He pulled a strand of hair out of my face behind my ear. The warm summer sun shone down on us. We had the secluded lake shore to ourselves. No one was there to interrupt our conversations. We had spent every extra moment we had together here. I was positive we were the only ones who knew of its existence. It never took long to get to it. A drive down a dirt road out on the edge of town. A short walk down a trail we had made. Then there it was, enclosed by a barrier of tall trees, a calm, blue lake wedged in the middle of nowhere.

My eyes lifted to his. His smile touched his eyes. My favorite smile of his. I knew that when this grin lit up his face he was truly smiling, since some of the other times it wasn’t as natural. I leaned into his chest, his arms wrapped around me tightly. I took in the sweet smell of his skin. I could never get enough of these little details. Even just the thought of them would put a smile on my face any day.

I noticed how the sun was getting lower. I should have been thinking on when I should be back, but I hoped my uncle wouldn’t mind. I had stayed with him most of the summer, and I had figured out his rules pretty well by now. I wasn’t sure if we were really on the same page anymore though, since he had caught me sneaking back in the house in the early hours of the morning when I should have been fast asleep in bed. There was only two weeks left before I would be heading back home to the west coast, and he seemed more than ready to be getting rid of me. It wasn’t that I was a problem child or anything, just that I hadn’t been following the rules for the past several weeks. Cayden is what had happened. He was the cause for my late nights and misbehavior. Yes, I was blaming him, but in all honesty, it was true.

And that meant that our time was limited. So no matter what the consequence was, I didn’t mind getting in trouble. As long as the time was spent with him, there really was no consequence.

I regretted thinking about my leaving, and always put the thought it in the back of my mind, making sure not to bring it up. I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to stay in this small, quaint town. It had a charm to it that I adored. Sure it didn’t have the sandy beaches and the warm weather like we had back home, but when coming here I knew I didn’t need any of that. I could be perfectly content sitting here in the rain. The town had grown on me. But my parents still had authority over me and would never even utter the thought of me not coming back home. They weren’t even sure about me spending the summer at my uncle’s. The reason why, I don’t think I’ll ever understand.

The water on the lake was clam. Hardly even a ripple rolled over the glassy top. The muggy heat was beginning to fade for a cool night. A content sigh escaped my lips, yet I could feel the agitation of what is to come within the next couple of weeks.

“Time goes by too fast,” Cayden said quietly, almost to himself.

Sometimes I wondered if he could read my mind.

“Just a short amount of time left, and we’ll be miles and miles apart,” he added.

I wasn’t sure what to say. It hurt in the pit of my stomach to bring it up. I wanted to just wave it away and talk about something else, but now that it was out in the open there was no way getting around it. We had to talk about it sooner or later. I knew that I wasn’t going to be the one to bring it up. I hated this feeling, even though I knew it wouldn’t go away anytime soon.

Cayden kissed the top of my head. “If you want to make this work between us, to stay together, I would be willing to do whatever it takes,” he said softly.

I hadn’t heard him talk that way in a while, to hear the sincerity in his voice. I looked up at him, and saw that the smile was touching his eyes.