Summer
SUMMER
IT WAS SUMMER WHEN they met and it was summer when she left.
Anyone would say Clover Merlo was bright.
She was friendly to the point where she even got along with Leah. And Leah often referred to the girl as ‘Sunburst’, an affectionate nickname given after Leah studied the girl’s eyes a bit too closely one evening.
They met when they were just six years old, Clover being the daughter of Sue’s friend from Seattle. She was a girl with pin straight mahogany hair and ever changing hazel eyes.
Her and Leah had formed a fast connection, becoming the best of friends. But as they grew older, Leah knew her feelings for Clover were more than something one held for a friend.
But being from such a conservative place, there was no way Leah would ever be able to be so open and free with her feelings, so instead she forced her feelings down and started to distance herself from the girl who stole her heart.
When summer came around, Leah secretly enjoyed the nights where they cuddled on a shared bed and the secret looks in the sunlight of dawn that reflected off Clover’s hair that spilled over her pillow.
As Clover only got to visit in the summer, Leah cherished their small time together, always filing away their moments of sacred peace in a tiny treasure box in her mind.
The summer before sophomore year began was one of long nights and heartbreak .
The two girls found themselves sitting on the cliff's edge, the setting sun creating a beautiful glow on the innocent teens. They started with the talk of their futures and how Leah would miss Clover, but she was excited for next summer, when they would be juniors . The girls shifted closer and soon Clover’s head rested on Leah’s shoulder.
It only took a breath.
In one fell swoop, Leah felt herself crumbling to her desires as those soft eyes looked up into hers. Like gravity, they were brought together, rough lips ghosting ones covered in chapstick tasting like cherry.
After that was when hell really broke loose.
Clover had confessed to Leah, begging the girl to give her a chance—at least try it out for the next couple of months. But Leah couldn’t. She couldn’t accept that she liked Clover and instead gave excuse after excuse, stating that she only saw Clover as her friend.
When Clover left, all Leah felt was regret.
But then opportunity arose when Sam Uley asked her out during the school year and Leah let her mind be preoccupied with a boy who would give her the world. And she felt herself genuinely liking Sam while convincing herself she just held an obsessive idea of friendship for Clover.
And then summer came once more, but Clover did not arrive with the freedom and heat of the season.
Leah had not heard from the girl since the last time she visited La Push a year ago, an oddity once she thought about it, but then again she had forced herself to be so wrapped up in her budding relationship with Sam.
She removed Clover from her mind completely in hopes of burying the pain of her first broken heart—one created by her own making.
Soon, another year passed by, the summer before senior year was now upon her. And Leah still hadn’t heard from Clover. When she asked her mom about it, Sue looked surprised that Leah didn’t know; Clover and her family had moved to Arizona.
Leah felt her heart break all over again, blaming herself for Clover fleeing the state, no matter how absurd that sounded.
The same year she found out the news, her relationship with Sam fell apart, being left for her own cousin. And a part deep in Leah believed that was her karma for rejecting her true feelings—the ones that never went away—for Clover.
She never anticipated to see the girl, now young woman, who still held a part of her heart on the beach of La Push the same year she phased into a giant fucking wolf.
She definitely didn’t expect for her entire world to shift when she met those sunburst eyes.
What had she been running away from for so long when it was always meant to be?