eleven months later

"I could never get sick of this view." I lean against the wall on the roof of the Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles spread out before me. My legs are aching after the hike it took to get here from the Hollywood sign but it's worth every cramp. Tay and I took an Uber to Lake Hollywood Park and got as close as we could to the enormous letters of the sign, marveling at the view of the reservoir and the city and the iconic letters, and when we were that high, the hike to the observatory didn't look too far. It only took us about ninety minutes – which, in LA, is probably the amount of time it would've taken to drive – but the up and down of the mountains has done a number on my calves.

"Pretty cool, isn't it? Bit of a vibe shift," Tay says, leaning next to me.

"Major vibe shift. Fisher feels a long, long way from here."

"I googled it: you could fit fifty Fishers in LA."

"Whoa."

"Probably about five hundred if you account for the fact that most of your town is a bigass lake," Tay says with a laugh, turning her back to the wall to face me. "I know I've said it a bajillion times, but I'm so fucking happy you're here. Even if you are about to ditch me."

This is my first full week off since I started working at Cafe Au Late and I have made the most of it. I spent the first three days in Yellowstone with Ashley and Connor, after we talked about it for almost a year, and after a day in Portland with Ashley, I came here three days ago. Now it's the last day of my trip. Tomorrow I'll be back in Fisher, and I can't wait to see Lou again but I've had the time of my life. I have never been more tired, but I have never felt more alive.

My three days in Yellowstone were long and intense and filled with some of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen. After we first discussed it last year, the trip was starting to seem like one of those things that would forever be a pipe dream, something that would never actually happen, until the pieces started to fall into place around us. Riley was pressuring me to take a full week off work so I requested a random one when no-one else was off – the end of July and the beginning of August – and it happened to be when both of my cousins were free too.

"I'm not ditching you." I push her shoulder and laugh at her pouting lips, her dramatized disappointment that my trip is coming to an end. "You'll just have to come to Idaho. There's plenty of space for you. My entire town could probably fit on your block."

"I will. God, I've missed you, Charlie." She throws her arms around me, pulling me tight against her little body. Over the past year, our lives have gone from parallel lines to diverging tracks: while everything has come up roses for me, finding my feet in Fisher with Lou and getting a job I love, Tay has spent the last two months in a crowded apartment with five strangers after her boyfriend dumped her for an aspiring actress. Which, in this city, could be anyone.

We hug for a long time. I've missed Tay's hugs so much. This isn't the first time I've been to see her since I've been in Fisher, but it is the first time since Danny broke her heart. She has picked herself up remarkably well considering she came all the way out here for him: she has thrown herself even harder into her work at a PR firm that handles several high profile clients, her career on the up while her love life spirals.

"Charlie?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't think I can handle much more walking. My poor little legs are too short and I spend all day every day on my butt. Wherever we go from here, it's on wheels."

We take in the view for several more minutes and by the time we leave to catch the DASH, I've seized up. Every bone and muscle in my legs is taut and aching and Tay laughs at me as we hobble to to the bus stop. It's a relief to sit for the fifteen minutes it takes to get to Vermont and Sunset, where we switch to the B line that carries us into the city itself.

The Last Bookstore is only a few minutes from the metro station and on a random Thursday in July, it's pretty quiet. The guy on the door gives us the stink eye as he checks our bags, probably because we reek from our ill-advised hike in eighty-five degree heat. He turns his nose up at my backpack, damp from my sweat, that crinkles with empty protein bar wrappers and water bottles, the detritus of my morning with Tay. I don't like handing it over in exchange for a ticket, but I've wanted to see this bookstore ever since Tay sent me pictures the first time she came here.

It's a behemoth of a place, enormous pillars stretching from the floor to the double-high ceiling, and there are crammed bookshelves everywhere, seating dotting the floor with people lounging in armchairs and across sofas, perusing books and vinyl records. This place is a book lover's heaven. On the upper level, open books are suspended from the ceiling like works of art and in the far corner, a group of teenagers are taking it in turns to take photos inside the book tunnel.

Once they've left and there's no-one else around, Tay and I walk to the middle and sit down under the arch of books and the LED lights. This place is magical. It feels like a secret, like something only we have stumbled upon.

"How's your mom doing?" Tay asks. We have managed to mostly avoid family talk the whole time I've been here, with everything else we've had to discuss. Tay's breakup and my relationship; her life in California and mine in Idaho; Gaby.

The Greg's Gals chat has died a slow, quiet death. Gaby has moved on. She's found herself in San Diego and I was upset at first, but I get it now. She's found her people, and Tay and I weren't them. We were stopgaps. I can't be mad at her for that, and if she ever had a problem with my queerness, I'll never know. There's no point bringing up something that huge with someone who isn't part of my life anymore.

"She's doing really well," I say, picking at a loose thread on my shorts. "Her new therapist is really suiting her and she's got a new lease on life since she decided she's retiring next year. The meds help, too."

In Mom's own words, I'm therapized; I'm medicated; I'm doing good. Last year's breakdown was a wake-up call for her, when she realized how worried I must've been to have wrangled my brothers to take turns staying with her, keeping an eye on her.

"Finally hit the right combo, huh?"

"Took a bit of trial and error, yeah." I say. Mom was reluctant to see a doctor and she was even worse after he prescribed Zoloft and she was plagued by every single side effect. Prozac didn't suit her either. Since she's been on Lexapro, however – with a side of Inderal for anxiety-induced palpitations she didn't want to admit to – she's a different person. "It's like having my old mom back."

Last month she announced that she's moving again, once she retires. Not back to Montana, but to Denver. Because when the five of us scrambled to her rescue from across the country, we all wasted hours in that airport, so she figured why not make the city her home?

Tay squeezes my hand. "What about your dad? What's he up to?"

That's more of a sore subject. I bit the bullet and went to Phoenix a few months ago, and it was just sad. He didn't want to talk about the divorce, wriggled away from the conversation any time I brought up Mom; he's clearly going through some kind of midlife crisis but he won't admit to it. I can't get through to him. None of us can, and after what he's put Mom through, I can't be bothered to try anymore.

I tell Tay as much. It doesn't make me as emotional as it did when I first got back from Phoenix and cried myself to sleep with Lou's arms around me. I've cried a lot more since we've been together. I'm not bottling up my emotions as much as I was; I'm not running away from them. Sometimes they wash over me, and that's okay. That's what Lou tells me, at least, when I cry and she kisses my tear-stained cheeks.

"Men are pigs," Tay says with a look of disgust on her face.

"They really are. I pity you, really, for having to date them."

"Ugh, I know. It's a tragedy. I don't even know how people date in this economy. How the fuck am I supposed to meet someone who isn't some kind of sex pest or a fetishist?"

"I don't have an answer for that. Luck of the draw, I guess."

"Be thankful you're a lesbian. I know women can be pigs too, but not nearly with as high a frequency."

"I'm very thankful that I'm a lesbian," I say, holding my palms together like a prayer. "I thank the lesbian gods every day for saving me from the curse of being attracted to men."

"It really is a curse."

"I feel like that's how a lot of closeted lesbians feel before they realize why they feel that way," I joke. Tay laughs.

"Hey, there's time yet for a revelation. I'm only twenty-five."

We move on when another group descends on the tunnel for the photo opportunity. After half an hour of browsing, during which time I pick up a floppy paperback romance for me to read on the plane and a hardback for Lou, a new release from one of her favorite authors, we end up on the E line back to our AirBnB in Santa Monica. There's no space for me in Tay's apartment so when I booked this trip, we decided to make the most of it and rent a place by the beach for a few days.

It's been so worth it. It's been like the old days, sharing a space with my best friend, except this time instead of a view of a parking lot in Austin, our living room window looks over the Pacific Ocean. I'm going to miss it when I leave tomorrow. Tay will miss it more when she goes back to the single bed that only just fits in her closet of a room.

The hours fly by too fast. We spend the evening on the beach and we eat dinner on the balcony, watching the sun as it sets behind the waves. I blink and it's morning and it's time for me to go; Tay and I hug on the doorstep and we go in different directions. She has work in an hour. My flight leaves in three. I'm still on the bus to the airport when she sends me a picture from her desk and says, miss you already. tell the pilot to fly safe.

Will do, I text back with a saluting emoji and a heart.

The pilot gets the message. I land in Boise in one piece at one p.m. and within twenty minutes of getting off the plane, I'm on the bus to Fisher. Lou is teaching until two, her schedule packed with all the kids who are on summer break for a couple more weeks, and I had to talk her out of canceling her lessons to come get me. I'm a big girl. I can take the bus. Even though it makes me want to tear my hair out every time it stops, every time it slows to thirty for no good reason, every time it adds another minute to the journey home.

I've had an incredible week with my cousins and my best friend, but now I want to be with my girlfriend and this slow ass bus driver is getting in the way of that. I want to throw my arms around Lou and kiss her for the first time in eight days; I want to see the look on her face when I give her a book I know she wants and I want to lie with her in the garden as we read totally different books and swap them when we're done.

The bus makes two stops in Fisher. One is in the town center, by the scaffolding-clad Lake View Hotel, and the other is at the golf club a mile down the road, which makes for a much shorter walk home. I'm the only person to get off there, tripping off the step and swinging my carry-on bag at the sidewalk hard enough that it sounds like a wheel cracks, but I don't care because I am so nearly home. Ten minutes, according to google. I break out my lesbian speed walk and make it in eight, running the last few meters from the dusty road to the front porch.

I dump everything to tear through the house in search of Lou. I already know where she'll be. It's a beautiful August day, the lake a glittering cerulean pool beneath a cloudless sky. She'll be on the dock, our favorite place to spend a free afternoon. Chores are for rainy days and dark evenings and dreary mornings. Sunny afternoons are for reading on the dock or rowing out into the middle of the lake or taking a meandering walk to the overlook, and Lou wouldn't do either of the latter two on her own.

There she is. Lying on the dock with a pillow beneath her head, her feet dangling in the water. Her auburn waves are spread out around her like a halo of fire and today's glasses match the water, the sky, the long skirt she has pulled up to her thighs. She sits up the minute she hears the back door, abandoning her book to scramble to her feet when I come flying at her with a hug so forceful I almost knock us both into the water. It wouldn't be the first time.

"I'll tell you all about the trip but first I need to do this," I say, my words coming out at a mile a minute before I shut myself up by kissing her. "Fuck, I missed you."

"I missed you more," Lou says, the flat of one hand between my shoulder blades, the other at my lower back, pinning me to her.

"Impossible."

"I beg to differ. You've been with your friend and your cousins. I've been here, all alone, counting down the minutes until you're back." She holds me tightly, swaying from side to side, and she peppers my cheeks with kisses, the tip of her index finger under my chin when she touches her nose to mine. "A week is far too long. I haven't known what to do with myself all week. It made me realize how little I can afford to lose you."

"I'm not going anywhere," I promise, trailing my lips along her jaw and nestling my face in her neck. I have missed the feel of her, the smell. Her perfume, that heady summer garden. "Actually, I'm going to the kitchen because I'm in dire need of caffeine and I didn't have time to find a coffee shop between landing and getting the bus. But I will be right back once I've procured coffee."

"Okay." Lou reluctantly lets go of me, her hands dropping from my body.

"Want anything?"

"Only your return."

"Gimme five." I jog back to the kitchen and make an iced coffee in record time, thanks to the jug of cold brew that lives in the fridge. Lou must have made a fresh batch while I was away.

But when I get back to the dock, she's gone. Huh.

"Lou?"

She definitely didn't follow me into the house. I glance down at the water. Shit, has she fallen in? I'm about to get on my hands and knees when I hear a creak that catches my attention. I know that creak all too well. The noise of a weary tree branch in a garden that used to be mine. I walk to the fence that separates our house from the Takahashis – I still get such a thrill to call this place ours, mine – and I watch as Lou, sitting in the tire swing, spins in lazy circles. I've never seen her use the swing before, even though I met the Takahashis – George and Emi and their three kids – when they spent a few weeks here earlier in the summer, and they gave us carte blanche permission.

"What're you doing?" I call over the fence.

"This is where we met," Lou says. She tips her head back and spins and she leans so far back that her hair, more than two feet long, grazes the grass.

I set my coffee down and embody Lou, folding my arms and raising my voice. "Excuse me, what're you doing trespassing on my neighbor's property?"

She laughs that bright, pretty laugh. "That's not how I sound, and that's not how I remember the conversation going." Her words fade in and out with every rotation, the rope twisting and the branch creaking. "Did you realize it's been a whole year?"

I mentally check the date. August second. How about that. A whole year since I broke into my uncle's old garden and changed the trajectory of my life. I knock back a third of my coffee and hop the fence to join her. "A whole year of loving you, huh? I could've sworn it's been a lifetime."

Lou smiles up at me, a goofy smile, the ends of her hair tickling the arches of my bare feet. I stop the tire from its slow spinning and ask, "Reckon this thing could hold both of us?"

"Absolutely not. I don't know how it's lasted all these years already."

"We'll never know if we never try." I reach for the rope and make like I'm going to climb on top of the tire. Lou tries to push me away and slithers onto the grass with a shriek; she lies sprawled on the ground, laughing, as I steal the tire. I pull it back and take a running jump to swing as high as I can, using the momentum of my legs and my back to fly through the air once I'm in the swing. Lou rolls out of the danger zone before she stands up and steals my coffee, watching me swing as she sips.

"Have I told you lately," I say when I reach the highest point, waiting until I get there again to finish with, "how much I love you?"

"To the moon and back," Lou says.

"A million times. A billion." I stop pumping my legs, slowing down. When I've almost come to a stop, Lou catches my ankles. I loop them around her waist, holding her close, my arms folded on top of the tire and my chin resting on the back of my hands. "God, I love you, you beautiful woman," I say. I can't reach to kiss her, but I want to. Lou's smile widens. "You can say it back, you know. I know you love me too."

Her grin only grows, enough that her lips part and I spy her canines, those little fangs I love so much. "I do," she says at last.

"Like getting blood from a stone." I roll my eyes at her. "Good thing I'm not someone who needs to hear the actual words all the time," I say. It's a joke. I try not to be needy, but I do need to hear the occasional I love you and Lou is well aware of that. She tells me every day. I try to wriggle my feet out of her grip. "If you're not gonna indulge me, at least let me swing."

"I love you, Charlotte."

"Thank y–"

"Marry me."

My heart stops, or at least skips a beat. "I'm sorry, what did you just say?"

"Marry me," Lou repeats. Okay, yup, so I did hear her right. My limbs go slack at the same moment she lets go of me and it's my turn to fall out of the swing, landing with a thump and a grunt. Lou takes my hands and helps me to my feet and says, "I had a much better proposal planned with a boat and the lake and the sunset but I can't wait any longer." She pulls me closer, mere inches between us. "I need to know. Will you marry me, Charlotte Miller?"

I've lost the ability to speak. All I can do is nod, blinking away the tears that spring to my eyes, and try not to choke on the butterflies swarming my stomach and lungs. I clasp a hand over my mouth, shock taking over. I wasn't expecting this, but I can't imagine my life without Lou in it and I don't want to. Marriage is something we've talked about, joked about, but I figured if it was in our cards, it was off in the horizon. Though why should it be? I know Lou is the one for me. I am the one for her. We might as well put a ring on it.

"I take it that's a yes?" she asks, raising her eyebrows in question.

"Yes, of course it's a fucking yes!" I cry out when I get my speech back and I throw myself at her. The tire swing thumps against the backs of my legs and it's enough to make me lose balance and when I fall, I pull Lou down with me. She lands on top, her lips an inch from mine.

"Eight days without you," she murmurs, bracing her hands on the ground either side of my head, "and I lost my damn mind. You drive me crazy, Charlotte. You've been driving me crazy all year."

"The last year has been the best of my life," I say, swallowing hard. I can hardly believe it myself, after the year before was the worst I'd ever had. "You're the best thing that's ever happened to me. You and Issy and – does Issy know?"

"I asked how she'd feel about potentially getting a stepmom."

"What did she say?"

"That she's been waiting all year for me to ask her that." Lou's face is a ray of sunshine as she stands, brushing grass from her skirt, and hauls me up for the second time, holding me against her. I can hear the thud of her heart, that steady sixty beats a minute; it helps to slow my own. I tighten my arms around Lou, filling my lungs with her perfume, my mouth pressed against her shoulder. Her lips grace my temple, a brief brush. "You seem shocked. Did I blindside you?"

I laugh and pull away from her so I can look her in the eye, those beautiful blue eyes, when I say, "Yeah, you did. But in the best possible way."

Last year, I thought I'd hit rock bottom. I never thought I'd be thankful for losing my job, for being forced out of Austin, but I wouldn't be here if none of that had happened. I'd be living with my friends, working behind a computer forty hours a week, downloading and deleting a new dating app each week. I guess that's the thing about reaching the bottom. The only way is up, and like a tree in the forest, I grew towards Lou's light. And now we're here. Shining together in my favorite place on earth.

I kiss the ring finger of her left hand. Smooth and bare, the only finger that doesn't have a ring. Not yet, anyway. "I can't wait to make you mine."

"Charlie," Lou says, her voice a whisper against the tips of my fingers, her lips brushing my nails. "You don't know the hold you have over my heart. I've been yours, all this time."

A year ago I was giddy at the thought of being her girlfriend. The promise of becoming her wife drives me wild. It seems like a lifetime ago that I thought Lou and I only had two weeks together.

"If it's a year since we met, then it's a year since you promised to teach me how to play the piano in two weeks," I say, "and I still can't."

"Oh, Charlotte." Lou's eyes crinkle with her smile, her fingers in my hair when her hands cup my cheeks. "What's the rush?" She kisses me once, twice, three times. Each one is longer and deeper than the last. "Now we have all the time in the world."

*

and just like that, cruel summer is over

this book has been a total whirwind. it's 110,000 words long and i wrote it in the space of 33 days, and what you've read is an unedited first draft. i'd love your feedback - things you liked, things you didn't like, things that didn't make sense or went unresolved. i've done my best, but like i said, it was a bit of a crazy month of writing!