Summer. When the days get longer, the stars shine brighter, skins get darker, the water gets warmer, the music gets louder, and life gets better. Cobie agreed and witnessed how true the quote was except for the last beat. Until today.

After being forced to deal with the darkest parts of her life in the past few weeks, she is now starting to see life on the other side; the side she'd shut off for almost a decade. Sitting at Ebirra's terrace with an iced coffee in hand, she's ready to get rid of the barrier that has been preventing her from moving forward.

Once the man is plopping down in front of her, she smiles at him. "Thank you for agreeing to meet me here, Peter."

Peter shrugs, resting his hands on the table, his eyes dull and the signature smirk on his lip gone. The evidence from the basement fight a month ago has left no trace, yet, something about him has changed. "You know I would do what you asked me for, Cobie."

Pushing all the crude remarks to the back of her mind, Cobie nods. "I appreciate that. You should order something for yourself, but it won't take too long, though. I know you still need to pack up for your flight tomorrow."

"It's okay. I'm good for now."

"Okay." Cobie plays with her straw, mindlessly stirring her beverage. "How's work? I can't believe it has been over a month since you started."

"It's alright. Not that great but I can live with it. I need the money," he replies. "And what about you? You look great by the way."

"Thank you. I'm doing..." Cobie is trying to find the correct word for that. Great? Good? Okay? "Better. Mom is in residential care now. So, it's just me and Rose, and soon, she will start her full-time job. Everything falls into place. Yeah."

"That's great to hear."

"And I'm seeing a therapist."

"Oh." Peter seems a bit off guard from her last line. "Cool."

"Well, my first appointment will be next month, and it's the very reason why I ask you to meet me here." Cobie clears her throat. "I've some questions to ask, and I would love to hear the answers directly from you, not from the lines you type on the chatbox."

Peter swallows and his Adam's apple bobs. "Okay. Shoot."

Cobie sits back, unconsciously taking her distance from him. She rests her hands on her lap, palms down. "Did you ever love me?"

"I...guess so." Peter frowns as he stares at her glass. "I was kinda infatuated with you before everything went downhill."

"Infatuation is not love," she replies. "But you did like me back then when you asked me out, right?"

"Of course. I liked you a lot. You were so...different."

Cobie nods. "What happened after that? Did I bore you after the infatuation wore off?"

"Cobie..."

"It's alright, Peter. It won't hurt me anymore. I just need answers."

Shifting in his seat, Peter runs his fingers through his dark hair. "Sort of. But that's also what I felt with every other girl. Once I got them in my bed, the excitement was over."

"I thought I was not like the other girls."

"You were, trust me, but I was the Bratty Peter, remember? I couldn't stop with one girl or it would taint my reputation."

"You stopped with the girl you left me for."

"I..." He sighs, the growing discomfort showing on his face. "Things were different with her. It was just way more intense and crazy."

"Because you loved her," Cobie concludes, but Peter refuses to confirm it. "You were so sure that I made up a story when I told you I was carrying your baby. Or were you just afraid it would ruin your relationship with her if you accepted the news?"

Peter drops his head and rests his forehead on his hand. "I'm sorry, Cobie."

"Why didn't you at least check whether or not the pregnancy was real before letting your girlfriend humiliate me like that?"

He stays in the same position for thirty seconds until she can hear his subtle sniffles. "I'm so, so sorry, Koko." That's all he can say between his muffled sobs.

"It was because you were afraid of losing her then," she says, answered by him bobbing his head, still unable to muster any words while his hands covering his face.

No matter how much time she took to prepare herself for this talk, his confirmation still hits her like a truck. The torment of being rejected, humiliated, and treated like trash when she needed him the most rushes back to her as if it only happened yesterday.

A tear falls down her cheek, followed by another. "You have no idea how much you hurt me, Peter. You hurt me tremendously that you left marks I wasn't capable of getting rid of alone. I couldn't move on, I couldn't trust anyone, I couldn't let people in. I've been dysfunctional for almost a decade now." Cobie wipes her tears with the back of his palm. "And I need to end this."

Peter lifts his head and slowly looks up at her, his eyes bleary and starting to turn red. "Tell me how I can help you get yourself back. I will do anything. I swear I will."

Cobie smiles between her tears, or at least, she attempts to. "This is all that you can do for me, Peter, by sitting here and listening to what I'm about to say."

"Okay."

"I've been blaming you for all these years, Peter. I believed that you had smashed the most important thing in my life which was impossible to restore." Cobie grabs a tissue in front of her and blows her nose. "But then I realized that it actually could be restored, but I just didn't want to see it. Because hiding behind my layers of resentment was easier than tearing them down and dealing with my pain. But I'm done fighting them; I'm done denying them.

"I still hate you right now, with every fiber of my body, but I will learn to forgive you one day. But first, I need to learn to forgive myself."

Peter doesn't move on his spot, staring blankly at the table with his bloodshot eyes. "I hope you find it in you that you can really forgive me one day, Cobie."

"I hope so, too." Cobie picks up her bag and pulls a banknote out of its compartment. "That was all I wanted to say. Do you have anything you want to say to me?"

When Peter shakes his head in defeat, Cobie slips the money under her untouched iced-coffee glass and stands up. "Have a good life, Peter."

With that, she turns around and makes her way to the cafe entrance, feeling the heaviness on her chest gradually being lifted yet the lightheaded hits her. It feels strange but she knows something is shifted inside her.

She never knew that acknowledging her feelings and saying them out loud would affect her a great deal. She always believed confessing her feelings to someone meant she admitted defeat. Because once the words were out, she allowed the person to have power over her, power to hurt her. She has done it once, and as a result, it broke her into a million pieces. But here she is, feeling glad that she just told Peter about her bottled-up emotions toward him.

Because the confession set her free.

The summer breeze caresses her face as Cobie saunters on the gravel path that leads to the sidewalk. There are no signs that rain will fall today but the sun has been shy, hiding behind the fluffy white clouds. Crossing her arms and pressing them harder against her chest, she strides toward the blue car that sits a hundred meters ahead. When the driver's door is pushed open, a man jumps out of the car and looks in her direction; the man who has been too stubborn to leave her despite her being a complete mess.

She walks faster toward him, her feet are nearly flying until she throws herself at him. She just needs to be held right now.

Luke wraps his hands around her torso, securing her in his embrace without saying any words. She can feel his chin rest on the top of her hair as he tightens his grip, pressing her head against his chest. In the next minutes, Luke's heartbeat is the only thing she hears. Steady and dependable, assuring her that she's one of the reasons it's pulsing right now.

Cobie pulls away slightly and looks up at him. "Thank you for being here for me."

"You know I will be following you everywhere like a sick puppy at this point," he replies, his eyes studying her face. "Are you okay?"

She nods. "I feel a bit dizzy, but I'm okay. The talk went well; better than I expected." The tears form in the corners of her eyes, and she quickly wipes them before they fall. "But I don't know why I'm crying now."

"Too many emotions at once. That's why. But I believe it's a good thing." Luke moves her hands away and replaces them with his. Gently, he cups her face, and his thumbs caress her cheeks before he leans down to kiss her eyelids. "You did great, Cobie. It took some determination to do what you did. You're a brave girl."

"I don't know what I would do without you," she murmurs after the burst of emotions begins to die down.

"You always know what you have to do, with or without me. You need to see that and have faith in yourself." Luke smiles, almost smirking. "But I definitely don't mind being here, offering you hugs and comfort. So, it's a win-win."

Cobie chuckles. "What happens with 'we started things from the wrong point'?"

"I did say that," Luke replies, nodding, "more than a month ago."

"So?"

"It's time to restart it, of course, from the correct point this time."

"And where is the correct point?"

"It's right here, right now." Luke leans to give her a peck on the forehead before letting her go, causing a disappointed growl inside her belly. "Get in the car, let's go somewhere we can take a walk and get to know each other."

"On one condition," she says, "I want another iced coffee. I didn't get to drink mine but I spent a freaking ten bucks on it."

"Deal."

"What was your worst nightmare when you were a child?" Cobie asks as she jumps off a big rock on the edge of the river and lets Luke catch her. After they drove around a bit and had her luscious iced coffee with extra whipped cream and cocoa powder, Luke brought her to have a walk in the woods on the city outskirts.

"Waking up and no food in the fridge or the kitchen cupboard."

Cobie giggles, following his lead while their fingers interlace. "Did it ever happen?"

"No. But my dad often warned me and my sister that it would happen if we kept breaking the rules around the house. In my defense, she was way more rebellious than I was by nature."

Her head snaps at him. "You have a sister."

"I did," he replies, sighing. "We lost her to cancer."

Cobie tightens her grip on Luke's hand. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay. It happened a long time ago." Luke pauses for a bit. "We were still quite young when she died, and it hit me harder than I could admit. And I became that rebellious boy in high school." Luke's thumb caresses her knuckles. "Because I wanted to numb the feeling of grief."

"Sounds like we have something in common now. We had tough teenage years."

"In a way, yes, but we fought different battles."

"Everyone does, I guess."

"True." Luke glances at her and nods. "When I met my ex, she could suppress my rage and pain under the surface. The next thing I knew, I was addicted to her, finding my comfort in her to the point of an unhealthy state of emotion. I was dependent on her. Until the day she's had enough and dumped me for another man. It broke me."

"Oh."

"You see, this is why I was having cold feet when my rational mind kicked in after I kissed you that night. I didn't want us to make the same mistake." Luke halts, pulling Cobie to him. He brushes her stray hair away from her cheek. "I want you to not make the same mistake as I did, Cobie. I like you very, very much. Hell, you're legit driving me crazy now, but it's even more reason for us to do this right. We need both our feet to function, not only yours or mine, then we know we can walk together, hand in hand."

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