Chapter 23 – Not This Summer

Pinky Promise

Summer arrived quietly, the way it always did after months of lectures, deadlines, and long nights in the library. The campus slowly emptied as students packed their belongings and scattered back to their hometowns, each of them carrying their own plans for the break ahead.

Theo returned home with a feeling he hadn’t experienced in a long time.

Anticipation.

For months he had carried the decision with him, letting it settle firmly in his mind until it no longer felt uncertain. The hesitation that had haunted him throughout the semester had slowly transformed into resolve. By the time the final exams ended and he boarded the bus home, the plan felt clear in a way it never had before.

This summer, he would finally tell Sofia.

The morning after he arrived, Theo left his house earlier than usual. The neighborhood looked almost exactly the same as it had during the last vacation, quiet streets, familiar houses, the same gentle rhythm of a place that never seemed to change too quickly.

Yet everything felt different to him.

His steps carried a subtle energy as he walked toward Sofia’s house, a lightness that came from finally deciding to stop hiding something he had kept inside for far too long. At the same time, a quiet nervousness sat steadily in his chest, reminding him that some conversations could change the shape of things forever.

Still, he walked forward.

A small spring in his step.

A storm of uncertainty in his heart.

When he reached Sofia’s house, he knocked on the door, already rehearsing the simple greeting he would start with. Nothing dramatic. Nothing overwhelming. Just a normal conversation that would slowly lead to the truth he had waited months to say.

The door opened a moment later.

But instead of Sofia, it was her mother who stood there, looking pleasantly surprised.

“Oh, Theo! You’re back already.”

Theo smiled politely. “Yes, Auntie. I arrived yesterday.”

She nodded warmly and stepped slightly aside as if expecting him to walk in, the way he always did.

“Looking for Sofia?”

Theo’s smile lingered for a second before he answered.

“Yeah, I thought she’d be home already.”

Sofia’s mother blinked once.

“She didn’t tell you?”

Theo felt the first small ripple of confusion.

“Tell me what?”

“She’s not coming home this summer.”

For a brief moment Theo simply stared at her, unsure if he had heard correctly.

“She isn’t?” he repeated.

Her mother shook her head with an apologetic smile. “One of her friends invited her to spend the vacation at their hometown. It was a last-minute thing, apparently. She left not long after the semester ended.”

Theo’s mind struggled to keep pace with the information.

That didn’t match the last conversation he had with Sofia at all. Just a few days before the semester ended, she had casually mentioned the date she would be returning home. He had even hinted, carefully but clearly, that there was something important he wanted to talk about when they saw each other.

She had simply replied that they would talk when summer came.

And now summer had come.

But she wasn’t here.

“Oh,” Theo said quietly.

Her mother seemed to notice the confusion on his face. “Maybe she forgot to mention it. You know how sudden plans can be sometimes.”

Theo nodded automatically.

“Yes… maybe.”

The conversation continued for a few more polite moments, but Theo barely registered most of it. Eventually he excused himself and stepped back outside into the quiet street, the morning sunlight now feeling strangely heavier than it had when he first arrived.

He stood there for a moment before starting the slow walk home.

The excitement he had carried all morning had nowhere to go now.

The words he had spent months preparing suddenly had no place to land.

Meanwhile, several cities away, Sofia’s summer had begun in a completely different way.

Her friend’s hometown was lively and unfamiliar, filled with places she had never seen before and people she had never met. What had started as a spontaneous invitation had quickly turned into an adventure she hadn’t expected when the semester ended.

It was there, during one of the first gatherings organized by her friend’s family, that she met someone new.

His name was Jerome.

He was her friend’s cousin, visiting for the summer as well. Unlike most of the people she had met there, Jerome shared something unexpectedly familiar with her.

He studied at the same university.

Not just the same university.

The same campus.

The discovery surprised both of them enough that the conversation quickly became easy. They compared classes, talked about professors they both knew, and laughed about the strange coincidences that occasionally appeared in university life.

By the end of that evening, Jerome had already begun to feel like someone she could talk to comfortably.

And Sofia, caught up in the sudden energy of a new place and new people, didn’t think too deeply about the small detail she had forgotten to mention before leaving.

Back home, Theo walked through the quiet neighborhood with a calm expression on his face.

But the confession he had carried all semester had just been postponed by something he never saw coming.

And somewhere far away, Sofia was beginning a summer that would introduce someone Theo had never even heard of.

Jerome.

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