Read Wild Summer for Free Online

blue-haired boy was gone.
    Summer was gone.
    Only… he wasn’t.
    There. Standing on the other side of the busy street.
    Crash froze. His heart stuttered, and his chest grew tight, galvanized by Summer’s gaze even though they were so far apart and a torrent of London traffic separated them. He wanted to shoot across the road, leap a few car bonnets to stand in front of him. He wanted Summer to see him strong and tall and true. But most of all, he wanted the swollen, blackly bruised skin that distorted one half of Summer’s face to be just a trick of the light. He wanted the fear he could sense from Summer’s stance and body language to be all in his head.
    A double-decker bus cut the thread between them, coming to a halt right in front of Crash. Finally he snapped out of the paralysis that had taken over his limbs and incautiously darted into the road and around the bus, nearly getting flattened by a crazy black-cab driver on the other side. But he was too late—he was always too late. Summer had fled, vanished like a shadow in sunlight.
    His heart shrank sickly in the emptiness and began to ache.

Chapter 7
     
    Now….
     
    C RASH LOOKED up at Romeo. They sat opposite each other on either side of the flagstone path that wound its way across the tiny front garden, all the way from the crooked gate to the equally crooked front door. Their bare knees were touching.
    When Romeo had gotten up, Crash had told him everything. His heart cracked open like a split-apart fruit, the ruin displayed for all to see. Well, not exactly all, but that’s what it felt like. Crash wasn’t a secretive person, but he’d carried this with him for so long it felt like a deep and painful part of him.
    You told me once you lost someone…. I thought at the time you meant someone had died, but it was him, wasn’t it? Romeo signed.
    Pressing his fingers into the hard earth beneath the grass, Crash nodded.
    If it was me, the worry would only get worse until I saw him again, made sure he was okay, Romeo carried on.
    Crash had told Romeo what he hadn’t told Julian — about the bruises he’d seen on Summer’s face and the fear he hoped wasn’t real. He’d wanted so much to be imagining it.
    How can I see him again? Crash signed. So much time had passed. Summer could be living anywhere now.
    With strong, slender fingers, Romeo cupped the back of his head, drew him forward until their foreheads rested against each other, and fixed his beautiful dark eyes on Crash’s. I love you, Crash. You and Julian are the most important people in the world to me. I cannot stand to see you unhappy, especially when you’re beating yourself up about something that happened when you were just a kid. I don’t know how. But you could start at the last place you knew he lived, he mouthed.
    It seemed a million years ago now, but back when they’d first met, Romeo had been a wary kid, in hospital recovering from pneumonia and a badly burned hand. He hadn’t wanted Crash’s friendship, but Crash had persevered, captivated by Romeo’s defiance, his determination to do what his heart told him he had to, whatever the cost might be. Determination that Crash had imagined echoed his own. But maybe he wasn’t that strong after all. Maybe his desire to do the right thing was just a cover for how much he’d fucked up in the past.
    During those first few days they’d spent together all those years ago, Crash had discovered Romeo was some sort of expert in hope—especially the kind that involved finding the one person you needed to find. He never gave up. He’d found Julian when he’d been so lost, after all.
    Glancing away at the gently swaying treetops, Crash imagined he could feel the push and pull of the restless ocean beyond them. The day was overcast, the sky white, the air cool.
    Last time I saw him, he was so angry. He never wanted to see me again, he signed listlessly.
    Though he knew that argument wouldn’t cut it—even if the pain Crash felt was as