laughing too. He'd walked me home in the rain, stopping outside the gate to kiss me while I kept an eye on the front window.
It hadn't felt stupid then.
“I liked that day,” he said.
“We were soaked.”
“I liked you.”
I looked down at my shoes. His voice still did something to me when it got quiet. I could feel the old wish waking, the urge to move across the bench and see whether he would meet me halfway.
I kept my hands in my lap.
“You said we'd manage the distance,” I said.
“I meant it.”
“So did I.”
We sat without talking. It was a gentler silence than the ones in Mother's kitchen. I could breathe here. I could remember the summer without wondering whether I had been a joke to him.
That mattered. It wasn't everything, but it mattered.
Nate glanced at the time on his current phone.
“Bea will be waiting for the buckets,” he said.
Her name brought the rest of the week back.
“She loves you,” I said.
He looked at me. “I love her.”
I nodded, though it took me a moment.
“I'm glad you said it.”
“Lucy—”
“I don't mean it feels lovely. But I need to hear what is actually happening.”
He put the phone away. “Okay.”
I stood. He rose too, then let me start walking before he joined me.
On the way to the car, he pointed out a puddle I nearly stepped in. I told him I had seen it. He said he was simply protecting the puddle from my shoes.
I laughed, and it was possible to do that without moving closer to him.
We drove back with the windows open and the smell of wet leaves rising from the boot. At the house, Bea came out to help. He gave her the lighter bucket and asked how her wrist was.
“Better,” she said. “Honestly.”
She looked at me over the stems. “You all right?”
“Yes.”
It wasn't a complete answer, but it was a true one for that moment.
I carried my bag inside while they brought the flowers through the gate. Our summer had been real. I could keep that without taking anything from hers.