Disclaimer: I own nothing. Except the drama and tension I'm going to cause. Enjoy.
-
Chapter One
"I want you to get into the deep beautiful melancholy of everything that's happened."
-
I looked wistfully up at the final picture pinned to the corkboard hanging in my room. Taken early last summer, it reminded me of those Luke and Ric had stuck in the diaries all those months ago. It was of the four of us, smiling largely, brightly, without a care in the world. Pulling it down, memories began to run though my head once more. The constant reel of images had haunted me throughout the year; the deceptions, the lies and the heartbreaks of last summer had forever been hiding in the shadows of my mind; lurking for the one moment they needed to creep forward and attack my happiness.
I hadn't escaped those heartaches for long. They'd continued until early autumn, when everything had come to its climax. March seventeenth. That's when Luke and I had called it quits on our already strained relationship. We'd lasted two long months, full of pretending, until he'd said what we'd both been thinking.
"Its too hard Mattie." He'd said softly to me that night over the phone. "We shouldn't have to try this hard." He'd continued, his voice wincing as he forced himself to voice all my fears and insecurities in one simple sentence. It was then, that three years of blissful, unhealthy, demanding love had ended.
Of course, the words "We can still be friends" had been used. On both sides. Because there was no other option. We still needed one another in our lives we just, couldn't do that to one another any more. No matter how much we tried to pretend.
So the close relationship we'd once had turned into the close friendship we lived with now. And somehow, some way, we'd fallen into a pattern we both had come to love… to live with.
Cass and I had, of course, become (if it were possible) even closer during the year. We'd made friends, gone to parties, sung drunken karaoke, gone crazy at one another during exams, slammed doors and screamed through walls… but in the end, nothing could come between us.
We'd both stayed away from the dating scene, often opting for girls nights in rather than Saturday nights out with strangers who didn't make us feel like they did.
That was always the trouble. We'd felt that love already. That all encompassing love that makes your knees weak and the butterflies' dance in the pit of your stomach. The kind of love that makes your whole body melt and tingle with excitement when he casts a glance your way.
And you can't go back from that kind of love. You just can't. You can only go forward, searching for something entirely more.
So, we watched Gilmore Girls, over and over. And we fell in love with the dramas, the friendships, and the McDreaminess of Grey's Anatomy. We watched shows that would focus on friendship and love, that kind of love everyone always searched for. That fairytale love. And we awed and cooed in all the right places, and sighed together as we realised that sometimes, you've just got to let love run its course.
In the end, it all came down to the girl power, because by working together, we could see though to another day.
And slowly, surely, we found ourselves feeling better. Which was good, because around July, our world came crashing down around us once more.
While Luke and I had remained in close contact, Ric and Cassie had been taking tentative baby steps towards one another, and towards building up that friendship that had, somewhere, somehow, been forgotten or pushed aside to make way for teenage lust.
But then, in the middle of winter, on a brisk, frozen night, bombshells were dropped.
Big bombshells.
The time bomb ticking for me came first. Luke was seeing someone. A nice, timid girl called Sara. I had known he was trying out the dating pool, but not dating. Needless to say, initially I was blown away. What else could I be…? Wasn't it too fast, too soon? At least, it was for me.
And I'd gotten off the phone that night and walked right into Cassie's open arms, as the sobs had wracked my body painfully. She'd held me tight until the tears had subsided, and listened patiently as I voiced my worries about Luke getting hurt, then my fears about losing my friendship with him to a girl he'd only just met.
Then, she said calmly. "You'll never be replaced in his heart Mattie. No one could ever replace you in Luke's life." She'd sighed, her eyes glazing over, and I found myself thinking she wasn't just talking about me now. That she was never just talking about Luke and I. That there was always something more to it.
A week later. That's when it happened. The phone call had come from Ric. With, what I believed, to be devastating news. He and Parker were becoming close. We didn't need it spelt out for us. And I was forever thankful he hadn't gone into details with Cassie so fragile on the other end of the phone. But she'd handled it with more strength and dignity than I could ever have mustered.
She gave them her warmest blessings, and sounded so genuine that I didn't dare not believe her.
Later that night, as we sat together watching Lorelai throw everything away, she turned to me and uttered the words that would come back to haunt me the following summer.
"Nothing ever stays the same, does it?" She asked sadly, her eyes remaining glued to the TV. "Time always changes things."
She'd pulled her pillow against her and flashed a quick, unsure glance at me before settling back for the final moments of heartbreak and loss.
No Cass, I had thought that night, as the rain pelted down against the window. Nothing ever stays the same.
-
"Mattie, if you don't get your butt out here in five seconds…" Cassie yelled, snapping me out of my reminiscent thoughts, "You'll be spending the summer here at Uni instead of lazing around on a bea…"
I opened the door and cut her off before she could even dream of finishing that sentence.
She shot me a sly grin as I threw a bag at her. "We wouldn't be leaving so late if someone didn't have that much junk to clean up." I said, smirking at her as she rolled her eyes.
"I had a stressful year, and even more stress filled exams." She said almost mockingly. "And you had just as much junk as I did." She finished, poking her tongue out at me and skipping out of our dorm room.
I smiled to myself before casting one final look around the room that had been our home for a year. It was funny, I thought, amused by the situation. It had taken me six months to even begin to feel at home here. I'd missed everything about Summer Bay, and, more than I cared to admit, I'd missed Luke too. But then, everything had changed.
And suddenly, as I walked out for the final time, I felt a wave of sadness wash over me.
Cassie had paused n the doorway and as I turned, I caught a glimpse of that sadness in her eyes too.
"Come on BFF" She said, wrapping her arm around my shoulder and slamming the door behind us. "Nothing ever stays the same." She continued, echoing her thoughts from that night that now felt like a lifetime away. "Except the beach…" She said, giggling. "And my need to sunbake… those things never change." She said, throwing a grin in my direction as I grinned back at her.
No Cass, I thought, those things never changed.
-
I smiled as Cass hummed along gently to the radio. She was happy, we both were. It had been such a long year, but together we'd gotten through. She caught my eye and turned momentarily to look at me.
"Matilda Hunter." She said, her dancing eyes back on the road, her tone playful "I know that smile. That's the 'I miss last summer smile.' What did we discuss just last night?" She asked, glancing sideways quickly and raising an eyebrow at me.
"How hot you were going to look in that dress?" I replied, smirking as Cassie sighed wistfully.
"Hell yes." She replied shortly, before her tone changed to serious as she asked again "But what else did we discuss?"
"That we would only be looking forward this summer." I replied in a bored tone, but a flutter of a hand movement forced me to continue. "We're going to be nice and welcoming to the new girlfriends, and we're going to ignore any butterflies or lurches in our stomachs because that's our automatic reaction, and we can't help that. Our bodies haven't learnt what our minds have yet. We're also going to spoil the kiddies and spend lots of time with the rents and spend amazing amounts of time on the beach because we've missed it so much… we want to hug and kiss it until it loves us all the more again." I finished, throwing a sarcastic smile in her direction as she grinned from ear to ear like a Cheshire cat.
"And no more reminiscent memories, especially when we see the boys. That will scare those girls to death, and we don't want that. We've been doing this friend thing with one another for years," She said confidentially "And I'm sure we can do it with them too."
I bit the retort that was playing on my lips, 'Even though Ric is dating the one responsible for your break up.' Cassie didn't need to hear that. She was right. We needed to be grown up about this. I wanted to keep Luke in my life, because really, I knew that we were better friends than anything else, and if that meant accepting his new girlfriend with open arms then that's what I was going to do.
I turned to smile at Cassie. "Hoes over bros?" I asked, holding my fist towards her. She smiled while watching the long stretch of road that lay ahead of us.
"Always Mattie." She said, removing one her from the wheel and hitting my own.
"Hoes over bros."
-
The deep cracks of thunder sounded loudly in the distance as my body felt the chill of the wind whipping around it. My hair flew, wisping around, but my eyes remained locked on the dark horizon, which threatened to crack at any moment. The clouds had come so suddenly, and my body felt the loss of the sun, which had been warming it instantly, but I refused to move. The storm was calling to me… Mattie.
-
"Mattie." I heard my name called. "Mattie, wake up." It said gently as my eyes opened, finding the harsh fading sun too bright to process.
"Look hun" Cass said, pointing to the 'Welcome to Summer Bay' sign.
Home.
-
AN: Thanks to Jade for proof reading for me. And for being honest. I really appreciate it. And thanks to everyone for reading this. I know it's a little different, but then again, they are a year older.