All The Summers Between Us | TSITP

Everything I Couldn't Say.

The wind had shifted. The tide had crept closer, soft and relentless, licking the shore like it was remembering her name. Lydia's hand was still in Conrad's, his thumb pressed against her pulse, both of them too afraid to breathe.

"Conrad," she whispered, her voice trembling. "You're scaring me."

He didn't move, didn't speak for a moment — just looked at her like he'd been waiting his whole life for the right night to finally ruin himself.

"Then let me scare you," he said quietly. "Because I can't keep pretending anymore."

Her lips parted. The ocean swallowed the sound. He stepped closer. The distance between them evaporated — a hand's width, a heartbeat, a history.

"I can't do this," he said, his voice cracking like driftwood under pressure. "I can't stand next to him anymore. I can't keep pretending I'm fine while he plans a life with you. Because it's killing me, Lydia. Every day, every hour, every goddamn second I'm in that house watching you pretend you're happy—it's killing me."

She shook her head, eyes glossy. "Conrad, please don't—"

He laughed, soft and broken. "You think I want to say this? You think I want to make this harder for you? I don't. I've been trying so hard not to. I thought if I helped you, if I just stayed out of the way, I could live with it. But I can't. I can't watch you marry him and keep my mouth shut."

The words came like waves, relentless, unstoppable.

"I love you," he said, the confession breaking out of him like air after drowning. "I love you in ways that don't make sense anymore. I love you like every part of me has been waiting for you to come back. I love you even when I wish I didn't. I tried to forget. God, I tried. But every time I see you, I remember what it felt like to be happy for real."

Lydia closed her eyes, tears spilling over, quiet and constant.

He took another step forward. "Do you know what it's like to be around you and not touch you? To sit beside you and pretend I don't remember the way you used to look at me? Every time you walk into a room, I forget how to breathe. And I know it's not fair, I know you're engaged, I know you have this life already written out, but—" he swallowed hard, his voice breaking entirely — "don't be with him. Don't marry him. Be with me."

Her eyes flew open. The world went still.

"What?" she breathed.

"Be with me," he said again, quieter this time. "Please. I know it's too late, but I had to say it before you walk down that aisle. I had to tell you. Because if I don't, I'll regret it for the rest of my life."

The ocean roared in the pause that followed.

Lydia's chest rose and fell fast, the air cutting thin in her lungs. "You can't—" she started, her voice trembling. "You can't just say that to me now, Conrad. Two days before my wedding. You don't get to—"

"I know," he said, stepping closer. "But if not now, when? When you're married? When you've gone so far I can't reach you anymore?" His voice cracked again, lower, desperate. "I had to tell you while there's still a chance, even if it's the smallest one in the world. I had to tell you the truth once before you go and build your life on a lie."

Her face crumpled. "Don't say that."

"It's the truth," he said softly. "You're not happy, Lyd. You haven't been all summer. You think I don't see it? You cry when no one's looking. You look at him like you're trying to remember why you said yes. You don't eat, you don't sleep. You're drowning in something you can't even name. And I can't save you from it, but I can love you through it. I can be the person you were before all this noise started. I just... I need you to remember who we were."

Lydia shook her head, tears falling freely now. "Conrad, stop."

"Tell me you don't feel it," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Tell me that when I look at you like this, you don't feel the whole world stop. Tell me it's gone. Tell me what we had doesn't still live in you."

She pressed a hand to her chest, like she could hold her heart in place. "Don't do this to me," she whispered.

"I already did," he said. "The second I let you go the first time."

Her bottom lip trembled. "I can't—"

"I know," he said. "You don't have to say anything. Just... don't marry him because it's safe. Don't marry him because it's expected. Don't marry him if it means giving up the part of you that still looks for me in a crowded room."

For a moment, all she could do was stare at him — the boy who had love her through every silence, every almost, every heartbreak. The boy who'd helped her plan a wedding that was slowly breaking both of them.

"Why now?" she finally asked, her voice cracking like glass. "Why couldn't you tell me this before? When I still could have done something about it?"

He exhaled, shoulders heavy. "Because I thought I'd ruin you. But I think maybe not telling you was worse."

She looked at him then, really looked — the mess of him, the rawness, the ache that felt too much like her own.

And for the first time, she didn't know what hurt more — that he'd said it, or that she'd wanted him to.

She took a step back, the sand slipping under her shoes. "I need to go," she whispered.

"Lydia—"

She shook her head, cutting him off. "I just.. I need sleep. That's all."

He nodded, once, a small, resigned movement, the kind that looked like heartbreak in real time.

She turned and started walking toward the house. The sound of her footsteps was soft, but it echoed in his chest like thunder.

He stood there until she disappeared into the dark.

And when she was far enough that he couldn't see her anymore, she stopped. The wind rushed past her, cold and sharp, and her knees gave out. She sank to the sand, pressing a hand against her heart, the other over her mouth to muffle the sound.

The sobs came hard and fast, each one heavier than the last, the kind that ripped straight through her ribs. She cried until her throat burned, until her body shook, until the only sound left was the sea.

And back at the shed, Conrad stayed exactly where she'd left him — hands in his pockets, tears he didn't bother to wipe away, the ocean swallowing the words he'd finally dared to speak.

The tide crept higher. The stars blinked. And for the first time all summer, everything they'd buried was out in the open, glinting in the moonlight like something too precious to ever put back.