Summer's Desire Read online

  "Don't you come near my girl!" he snarled at the bullies. "Don't talk to her! And sure as hell don't try to touch her!"

  "Yeah?" The ringleader scoffed. "What if I wanna touch her? Who's gonna stop me, loooser?" And once more his grubby hand rose toward Summer.

  Yet it never came even close to reaching her, for Seth swiftly pushed her to the side. With one ruthless punch, he sent her tormentor flying with a trail of blood gushing from his nose. The other two immediately tried to jump him, but he dodged them nimbly.

  To Summer's awed eyes, Seth seemed to have transformed himself into a whirlwind of destruction: moving with astonishing speed, he danced around his opponents, avoiding their hits but landing all of his own powerful blows. Less than a minute later, he was the only one still standing.

  In truth, Seth had taken a couple of glancing hits too, but they were no big deal; he was used to much worse. And it was worth it: the bullies had been reduced to a pitiful heap lying bleeding on the ground.

  He gave them his most ferocious glare. "You asked who was gonna stop you, you stupid assholes? Me—that's who! And know this: you only got off easy this once. Next time you think to mess around, it'll go much worse for you."

  Then, without deigning the boys with a second glance, he spun around—toward Summer. Furtively, he wiped the blood from his knuckles on his dark pants.

  He reached Summer in three long strides and crouched down beside her. She was still sitting on the soft earth where she had landed when he pushed her away, and she was staring at him out of huge, shocked eyes.

  Seth raised a gentle hand to her cheek. "Sunny, you're alright?" The next words left him in a rush: "I never meant to hurt you, I just needed to get you away from those jerks. I didn't want you in the middle of the fight." His voice turned whisper soft. "You're hurt anywhere?"

  She shook her head.

  "Okay, that's good." He exhaled in relief. Then, hesitatingly: "You're mad with me for fighting?"

  She shook her head again. By causing the downfall of the bullies who had so frightened her, Seth had in fact achieved near godlike status in her eyes.

  "And you're not scared of me?" He held his breath in wait for her answer.

  Once more she shook her head, forcefully, and her gaze told him clearly how stupid she thought his question was. How could she ever be afraid of her best friend and protector? She already loved him more than anything else in the world.

  His shoulders relaxed as the last of the tension left him. "That's good to know then."

  He took her hand and helped her up, dusted her off, then continued on his way. But this time he kept her hand in his, and from then on Summer always walked beside him, and not behind.

  It was the only logical solution, Seth assured himself. How was he to make sure that she was safe if she wasn't right next to him where he could see her? He gave her hand a quick squeeze, she squeezed back, and he had to fake a cough to hide his grin.

  * * *

  A few more weeks passed, and Seth and Summer became inseparable. Apart from Seth unfortunately having to attend school and Summer being still too young to accompany him (which was a great source of vexation for them both), wherever one of them went during the day, the other was sure to follow. At night they slept together in his—now their—big bed, holding each other's nightmares at bay.

  As time went by, Seth began to talk to Summer more often. Little by little he opened up to her, sharing with her his thoughts and dreams. And even though she never spoke back in words, her expressive eyes told him everything he needed to know from her.

  Time continued to pass, and by the time winter arrived, Summer had been living in the Lewis household for almost five months. A few days later it was Seth's eighth birthday. Grandma baked him a big chocolate cake, and he and Summer ate until they felt sick.

  That night in bed, before they fell asleep, Seth grudgingly confessed that it had been his first time eating birthday cake. At Summer's inquiring gaze, he explained, "I'm staying with Grams now because Mom has taken off, which she does from time to time, and when she goes off she doesn't take me with her. Wouldn't want a kid cramping her style." Summer reached for his hand and clasped it tightly.

  "Still, I've mostly lived with Mom, and she isn't... she's not a good mom." His voice rang with bitterness. "She's not the kind of mom who bakes birthday cakes. Hell... I mean heck"—he corrected with a glance at Summer—"most of the time when I'm with her, I'm lucky to get any food at all. She doesn't even let Grams help out, says she doesn't want 'an old biddy's interference'. But she sure doesn't mind her mom's interference when she wants to take off and has to leave her kid somewhere, the two-faced bi... I mean witch."

  He became aware that Summer's eyes were glistening with dampness.

  "No, Sunny, please don't cry!" He tenderly wiped away her tears. "I don't want you to be sad. Especially not today. Today, you and Grams have given me the best birthday ever!"

  But that wasn't true, thought Summer. She hadn't known beforehand that it would be Seth's birthday—he hadn't warned her at all—so she didn't have a present prepared for him. How, then, could it be his best birthday when his best friend hadn't given him anything?

  Struck by a sudden idea, she hesitated. Her Mummy and Daddy had always praised her singing, told her it was her greatest gift. She inhaled deeply, wavered for another instant, then decided. She wanted to give her greatest gift to Seth. Gathering her courage, she started to sing softly:

  "Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high,

  There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby.

  Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue

  And the dreams that you dare to dream,

  Really do come true..."

  When the first lyrics resonated around him, Seth stopped breathing for long moments. Her voice was sweet and vibrant, her tones the purest he had ever heard. They engulfed him in warmth. Under the impact of her angelic voice, he felt his heart tearing and then melding back: stronger than before, complete as never before.

  When she was finished, he blinked the moisture in his eyes, touched his forehead to hers and whispered, shattered: "Thank you, Sunny."

  * * *

  After that night, when Seth spoke to Summer, she started to speak back. The first time Grandma told her something and Summer answered, Grandma took at least ten minutes to contain her tears of joy.

  Still, Summer never really became talkative or spoke just for the sake of it. Her words were always carefully chosen and meaningful. And whenever she opened her mouth, she instantly had Seth's full attention.

  Though to be fair, she always had that. He was her best friend in the whole world and she would do anything for him (again, to be fair, he was actually her only friend; she was very reserved with everyone she met, so she didn't make any other friends. In fact, the only person besides Seth who she allowed herself to care for at all was Grandma).

  Therefore, Summer was delighted when, each night, Seth asked her to sing for him in their bed, and she could give her songs to him and please him in this little way. She only ever sang for him.

  * * *

  When Summer finally became old enough to start at Seth's school, she was always near him at recess. Because of this, the other boys soon started to make fun of him and his little "shadow". So he found it necessary to beat some respect into them.

  The school's administration was very unhappy with Seth's aggressive behavior (to put it mildly), but he had made sure that nobody would mock his Sunny anymore, and that was the only thing that mattered to him.

  * * *

  When Seth was nine years old and Summer almost seven, his mother returned to town. She had never been gone so long before and Seth had gradually allowed himself to forget about her, to imagine his life with Summer and Grandma as permanent. His Mom's sudden arrival dealt him a heavy blow.

  Despite his protests, his Mom dragged him away with her, his last view that of Grandma wringing her hands in worry—and of Summer collapsed to her knees in te
ars, hand reached out to him in futile appeal.

  Without Seth to hold her safe at night, Summer started having nightmares again. With each passing day, the dark shadows under her eyes grew deeper, her face paler.

  Even Seth's frequent sneaking away to Grandma's house quickly came to a halt after one afternoon when his Mom was desperate for crack and he wasn't around to be sent on a buying errand. When he finally showed up in the evening, his Mom asked him that, in the future, he should head from school straight home. And since her request came with the lashes of a pitilessly employed belt buckle... he obeyed.

  Summer didn't find out the whys of it. All she knew was that she barely got to see her best friend anymore—for no longer than a few stolen minutes in school, at recess—and that in his absence, all possible joy had been sucked out of life.

  Helpless before Summer's obvious suffering and his own longing for her, not to mention his hellish problems at home, Seth started getting into more fights than ever before. At the slightest perceived offense, he would explode into violence.

  After he nearly got expelled for the second time, Summer at last found the courage to confront him. She begged him to stop the brawls, before he'd be forced to leave the school that was the only place where they could now see each other.

  Seth stopped getting into fights.

  Six months later, his Mom found herself in trouble with one of her boyfriends. He made some vicious threats, so she skipped town overnight, and Seth went back to living with his Grandma. He and Summer finally had each other again.

  Their first night back together, lying in their bed, Summer cried in his arms and wouldn't stop until he promised to never leave her again. Then she snuggled deeper into him and eventually drifted off with a smile on her lips, proceeding to enjoy her first uninterrupted sleep in more than six months.

  * * *

  When Seth was eleven years old and Summer nine, his mother returned for him once again. This time, he refused point blank to leave with her.

  When she started to curse at him, he remained unaffected. When she tried to hit him, he caught her wrist and squeezed tightly. He had shot up several inches over the last year and now stood taller than his petite Mom. The strength which he held her wrist with made her pale.

  She left the house alone, amid threats of reprisal, but Seth knew that her reign of terror over him was over at last. He was finally old and strong enough not to be her victim anymore.

  * * *

  On Summer's tenth birthday, Seth gave her a delicate silver heart necklace. He had worked the entire autumn delivering newspapers in the mornings to afford buying her this gift.

  The necklace immediately became Summer's most prized possession, and despite Seth's teasing about her exaggerated attachment to the pendant, she never once took it off. She couldn't always be with Seth but she could always have his necklace with her, which was the next best thing.

  * * *

  In fifth grade, Summer made the horrifying discovery that she couldn't leave Seth on his own anymore.

  He was not yet thirteen, but his tall, sinewy frame exuded power and confidence, and his blue eyes, made lighter by the contrast to his raven black hair, were always quietly watchful. He was beautiful and mysterious and aloof, and girls, even older ones, were starting to notice him in a different way.

  Summer took these changes in, first with confusion, then with gradual understanding quickly followed by increasing agitation until she was boiling inside.

  At first the girls were happy just to eye Seth and moon over him from afar. But then they grew bolder and started to approach him, asking for his help with homework, flinging their hair and giggling and generally acting—in Summer's humble opinion—like demented sheep.

  She couldn't leave Seth alone for a moment without finding him surrounded like a juicy meat slab by a pack of hungry hyenas. He didn't seem to enjoy the attention and never responded to the girls' advances, but neither did he send them away, Summer observed with utter frustration. Well, she determined grimly, then it was up to her to protect him from those hussies!

  She took her old role as his "shadow" to new extremes. She stuck with him like glue, always attached to his arm or his hand and shooting menacing glares at the encroaching girls. Seth was hers alone, and she wasn't ever going to share him, not with anyone! Standing in her fiercely protective pose by his side, she would often feel his gaze on her, tender and amused, but he never made any comment on her behavior.

  Then one day, three eighth-grade girls waylaid her in the bathroom.

  "You freak!" the tallest one, a blonde, spat at her. "What's with you always hounding Seth Lewis and glowering at us when we talk to him? You need to back off, you nasty stalker!"

  Summer stood straighter, meeting the girl's angry gaze with her own. "I'm not stalking Seth! He's my best friend just like I'm his, and you skanks are the ones who need to back off. It's yucky, the way you keep chasing after him."

  Those words were apparently a greater challenge, however, than the eighth-graders were willing to take on the chin. With a screech of fury, the blonde jumped Summer, and the other two quickly joined the tussle.

  Later, Summer met Seth sporting wild hair, a blackening eye, scratched hands and torn jumper—as well as a satisfied smirk on her lips. She had given as good as she got, and the three hussies would definitely think better the next time they thought to mess with her!

  Seth took her appearance in with widening eyes that swiftly clouded with anger. After examining her war wounds with careful hands and determining that nothing was damaged irreversibly, he gritted out, "Who did this to you?"

  Taken aback by the menace in his voice, Summer blinked and blurted, "Just some girls. It's nothing, really."

  If anything, her words threw more gas on the fire of his rage. "Sunny, it's not nothing, not by far, and those girls are about to regret the day they were born!"

  Highly attuned to the aura of danger around him, Summer suddenly became afraid for her attackers. "It's nothing," she insisted quietly, placing her hand on his corded arm and trying to calm him down. "We had a small disagreement, I dealt with it, and that's it; end of story."

  Cradling her unhurt cheek in his palm, Seth held her gaze protectively. "Nobody hurts my girl and gets away scot-free!"

  "Oh, they didn't exactly get away scot-free." Her smile was mischief itself. "Besides, it's got nothing to do with you," she lied.

  He heard the lie—he knew her far too well not to—and gave her a searching look. But studying her mutinous expression, he clenched his jaw and gave up; he could tell that he'd get nothing more out of her on the subject.

  However, the next time some girls started to approach Seth, they weren't met by Summer's glare alone but by his as well. As his glare was infinitely more intimidating than hers could ever be, the girls stumbled in their quest and fled as quickly as their feet could take them in the opposite direction.

  Summer couldn't have been happier, and that night she sang all of Seth's favorite songs to him.

  Nonetheless, she knew that the danger wasn't past; she could still see the girls watching her Seth with hungry eyes. How much worse would it get when he started high school and she wasn't there with him as a barrage before the flood of older, attractive girls wanting to steal him away from her?

  No, she wouldn't let him go on his own! she decided with fierce resolve. All she had to do was skip two grades, then she could be with him in high school from the beginning. Easy peasy... yeah, right! Summer snorted to herself. Next you'll be wanting to fly to the moon in your Superman cape. (She had never owned a cape of any kind, much less a Superman one.) Still, some things were worth fighting teeth and nails for, so fight she did, pushing herself harder than ever before.

  Seth watched her with increasing puzzlement when she started to forgo play time with him in favor of her school work; she had never done that before. At first he went off alone, started hanging out more with his other friends (unlike Summer, Seth was very popular, and also unlike he
r, he had made a few other friends even if no close ones). But when he was away from Summer, a feeling of incompleteness nagged at him, so very soon he too started to stay in more often.

  With a resigned grimace, he would gather his books and notebooks and go up to Summer's room to work beside her. He only made it known that he was there under sufferance by sighing heavily every once in a while, and each time he did this, Summer would hide a smile.

  Seth's grades improved so dramatically that when Grandma beheld his next report card, she was struck speechless for at least five minutes. As for Summer—she managed to skip to sixth grade at mid-year and was already anticipating high school life with Seth by her side. Then tragedy struck, and her happy world and dreams crumbled around her.

  Chapter 3

  It was the beginning of spring in the sixth year since Summer had joined the Lewis household. Seth was thirteen years old, Summer eleven. It was a cold day in March, the frost having returned overnight.

  Summer had spent the last week battling a nasty case of the flu, and even though she had been feeling better the last couple of days and was heartily sick of being cooped up indoors, Seth wouldn't even hear of her going for a walk outside. Allegedly, he didn't want her turning into an icicle and having to deal with a return of her flu. Still, if she had to spend another afternoon under house arrest, keeping warm, at least her best friend (and current jailer) was sharing her imprisonment (though most annoyingly, he didn't seem the slightest put out because of it!).

  The two of them were horsing around on the living room floor—with the door to the kitchen, where Grandma was cooking dinner, left open—when they suddenly heard a plate breaking, followed by a mighty crash. They both rose to their feet, Seth in a graceful leap and Summer in a stumble, and ran to the kitchen. Grandma was lying on the floor, unmoving. Seth immediately checked her pulse and yelled at Summer to call 911.