All The Summers Between Us | TSITP

Fault Lines.

The house felt different after Marcy left—heavier, quieter, and yet thrumming with a strange electricity that made the air almost impossible to breathe. The front door had barely shut behind her when Lydia and Daniel turned toward each other in the living room, faces still wearing the polite smiles they'd forced for the last hour. Those smiles dissolved instantly.

"Okay, what the hell was that?" Daniel snapped first, pacing a short line between the couch and the window.

Lydia closed the planner she'd been holding and set it gently on the coffee table. "I don't know. You tell me."

"I tell you?" He let out a disbelieving laugh. "Half the things you said in there completely blindsided me. Guest count? Flowers? Are you kidding? We've talked about this stuff for months, Lydia. You're the one who wanted a big celebration."

"No." Her voice was quiet, steady—but there was steel beneath it. "You're the one who wanted a big celebration. You're the one who wanted a hundred and fifty people and lilies and a wedding that looks like it belongs on the cover of Modern Bride."

"That's not true," he shot back. "We both wanted that. You said you wanted that!"

"No." She shook her head, her pulse hammering in her ears. "I said I wanted a wedding that felt right. And I think maybe we've been so caught up in planning this thing that we never stopped to think about what that actually means."

Daniel scoffed. "It means celebrating our love with everyone who matters to us. It means making it beautiful and memorable."

"To you, maybe!" The words came out louder than she intended, sharper too. "God, Daniel, it's always what you picture. Always what you think is right. You keep saying we but really, you mean you."

Silence fell, thick and jagged.

Upstairs, Conrad sat on the edge of his bed, elbows on his knees, trying—and failing—not to listen. He had been halfway through a book, trying to drown out the sound of their voices with printed words, but it was useless. Their argument cut through the walls, too raw, too real.

It was like listening to glass splinter, piece by piece.

"I just don't understand how suddenly everything's changing," Daniel said after a long beat. His tone had softened but it carried something brittle, wounded. "We had a plan. We agreed. You were happy with it."

"I thought I was," Lydia said. "I thought I was okay with it because it was your dream, and you were so excited, and it felt easier to go along with it than to question it. But the closer we get, the more I realise... I don't even recognise this wedding anymore. I don't recognise us."

Conrad shut his eyes, chest tight. He hated that he was hearing this—hated it because it was none of his business and hated it more because every syllable made his heart ache for her. She deserved joy. She deserved certainty. She deserved to feel like the world was tilting in her favour, not like it was slipping out from under her feet.

And yet... she didn't sound happy. She didn't sound sure.

"Okay," Daniel muttered, dragging a hand down his face. "You know what this sounds like? This sounds like cold feet."

"Cold feet?" she repeated, her voice trembling. "I'm not scared of marrying you, Daniel. I'm scared that we're about to build a life together on something that doesn't even feel like mine."

"Of course it's yours," he insisted. "It's ours."

"It's not," she said again, firmer this time. "You keep saying 'ours' but you don't hear me. I want something smaller. I want fewer people. I want it to be about us—the real us—not the version that looks good in pictures."

"Well, maybe the real us is a big wedding," he snapped. "Maybe that's who we are. Maybe this is what I thought we were working toward—together."

"And maybe we're not seeing this the same way at all." Her voice broke a little on that last word, and the silence that followed was deafening.

Upstairs, Conrad pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. He hated that he could hear it all. Hated how much it hurt to know she was hurting. The girl he loved—still loved, despite everything—was standing in a room below him, building a future that was crumbling around the edges, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. His heart was a riot of contradictions: selfish, protective, hopelessly in love. All of it.

Downstairs, Daniel blew out a harsh breath and checked his watch. "I don't have time for this right now."

"Of course you don't," Lydia muttered, the weight of it dragging her shoulders down.

"I mean it," he said, softer this time. "I have to go. My flight's in two hours."

"I know," she murmured. "Four days."

"Yeah." He grabbed the bag he'd packed earlier, slinging it over his shoulder. "We'll talk when I get back. Maybe some time apart will help."

She nodded, even though it felt like a crack spreading through her chest. "Maybe."

And that was that.

Daniel took one last look at her—frustration, affection, confusion all tangled together—then turned and headed for the door. Conrad heard the dull thud of his footsteps drawing further, further... until the hallway creaked and the front door opened.

He didn't move. Didn't even breathe. He just sat there in the quiet aftermath, staring at nothing, listening to the silence Lydia was standing in downstairs—silence she didn't deserve.

And as the sound of Daniel's car faded into the distance, Conrad realised something he had been trying not to admit:

He had been preparing himself for the pain of watching Lydia marry someone else. But he hadn't prepared for this—for the agony of watching her break before she even walked down the aisle.

And God help him, he would have taken every ounce of that pain if it meant she didn't have to feel a second of it.