Chapter Four — The Summer That Wasn't Summer
(Inara's pov)
If you'd told me two months ago that my favorite part of senior year would involve sneaking up to the rooftop with a boy who couldn't go five minutes without making a bad joke, I would've laughed.
Now it just felt normal.
Now, it felt like us.
Hallowridge had begun to warm again — late afternoons spilling sunlight over the streets, the air smelling faintly of lilacs from the park nearby. At Westbrook High, final-year panic had officially started, but Elias and I seemed to exist outside it.
Our days were little pieces of stolen time. Lunch on the roof. Walks home that somehow always took an hour instead of twenty minutes. Endless laughter.
"Okay, hear me out," Elias said one afternoon, balancing dangerously on the narrow ledge as I sat cross-legged with my notebook. "What if people are like constellations?"
"Elias," I said, not looking up, "if this ends with you trying to jump from one building to another to 'connect the stars,' I'm pushing you off myself."
He laughed. "No, I mean, like—what if we're all just stars that look like chaos from far away, but up close we make sense?"
I raised an eyebrow. "That's… surprisingly poetic for someone who tried to eat chalk last week to 'see if it really tasted like sadness.'"
"That was a science experiment!" he protested, dramatically clutching his chest. "For art!"
"Uh-huh."
"Fine," he said, pretending to sulk. "What are you thinking about then, Miss Solace?"
I hesitated, tapping my pen against the page. "I think… I want to write something."
"Like?"
"A book, maybe." I looked out at the skyline. "About… love, I guess. But not the movie kind. The kind that happens quietly. Slowly. The kind that sneaks up on you and ruins you in the best way."
He blinked, then smiled. "You're serious."
"Completely."
He grinned wider. "Then I expect to be a character."
I laughed. "You? No way. You'd turn the whole thing into a musical."
"Hey, at least I'd give it personality!"
"Or chaos."
"Same thing," he said with a wink.
The next day, Tess cornered me by my locker, her perfume heavy and sweet.
"So, writer girl," she said, her tone sugar-coated with something sharp underneath. "You and Elias, huh?"
I froze mid-step. "What about him?"
"Don't play dumb. You two are like… a thing now, right?"
"We're friends, Tess."
"Right. Friends who stare at each other like one of you's about to write a love song."
I rolled my eyes. "You're being ridiculous."
"Am I?" she asked, her smile thin. "Because from here, it kinda looks like you forgot about me."
That stung — even if it wasn't true.
I tried to explain, "You could come hang out with us sometimes—"
She laughed, short and bitter. "Yeah, because that's what every girl wants. To be a third wheel to a live romance novel."
Before I could reply, she walked off, heels clicking like punctuation marks to a sentence I didn't understand.
That afternoon, Elias and I sat in the park near the school. Naomi and Marco were racing each other in circles, screaming happily about who got to be the "space captain."
Elias tossed me a juice box, grinning. "She still mad?"
"Tess?" I sighed. "Probably. She's complicated."
"Maybe she's jealous."
"Of what?"
He shrugged. "That you're growing up and she's still stuck where everything's about who's popular."
I poked his arm with my straw. "You're too insightful for someone who once tried to name a squirrel."
"That squirrel was special," he said seriously. "We bonded."
I laughed so hard I almost choked on my juice.
Naomi tripped over the grass and immediately began giggling, and Elias rushed over to help her up. "You okay, troublemaker?" he asked, brushing grass off her knees.
She nodded solemnly, then declared, "You're funny. Inara should marry you."
"Naomi!" I gasped, face flaming.
Elias looked over his shoulder, grinning like the menace he was. "You hear that, Solace? The people have spoken."
"Naomi's five! Her vote doesn't count."
"It counts emotionally."
I threw my juice box at him. "You're impossible."
He dodged it easily, laughing as Marco and Naomi took sides in the "juice war." For a few moments, everything felt light — like the world couldn't touch us.
A few evenings later, he showed up at my house, hair wet from the drizzle, holding two cups of cocoa and a grin.
"My mom kicked me out for playing guitar too loud," he said. "So I brought peace offerings."
We ended up in the living room, sitting cross-legged on the carpet while Naomi built a lopsided block tower beside us.
He pointed at my notebook on the couch. "That your book?"
"Maybe," I said. "It's just… notes. Fragments. I don't even know where to start."
"Start with a girl," he said, "who thinks she's ordinary until someone shows her she isn't."
I looked at him, startled. "That's—"
"Good? I know." He grinned.
I threw a pillow at his face. "You're so full of yourself."
"Only when I'm right."
We ended up laughing again, and Naomi started laughing too, not even knowing why. It was just that kind of night — full of noise and warmth and tiny moments that didn't feel important until later.
By the end of the week, our "normal" had turned into something else entirely.
We had inside jokes, playlists, half-finished drawings, and scribbled notes passed during math class. He'd walk me home, tease me for overthinking, and then send me a text an hour later: You're doing great, writer girl.
I'd pretend not to smile.
Sometimes, I'd catch him watching me — just for a second — before he'd look away like he hadn't.
Sometimes, I'd realize I was watching him, too.
And maybe that was how it started.
Not with a confession, or a kiss, or a dramatic moment in the rain.
But with laughter.
With friendship.
With two people slowly, quietly falling into something that felt a lot like forever.
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Heyy guyssss