2025-09-28 05:36:56
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AUTHOR’S REFLECTION.
REFLECTION ON “THINGS WE LOST IN SUMMER”. When I first stepped into Noah’s story in The Things We Lost in Summer, I didn’t expect it to follow me the way it did. It is one of those novels that doesn’t just tell a story but leaves you carrying the echoes of its characters, its landscapes, and its heavy silences long after you’ve closed the final page. What struck me most wasn’t only the mystery of Elia’s disappearance or Noah’s violent reckoning with Casey and the men who destroyed his childhood it was the way grief, memory, and truth wove themselves into every corner of the narrative. At its heart, this is a novel about return, a man coming back to the small town he once fled, forced to face the ghosts of a summer that never truly ended. The box in the attic, the old photographs, the map, and the cassette tape all of these are physical objects, yes, but they are also metaphors for what Noah has been carrying inside himself. Every step on that map is another excavation of memory, a
CHAPTER 11 -THE HEAVY TRUTH.
Fog draped the lake like a shroud. Water slopped against the wooden pilings, pulling at Casey’s drifting body. The red in the water mixed with silver, a bleeding reflection of the sky. Bill and Danner were gone Bill’s form vanished into the trees, Danner limping, cursing, retreating into the shadows. Noah stood alone on the dock. Crowbar dangling loosely in his hands, blood dried and crusted on his skin, his sleeve torn. Heart pounding, ribs screaming from the fights. He had survived. Barely. Elia’s voice whispered in his skull. Don’t let them bury me. He bent, grabbed the crowbar, and turned back to the boathouse. The crates waited, stacked like monuments of greed. Luxport stamped on each one, black and unyielding, accusing. Noah pried one open. White dust rose, chemical, bitter, bitter like betrayal itself. Enough to drown the town in evidence. Enough to burn the shadows hiding in every corner. He shoved the tape into the old player. Elia’s voice, warped by time, filled th
CHAPTER 10 - THE STORM.
Bodies crash. The dock rattles. Water splashes up like hands grabbing at ankles. Casey’s fist smashes Noah’s jaw. Stars explode in his skull. But Noah doesn’t drop. He grips Casey’s shirt, yanks him forward, and headbutts him hard. Skull to skull. Both reel back, blood dripping down brows, mixing on the planks. Casey snarls, spitting red. “You’re weak. Always were.” Noah laughs, a cracked sound. Broken teeth, broken ribs, but laugh anyway. “Then why are you bleeding?” Casey growls, charges again. They tumble, rolling, fists wild. Every punch is past, every hit is memory. Noah tastes childhood summers in the swing of his arm. He tastes the attic dust, the tape crackle, her voice. Every blow says her name. Elia. Casey grabs Noah’s throat, squeezes. Tight. The world shrinks, black pressing in. Noah claws at the grip. Casey’s eyes were wide, feral, veins bulging. “Say her name again,” he hisses, “and I’ll snap you like your old man should’ve.” And that’s the spark. Old
CHAPTER 9 -THE RECKONING( continued ).
Bodies crash. The dock rattles. Water splashes up like hands grabbing at ankles. Casey’s fist smashes Noah’s jaw. Stars explode in his skull. But Noah doesn’t drop. He grips Casey’s shirt, yanks him forward, and headbutts him hard. Skull to skull. Both reel back, blood dripping down brows, mixing on the planks. Casey snarls, spitting red. “You’re weak. Always were.” Noah laughs, a cracked sound. Broken teeth, broken ribs, but laugh anyway. “Then why are you bleeding?” Casey growls, charges again. They tumble, rolling, fists wild. Every punch is past, every hit is memory. Noah tastes childhood summers in the swing of his arm. He tastes the attic dust, the tape crackle, her voice. Every blow says her name. Elia. Casey grabs Noah’s throat, squeezes. Tight. The world shrinks, black pressing in. Noah claws at the grip. Casey’s eyes were wide, feral, veins bulging. “Say her name again,” he hisses, “and I’ll snap you like your old man should’ve.” And that’s the spark. Old
CHAPTER 8 - BLOOD ON THE WATER.
Fog is heavy on the lake. Air cold and wet like breath from something sleeping beneath. Noah stood on the dock, crowbar slick with his blood, sleeve sticking to skin.He thought Casey was gone. Thought the fight in the boathouse had been it. But the woods never emptied. Shadows followed. Always.Now the dock creaked. More boots. Not just Casey. More.Three of them are stepping out of the mist. Casey in front, face half-shaded under that cap. Behind him, Bill and Danner, both older, both bigger, both with that look in their eyes the kind that had watched too many bad things and kept quiet.Casey smiled. Thin. Cruel.“Told you it wasn’t over.”Noah didn’t answer. Couldn’t. His throat was raw from shouting, his chest raw from running.Bill flicked a cigarette to the planks. “Boy don’t even look scared.”“Scared?” Casey said. He tilted his head, mock gentle. “He’s broken. Look at him. Been chasing ghosts too long.”Elia’s voice whispered in Noah’s head: Don’t let them bury me.His grip t
CHAPTER 7- SHADOWS IN THE PINE.
Morning cracked pale. Light spilled thin over the trees, stretched and unsure, like even the sun didn’t want to wake this place.Noah walked fast. Map in pocket scratching like claws. Didn’t look back at the house, couldn't. The windows behind him felt alive, glassy eyes that kept watch even after death.He pushed deeper into the woods. Toward the lake. Toward the boathouse. Toward truth.The trail wasn’t how he remembered. Thicker, darker. Brambles grabbed his sleeves. Roots waiting to trip. But his body knew it anyway. Muscle memory. Feet carrying him on the same steps he and Elia had once flown down laughing, racing, shouting, daring.Back then it had been freedom. A summer trail.Now it was a warning. Every branch creaks, every crow calls, every breath of wind whispers, " Don’t go further”.But he did, a crack behind him sharp and close.He whipped around. Pines swaying. A squirrel is darting up a tree but his skin prickles, every hair alive. He wasn’t alone.Casey!! Had to b
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