The Summer We Forgot, page 1
ACCLAIM FOR Caroline George
“Dearest Josephine is an epistolary novel about grief and coming of age, disguised as a paranormal gothic romance. It is a sweet, clever, beautiful book, and I adored it . . . This book transported me to the Yorkshire moors; it made me laugh, and it made me gasp, and it kept me up way past my bedtime. I loved it.”
—CATHERINE HELOISE, SMART BITCHES, TRASHY BOOKS
“Caroline George infuses an epistolary love story with a romance and charm that crosses centuries. Touching and inventive, it bursts with wit, warmth, and a blending of classic and contemporary that goes together like scones and clotted cream. Dearest Josephine is a delight.”
—EMILY BAIN MURPHY, AUTHOR OF THE DISAPPEARANCES
“Dearest Josephine is more than an immersive read. It is a book lover’s dream experience. Josie’s residence in a gothic English manor and her deeply romantic connection to Elias, who lived years in the past, is as chillingly atmospheric as Rochester calling across the moors. This story is George’s treatise on the power of books and character to creep across centuries, to pull us close and invite us to live in a fantasy where we find love—literally—in the kinship of ink and binding. But it also acknowledges the dangers of letting ourselves fall too deeply when sometimes an equally powerful connection is waiting next door. This love letter to books, and the readers who exist in and for them, is a wondrously singular escape.”
—RACHEL MCMILLAN, AUTHOR OF THE LONDON RESTORATION AND THE MOZART CODE
“Dearest Josephine is the type of story that becomes your own. The characters’ heartaches worked their way into my own chest until I hurt with them, hoped with them, and dared to dream with them. This book is teeming with swoon-worthy prose, adorable humor, and an expert delivery of ‘Will they end up together?’ I guarantee you’ll be burning the midnight candle to a stub to get answers. Step aside Pride and Prejudice, there’s a new romance on the English moors.”
—NADINE BRANDES, AUTHOR OF ROMANOV
OTHER BOOKS BY CAROLINE GEORGE
Dearest Josephine
The Vestige
The Prime Way Program: Just Strength
The Prime Way Program: Be the Victor
The Summer We Forgot
Copyright © 2022 Caroline George
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.
Published in association with Cyle Young of C.Y.L.E. (Cyle Young Literary Elite, LLC), a literary agency.
Thomas Nelson titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fundraising, or sales promotional use. For information, please email SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.
Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.
ISBN 978-0-7852-3621-4 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-7852-3622-1 (e-book)
ISBN 978-0-7852-3623-8 (downloadable audio)
Epub Edition December 2021 9780785236221
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
CIP data is available upon request.
Printed in the United States of America
22 23 24 25 26 LSC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Shealy
And everyone who knew me in high school.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1: Darby Wallis
Chapter 2: Darby
Chapter 3: Morgan Rhodell
Chapter 4: Darby
Chapter 5: Morgan
Chapter 6: Darby
Chapter 7: Morgan
Chapter 8: Darby
Chapter 9: Morgan
Chapter 10: Darby
Chapter 11: Morgan
Chapter 12: Darby
Chapter 13: Morgan
Chapter 14: Darby
Chapter 15: Morgan
Chapter 16: Darby
Chapter 17: Morgan
Chapter 18: Darby
Chapter 19: Morgan
Chapter 20: Darby
Chapter 21: Morgan
Chapter 22: Darby
Chapter 23: Morgan
Chapter 24: Darby
Chapter 25: Morgan
Chapter 26: Darby
Chapter 27: Morgan
Chapter 28: Darby
Chapter 29: Morgan
Chapter 30: Darby
Chapter 31: Morgan
A Note from the Author
Acknowledgments
Discussion Questions
About the Author
The following interview was conducted at Walton County Sheriff’s Office on June 14, 2022, at 3:45 p.m. Present at the interview were Detective Naomi Sutter (SUTTER) and Darby Wallis (WALLIS) regarding case number 16–001345, which involved the murder of 30A Community School science teacher Dr. Richard Horowitz.
SUTTER: State your name for the record.
WALLIS: Darby Wallis.
SUTTER: And your place of residence?
WALLIS: 66 Cerulean Park, Watercolor, Santa Rosa Beach, Florida.
SUTTER: Alright, Ms. Wallis, let’s start at the beginning. What happened two summers ago?
WALLIS: I don’t remember.
SUTTER: According to 30A Community School, Dr. Richard Horowitz employed you to work as a counselor at Camp Choctawhatchee. Is that correct?
WALLIS: Yes. He organized a marine camp for middle school students.
SUTTER: But you don’t remember?
WALLIS: No, I don’t remember anything about that summer.
SUTTER: You don’t recall talking with me two years ago about Dr. Horowitz’s disappearance?
WALLIS: No.
SUTTER: How’s that possible?
WALLIS: I wish I knew.
Chapter 1
Darby Wallis
JUNE 13
WATERCOLOR, FLORIDA
Mom keeps bins in the foyer. To hold our shoes. To make the house seem clean and tidy. She wants our lives to match a window display or magazine cover, something people will envy. And so we place our sneakers in her bins. We smile for family photos. We do our best to seem perfect, become mannequins in a storeroom selling this fake Highway 30A experience.
I have a bin of my own. It doesn’t hold shoes or dirty laundry. It stays hidden in my closet beneath sweaters I never wear, full of items that echo my deepest and darkest self. Clothes too short, too tight. Diaries and bad report cards for my eyes only.
Mom wants perfect. She bleaches the floors and countertops.
She doesn’t know I accidentally spilled coffee on her couch last week and turned over the cushion. She hasn’t found the stain yet, like she hasn’t found my bin.
Perfect: My hair swept into a high pony. Lips gleaming with gloss. Accolades in my high school yearbook that call me nice and smart, the sweetest girl.
All that seems a cruel joke now as I sit on my bedroom floor in a nest of secret things. I rummage through the contents of my bin, each C+ exam, miniskirt, and sleepover Polaroid confirming a truth:
I’m the furthest thing from perfect.
“You sure about this, Darby?” Eliza rolls across my bed’s white duvet. She lifts onto her elbows and watches me, her chocolate eyes beaming suspicion. It’s unlike me to insist we go to a house party—Kip DiMarco’s house party, no less. I’d rather eat pizza on the beach than risk disappointing my parents. I am the good friend, the good child. I do good things.
The bin in my lap might disagree.
“Mom’s at book club.” I stifle my reservations with a slow, certain breath. I rummage through what Mom and Dad don’t know. Ticket stubs from movies they wouldn’t have let me see. Clothes I borrowed from Morgan and never returned.
I can’t part with this time bomb of risks I have taken.
Evidence of the grand hoax I call myself.
“And your dad?” Eliza gives me the look, one that forms a knot in my stomach. The look asks if I’m capable of breaking rules. The look reflects a girl who cried when her fifth-grade Spanish teacher called her out for talking in class.
“Downstairs. He’ll let me go.” I lift a bandeau top. My heart races. Heat pricks the back of my neck. I shouldn’t get a rush from this petty stash. If anything, I should feel ashamed of myself, and I do. The guilt eats at me. The fear of being found out has lingered in my mind for years. But destroying the bin won’t erase my secrets. I am a good friend. I do good things.
Good isn’t perfect.
Good doesn’t stand out.
I grab my phone from the carpet and unlock its screen with a click. Nikki Fawcett appears in my social media feed. She poses in a private beach pavilion, oiled up, flashing an Insta-worthy smile that says, “I’m hot and rich, and I’ll spend this summer eating snow cones, tanning in overpriced swimwear, and being exciting.” She’s a renter. She comes to 30A for the do something—and for the photo ops of her doing that something.
Nikki lets her glossy dark hair drape her spine.
I tug the scrunchie from my blonde ponytail.
Nikki wears minis and crops to show off her figure.
I draw the shortest shorts from my collection.
Nikki is perfect—social media says so. People remember her. She doesn’t fade into the background. She doesn’t need bins of shame because no one expects her to act like me.
I don’t want to act like me.
“Would you help?” I wave a makeup bag at Eliza and scoot toward my full-length mirror. Tonight, I need more than mascara and lip gloss.
Eliza slides off my bed. She matches a display from our moms’ boutique with her bodysuit, linen pants, and hoop earrings. “So . . . will a certain someone be at Kip’s party?” She tackles me, her bony limbs wrapping around my neck, her coconut scent rivaling my white tea diffuser. “Should your makeup cause a certain boy to regret—”
“No. I don’t know.” I pass her a sponge and bottle of foundation, then close my eyes as she dabs the cream across my cheeks. A certain boy. Maybe he’ll be there. Doesn’t matter. The party offers a chance to do something. Kip invited every Gen Z on this highway: part-timers, renters, locals, half the student body of Emerald Coast High.
Summer makes things happen. Maybe not for me, but for the other teens on 30A, summer brings growth spurts, romances, all the milestones that don’t fit between first and sixth period. I’ve seen the Pinterest boards, read the magazine articles. I’ve scrolled through enough bikini pics on social media to understand the importance of summertime. It’s as if teenagers have June through August to do something. To kiss the boy. Get drunk and end up shirtless in the neighbor’s yard. Take a road trip with their besties. Do something memorable.
I have a few months to make sure nobody forgets me.
Eliza finishes my makeup with a smoky eye. “Now, to complete the ensemble.” She hurries to my closet, sorting through linens and tropical prints. Without her style expertise, I’d live in a repeat of oversized tees and bathing suits.
My staff T-shirt from the Comber doesn’t count as fashion.
“Where’s that satin camisole, you know, the one from Paloma?” Eliza plucks a dress from the rack. She twirls to face me, hugging the garment against her slender frame.
Nobody on 30A looks even the faintest bit like her, and she prefers it that way. She’s five foot ten, leaner than a palm tree, with soft curls and an almond complexion. Not Victoria’s Secret. Vogue. The kind of person destined for magazine covers.
“Should be next to the white playsuit.” I lean toward the mirror, where a girl watches me with shaded eyes. Her hair isn’t dark and straight. She doesn’t wear minis and crops, not yet. But she resembles someone who leaves coffee-stained cushions unturned.
For years, I made excuses for myself. I called my routine sensible when others dubbed it a bore. I blamed my rule-following on protective parents and seventeen years of being told decisions have consequences. Friends asked why I work two jobs, and I responded with the same rehearsed line: “I want a car before college, a Land Rover, white like everything in my bedroom.” Seemed reasonable enough. Lots of people save up for cars.
It was a lie though. I worked two jobs—and still do—to impress Dad. He called me his “responsible kid” when I told him my plan to purchase a vehicle. And my bedroom isn’t white because I like white. Mom decorated the room to match her house and won’t let me change it.
Kip’s party signifies a step away from the excuses. I choose to do this for myself so I won’t begin senior year the same way I started junior year. When someone asks what I did this summer, I want one interesting story to tell. Of course, going isn’t wrong. Dad will give me permission, and I won’t do anything bad. I just need to be someone else for a few hours.
My chest aches with so many needs.
“Nope. Can’t find it.” Eliza riffles through my closet one last time. “Darby, I think you were robbed. Your silver Birks are gone too.”
“Koda!” I rise and stomp out the door, past Christian’s bedroom, now a storage closet for Paloma’s inventory. Mom took over the space after my brother moved into his dorm at Florida State. He won’t come home this summer, so Mom fills his room with boxes.
“That’s it—” I storm into my sister’s bedroom and choke on its stench, a fusion of self-tanner and strawberry body mist. “Oh my gosh! Can you breathe in here?”
Koda lounges on her bed, swaddled by a powder-pink comforter. She taps her laptop’s spacebar, freezing Michael Scott of The Office on its screen. “What do you want?”
“Where are my clothes?” I cross my arms, ready for a standoff with the fifteen-year-old.
“How would I know? I’m not your maid.” She glares at me from her throne of furry pillows, fairy lights, and Polaroid prints, the name Dakoda above her headboard in block letters.
“Really?” I scan the floor, spotting my camisole and Birkenstocks on her knitted beanbag. I snatch the clothes. “Stay out of my room.”
I return to Eliza and let her style me. She curls my honey-blonde hair with a wand, spritzes me with TOCCA Cleopatra to mask the lingering smell of deep-fried fish. When she gives a thumbs-up, I replace my work uniform with the silk camisole and shorts.
“No way Morgan won’t notice you,” Eliza says when I kneel to repack my bin.
“This isn’t about him.”
“Should be. What he did sucked.” Eliza motions to the picture frame on my nightstand, a sea-green rectangle preserving Morgan, Eliza, Cyrus, Spooner, and me behind glass. We were friends once. The best of friends. Middle school comrades bound together by spit handshakes and secret clubs and bicycling from Grayton Beach to Seagrove.
“That was two years ago. I’m over it.” I adjust my anklet, its pucca shells harsh white against my sun-browned skin. I shove a bralette into the bin, and my hand stalls. It hovers over a friendship bracelet tucked beneath a stack of photographs.
Eliza crouches beside me.
“Not everything is about him,” I say, but it is. Despite my attempts to forget and move on, all things somehow route to Morgan. I don’t want to see him. I don’t want another reminder of what happened that summer. It’s been two years. I shouldn’t hurt anymore.
The pain didn’t expire. It grew up with me.
“Yeah, but you don’t have to be over it. I’d understand if you weren’t over it.” Eliza kisses my cheek. She rests her head against my shoulder, and the ache within me eases. We’ve been friends since fifth grade, before our moms opened their boutique. Eliza watched me pal around with Morgan for years. She put me first when I put her second.
“Come on. We only have a few hours until Mom gets home.” I conceal my outfit under an oversized Seaside T-shirt. I stand and pull Eliza from the floor, laughing as she dances to the door, rapping lyrics of a party track. Every person has that friend who gets them through high school. Eliza Becker is mine.
“Oh—” I touch my bare neck and hurry to the shell dish on my nightstand. I lift an opal necklace, fasten it around my throat.
The picture frame collapses onto its back.
A weight settles in my stomach. I can’t bring myself to right the photograph, so I shift my attention to paintings of breakers and surfboards. No use ruminating on the past. We were friends, yes, but not anymore, not how we used to be.
Two years ago, we drifted apart. Eliza and I remained close. Morgan and Cyrus teamed up. Spooner left 30A when his parents divorced.
What Morgan did to me caused the divide. He and I had made a pact; we swore never to hurt our friendship. We sealed the deal with handmade bracelets. We snickered at other boys and girls who couldn’t stay friends because we thought we’d mastered the art.
We were better and smarter, and we wouldn’t dare fall in love.
But knowing him came with memories of sweatpants and suntans and riding in his Jeep until the sky turned pink and purple. Growing up with him involved the best days, fishing off his dock as crickets chirped in the background, watching outdoor movies until we fell asleep on his old bedspread. It was love. It was young. And I feel it all still, burning in the places it shouldn’t be.
Even though he betrayed me.
I heave my bin and stuff it into the closet, behind sweaters and a gym bag full of volleyball uniforms. Most people display mementos to help them remember, but some memories should remain buried in dark corners.
I still remember Morgan’s funny expressions. Still remember the octave of his snore, the smell of his skin after a day at the beach. Still remember how soft his lips felt against mine . . .
