Chapter 17 – After the Summer, After Us
One year later.
The town hadn't changed much—same sleepy sidewalks, same tilted stop sign at the corner of Maple and 5th, same buzzing street lamps that flickered at dusk. But Maya had. And so had Liam.
They didn't walk like high school sweethearts anymore.
They walked like people who had chosen each other—after the storms, the goodbyes, the silence, and all the moments in between. Like people who had lived, separately and together, and still wanted more.
It was late August, the kind of golden afternoon that hung heavy in the air. The town fair was wrapping up, and the scent of kettle corn clung to their clothes. Music drifted faintly from the park's stage where a local band strummed out oldies with quiet charm.
Liam reached for her hand without looking, and Maya laced her fingers through his like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"Remember when we snuck out of the fair after the fireworks and ended up at the lake?" she asked, smiling.
"You dared me to jump in," he said.
"And you did. In your jeans."
"You were impressed."
"I was horrified."
He laughed. "You kissed me fifteen minutes later."
"I was young and foolish."
"You're still young."
"Still foolish, too," she added playfully. "I mean, I'm dating you."
He leaned over and kissed her cheek. "Lucky me."
That evening, they walked through town to the gallery downtown—Maya's gallery. Or at least, her first real show.
The space buzzed with soft conversation. Strings of warm lights crisscrossed the ceiling like stars, and the white walls wore her paintings proudly.
The show was called When Summer Ends.
People asked her what the title meant. A few assumed it was poetic. One man, an older professor type with silver hair and tortoiseshell glasses, asked if it was a metaphor for growing up.
Maya gave everyone a slightly different answer.
But the truth?
It was about what happened after goodbye. About learning to stay. About rediscovering love once the shine wore off and real life crept in. It was about her. About Liam. About everything they lost, and how they found it again—imperfect, unfinished, but worth it.
At the center of the gallery was a portrait that had already become the most talked-about piece of the night.
Liam, laughing.
Painted in sun-warmed hues—his eyes crinkling, his head slightly tilted, the softness in his smile captured like a secret only she knew. It was titled simply, Still Him.
He stood beside her, hands in his pockets, as strangers studied it.
"You captured something," one woman murmured. "Like… devotion."
Maya glanced at Liam, who was watching her instead of the painting.
"Yeah," she said softly. "I guess I did."
Later, they drove up to the overlook. The one with the view of the valley and the sky that always looked bigger than it did anywhere else.
Liam had packed a blanket and her favorite root beer floats in a cooler. He spread the blanket in the bed of his truck and handed her a cup before lying beside her.
The stars blinked overhead.
"I think I was afraid of being ordinary," Maya said after a long moment.
"You're the least ordinary person I know."
"But I was afraid," she insisted, turning to look at him. "That coming back here meant shrinking. Becoming the girl who never left."
He didn't say anything right away. He let her have the space. That's something Liam had learned to do—give her space without letting go.
"But now?" she added, eyes glinting. "Now I realize… maybe the extraordinary part isn't leaving."
"What is it, then?"
"Coming back. And still choosing the life you want. Even if it's here. Even if it's quiet."
He nodded. "You're not the girl who never left. You're the girl who came back different. Stronger."
She leaned her head on his shoulder. "So are you."
They talked about things they hadn't before.
About fear.
About dreams.
About what they wanted five years from now—not just the big things, like careers and places and maybe a house with a porch swing—but the small ones too. Breakfast rituals. Saturday grocery runs. Falling asleep to old movies.
Maya admitted she still got scared sometimes—that she'd wake up and realize she'd given up a bigger world.
Liam said he worried she'd outgrow him.
"But we're not who we were," he added. "And that's the point. We keep growing, just… together now."
She smiled. "I like the sound of that."
The next morning, they had breakfast on her apartment floor, pancakes and mismatched mugs of coffee, surrounded by unfinished canvases and scattered books.
Liam picked up her sketchbook—the one he wasn't allowed to flip through without permission—and raised an eyebrow.
"Can I?"
She nodded.
Inside were fresh drawings: the town's bakery owner, an old woman watering sunflowers, Zoey holding her baby niece, a self-portrait of Maya mid-laugh. Pages alive with color and memory.
At the very back, she'd drawn the two of them.
Liam reading on the couch, Maya sprawled nearby sketching, their legs tangled without notice. Above it, she'd written:
The soft kind of forever.
That night, Liam returned with a worn notebook. "I wrote something," he said, handing it over.
Maya sat beside him and read in silence.
To the girl who left and came back shining brighter than the sun:
You taught me that love doesn't have to shout to be heard. That silence doesn't mean absence. That the heart makes room, even when it's broken. You are my favorite beginning and my favorite return.
So here's my question.
She looked up, eyes wide.
Liam was holding something small in his palm—not a ring, but a charm. A tiny, silver heart, engraved with a brush and a wrench crossing like an X.
"For your bracelet," he said. "For now."
Maya's voice trembled. "It's perfect."
"And maybe someday," he added, "we'll trade it for a ring. When we're ready."
She kissed him without needing to say a word.
Seasons passed.
They didn't always get everything right. There were arguments and insecurities and nights when one of them was too tired to talk. But they always came back to each other.
And that was love.
Not just the grand gestures.
But the choosing. Again and again.
Every day after summer ended.