Chapter Twenty-Nine

 

The funeral was exactly that, a funeral. Simple, but beautiful. The birds had sung the whole service. Elizabeth had been reluctant to go, later she confessed to Simon why. At night he had been staying at the manner to help out, it was that night that Elizabeth had asked him to stay and talk to her. She told him that it was her fault. No matter how many ways he tried to change her mind, it was unchangeable.

There had been so much distance that Summer didn’t want to leave for college, but it seemed everyone in the town had stepped in her way to make sure she couldn’t find a way to stay behind to be with Elizabeth. There seemed to always be someone coming or going. They kept asking Summer to do the town proud. Simon had been the most helpful, helping her pack now that Cassandra had left. Simon even helped take all her things to the dorm suite.

The whole place felt strange. The dorm room was empty and shew as the first to arrive. The view from the window was pretty even for a ground floor. There seemed to be something faintly magical about the place again with the hustle and bustle. It distracted her for a moment.

With everything inside Simon said his goodbyes and rushed back to the Diner, or to see Elizabeth as Summer suspected, she smiled at the thought. It was time to start unpacking. Hooking up the speakers in her usual playlist she hit the shuffle and let it go.

Summer ignored the sound of the door closing, on a roll with her unpacking for the moment. A face appeared at her bedroom door.

“Cassandra?! What are you doing in here?”

“Isn’t it great? I’m your dorm mate,” she smiled widely, “I made a special request, and well here we are.”

“Oh, wow, yeah that is, sure, that is something. But why is Jamie in the living room?”

“Oh haven’t you heard? We are, well, we are together. I hope it’s not weird, it kind of just happened. But here we are the three musketeers.”

Summer nodded and said hello to Jamie before turning back to her own unpacking.

A while later she made her way into the living room where Cassandra had left a few boxes, Jamie had disappeared to sort his own dorm. Moving the sofa with Cassandra was a bit of hassle to get to a point of agreement but it got done.

Eventually Summer had some alone time to call Elizabeth. Elizabeth told her not to worry, Simon was going to keep her company and watch some bad rom-coms with her apparently he was determined to see her smile. Summer was genuinely glad.

After a bit of awkward conversation Elizabeth finally said the thing that had been on her mind. “I miss you, I wish you were here, tomorrow morning I have to go to a meeting, with Caroline’s attorney. Apparently she has left me something in her will.”

Summer offered to come back but Elizabeth insisted she stayed at the dorms tonight. She would be fine, she promised, repeatedly.

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