Since that wine night at her friend's house, Emi had started including Bonnie in most of her routines. Sometimes she'd ask if Bonnie wanted to walk with her to the laundromat. Other times, it was a grocery run. And every now and then, she'd wake Bonnie up in the early morning to see if she wanted to go to the beach with her. One morning, Emi even asked why Bonnie chose to lie on the sunbed so far away instead of sharing the mat beside her.

Bonnie said yes to all of it, not because she necessarily liked being around Emi, but because she wanted this summer to leave her with something worth remembering. And with only four weeks left, the end felt too close, like life was starting to rush at her all at once.

"I need new cassettes," Emi said one afternoon, her voice drifting out as she rinsed the lunch dishes at the sink. Bonnie was still at the dining table, her gaze quietly following the slow fall of dahlia petals in the vase. "Wanna go?" Emi added, like an afterthought, or maybe not.

Emi always had this way of asking Bonnie to go somewhere, casually, almost like she was speaking to the wind or the sun or the day itself, never quite directly to Bonnie. Not that it bothered her. In fact, she liked it more that way. It felt like something that happened just for her, and maybe even because of her. So Bonnie treated it like a quiet ritual, one that belonged only to her.

The cassette shop wasn't far. A short walk down the hill, past a bookstore with postcards fluttering on a string and a corner café where the barista always wore mismatched socks. They didn't talk much on the way. Emi carried a canvas tote slung over one shoulder, and Bonnie walked just behind her, hands tucked into the pockets of her denim shorts, the sea breeze pulling at the hem of her shirt.

The shop smelled faintly of paper and dust and something woodsy, like an old drawer that hadn't been opened in a while. There were rows of cassettes, stacked unevenly, some with faded lettering or handwritten tracklists in languages Bonnie couldn't read. Emi drifted toward the back like she always knew exactly what she was looking for, and Bonnie trailed her with no real purpose, letting her fingers skim the shelves.

A soft hum of music played from a corner speaker, something mellow and sad, though Bonnie couldn't catch the words.

"You like that one?" Emi asked without turning, her voice low.

Bonnie didn't answer right away. She wasn't sure if Emi was actually talking to her. The question hung there like a dust mote caught in a beam of light. Eventually, she nodded. "It's nice."

Emi picked up a tape with a cracked case and flipped it over. "This one's got a song I used to play when it rained."

Bonnie's lips parted, but the question she wanted to ask, used to, for who? never made it out. She just watched Emi, the way she always seemed half-elsewhere, like part of her still lived in those rainy afternoons long before Bonnie ever showed up.

Emi turned to her, finally, holding the tape out. "Wanna split it?"

Bonnie blinked. "Split a cassette?"

"You take one side. I'll take the other. We pick our favorite songs, and swap when summer's over."

Something about that made Bonnie's chest feel a little too full. She nodded again. "Okay."

Outside, the sky had turned overcast, the kind that smelled like thunder hours before it arrived. Emi didn't mention it, but she walked slower, close enough that their shoulders brushed now and then. When they got home, Bonnie excused herself to her room, said she was going to shower, though she didn't.

She just lay there on her bed, the cassette resting on her chest, thinking about how people sometimes leave little parts of themselves in the things they hand you, an old song, a shared walk, a mat left waiting on the sand.

And how maybe, if she held on just right, summer might not leave too fast after all.

That evening, they didn't go anywhere.

Emi spent most of it in the kitchen, quietly sorting through the fridge like she had a plan. Bonnie sat nearby, not offering to help, not sure if she should. The soft hum of the fan filled the space between them, blades spinning lazy circles overhead.

"Do you want something light or something warm?" Emi asked, not looking up from the stove.

Bonnie tilted her head. "What's something light and warm?"

Emi thought for a second. "Soup, I guess."

Bonnie shrugged. "Soup's fine."

It was the kind of answer that sounded indifferent, but Emi didn't seem to mind. She moved around like she knew exactly where everything was, even though she didn't live here. Maybe she did once. Or maybe she just made every space feel like it belonged to her after a while.

Bonnie watched her cut spring onions with slow, deliberate movements. The quiet was full, not empty. Not awkward.

"Did you always cook?" Bonnie asked softly.

"Not always," Emi said. "But sometimes it helps."

"Helps with what?"

Emi didn't answer right away. Then: "Things that don't have names."

That made Bonnie look away, because somehow she understood.

They ate in the backyard, with the porch light off and only the faint orange spill from the kitchen window behind them. Emi poured warm broth into two ceramic bowls and handed Bonnie hers with both hands. Their fingers didn't touch. Not quite.

The air smelled like wet leaves and basil.

Bonnie didn't say much during dinner, just listened to the way the night wrapped itself around the house. Across the fence, someone's wind chime stirred now and then, like it was remembering a song.

Afterward, Emi lingered by the table while Bonnie brought the dishes inside. No music. No talking. Just the clinking of ceramic and the sound of leaves.

Later, when Bonnie went to bed, she found a folded note tucked under her pillow.

"I'll be gone tomorrow morning. Don't wait for me. The soup recipe are in the drawer."

Bonnie stared at the note longer than she meant to. She didn't know where Emi was going, or for how long. Just that it made her feel something small and tight in her chest. Something that didn't have a name either.

.

The house felt different without footsteps. It wasn't that Emi made much noise; she moved like water, barely noticeable, but her absence was louder than her presence had ever been. When Bonnie woke, the sunlight had already spilled into the kitchen, warm and careless, like it didn't know anything had changed.

The note was still where she left it, on the nightstand now. Folded once, no crease, as if Emi had done it in a hurry, or maybe with too much care.

Bonnie ran her thumb along the edge.

She didn't eat breakfast. She just poured water into a glass and stood by the sink, sipping slowly. From the window, she could see the small patch of garden where the daisies had started to wilt again. Emi used to trim them in the mornings, scissors in one hand.

There was a stillness in the house that morning. Not a peaceful one, but the kind that felt borrowed, like something was waiting to be returned.

Bonnie opened the drawer. The recipe was there, scribbled on a sticky note in that same soft handwriting. There were small smudges near the bottom where the ink had bled, maybe from wet hands, maybe from something else. She didn't plan to cook. But she read the note anyway. Then she sat down at the table and did nothing for a long time.

Across from her, Emi's chair remained pushed slightly out, like she'd left in the middle of something. Bonnie almost reached to straighten it, but stopped halfway.

Outside, a bird chirped once. Distant, indifferent. Bonnie stood. She wandered through the house slowly, like it wasn't hers. Emi's slippers were still by the back door. The dish towel she liked was crumpled on the counter. The cassette tape they bought yesterday sat on top of the record player, untouched.

Bonnie pressed play. A soft hum crackled through the speaker, followed by a low, steady guitar. She didn't recognize the song, but it sounded like something Emi would choose, mellow, a little sad, like it was meant to fill the space between words no one ever said.

The song kept playing. Bonnie didn't move. She just stood there, letting it wash over her, one verse at a time. And for the first time that morning, she let herself admit it: she missed Emi.

.

The front gate creaked sometime after four. Bonnie had stopped checking the time by then. The day had moved slowly, like it was made of glass, fragile in the wrong places, stretching too far in others. She sat at the kitchen table, her thumb mindlessly tracing the rim of an empty glass, when she heard the rustle of steps on gravel.

Then the door opened. Emi stepped in like she hadn't been gone for hours. She was still in the clothes from this morning, a loose white shirt, sleeves pushed up, one sandal slightly crooked. Wind-tousled, sun-warmed, and strangely unreadable.

But her eyes softened when they met Bonnie's. She didn't speak right away. Just walked in, placed a small paper bag on the table, and stood there for a second too long.

"I found something," Emi added, motioning to the bag. Bonnie opened it slowly. Inside was a book, thin, slightly faded, pale green cover. The title was familiar in the way a song is when you haven't heard it in years but still know every note. She lifted it carefully, already breathless.

It was the one.

The book she had talked about in passing. Once. A collection of translated poems she used to flip through in a library back home. She didn't even remember saying the title out loud.

"I thought it was out of print," she whispered.

"It is," Emi said. "I got lucky."

Bonnie blinked. The pages smelled of dust and pressed paper. She stared at the worn spine, the initials of a stranger scribbled inside the front cover. "You went out just for this?"

Emi shrugged, but the gesture was small. Honest. "You mentioned it once. And I thought of it as a present for you, since you had to put up with me your whole summer."

Something caught in Bonnie's throat. Not tears. Not words. Just... something unnameable. She sat with the book open in her lap, staring at a line she used to love and forgot she did. The silence that followed wasn't awkward, but Bonnie could feel it vibrating gently, like the space between heartbeats.

Emi leaned against the counter, her arms folded, watching the sky through the window. Bonnie looked up at her. "I didn't think you would remember it."

"So I might have made your heart miss a beat, right?" Bonnie blinked. Sometimes, Emi struck when Bonnie least expected it.

The porch grew darker as the hours slipped by. Neither of them moved much, except for the occasional shift of legs or the light clink of Bonnie's cup when she picked it up again and again, forgetting it was already empty. Eventually, Emi leaned back against the wall, her head tipped toward the open sky, eyelids heavy.

Bonnie glanced over. "Emi," she said softly, just to check.

No response. Not quite asleep, but not entirely present either. Her arms were folded now, her legs stretched out, one foot brushing lightly against the porch rail. The kind of posture you fall into only when you've stopped thinking. Bonnie watched her for a few seconds longer than she meant to.

Then she stood quietly. She stepped back inside and returned with the blanket from the arm of the couch, light, soft, the one Emi always reached for on rainy afternoons. She hesitated on the porch, her fingers fidgeting slightly with the edge.

And then she draped it over Emi's shoulders, careful not to wake her. Emi didn't stir, but something in her expression softened. Her shoulders eased, just barely, and her face turned slightly toward the warmth. Bonnie stood there a moment longer, arms crossed over herself now, not cold, just uncertain what to do next.

The light from inside cast a soft glow behind her. Emi's hair caught it at the tips, still a little damp. The blanket shifted with her breath. Bonnie could have gone to bed. Could have turned away. But instead, she sat back down, just a little closer than before. Not touching, not speaking. Just... keeping the night.

The crickets carried on. A dog barked somewhere far off. And the quiet wrapped around them like another blanket neither of them named.

When Emi whispered, barely audible, "Thanks," it was hard to tell whether she meant the blanket or something else. Bonnie didn't ask.

She just replied, just as softly, "Good night." And for once, Emi didn't try to say anything clever back. She only closed her eyes and smiled.

.

It was late afternoon when Bonnie found Emi in the backyard, crouched barefoot in the garden bed. The hem of her shirt was stained with soil, hair tied up with the kind of loose knot that always fell apart by sunset. She didn't look up when Bonnie stepped out, just kept pressing her fingers into the earth like it was something that had asked her to stay.

Bonnie leaned against the doorframe for a minute, watching. "You're not going to talk to them again?" she asked softly.

Emi glanced over her shoulder, squinting against the light. "Maybe they've had enough of my voice for now."

Bonnie stepped down onto the grass, hesitating a moment before crouching beside her. The air smelled of rosemary and crushed leaves. Emi handed her a small trowel wordlessly.

"I don't know what I'm doing," Bonnie admitted, brushing her hair behind one ear.

Emi only nodded toward the seedling trays near her feet. "They don't either. That's why we help. And so, I'm helping you as well."

Bonnie smiled faintly, not sure what she was supposed to do next, but Emi had already reached forward, guiding her wrist gently toward the soft trench in the soil.

"Here," Emi said. "Press with your thumb. Just enough for the root to rest in."

Her fingers lingered just slightly too long on Bonnie's skin before she let go. They worked in silence for a while. The kind of quiet that wasn't hollow, just slow-moving and full. From time to time, Emi pointed at something, how to pat the dirt down lightly, how to leave space between the stems. Her voice was calm, nearly a whisper.

"You always sound like you're trying not to wake something," Bonnie said, not looking at her.

The sun had lowered past the fence by the time they planted the last one. Bonnie sat back on her heels, wiping her cheek with the back of her hand, smudging dirt across her skin without realizing. Emi noticed. She pulled her gloves out before reaching for Bonnie's cheeks. She didn't say anything, just her thumb to brush the streak away, slow and soft. The touch was brief and full of care.

"Thanks," she murmured.

Bonnie watched her go rinse her hands at the spigot, water catching the edge of her jaw in slanted gold. And for a second, Bonnie wanted to follow, to stand beside her and say something, anything, but instead she stayed, palms resting on the soil Emi had taught her to tend. She looked down at the little green rows. It would take time. And maybe something would bloom.

.

The house was quiet after dinner. A breeze slipped through the open windows, carrying the faint scent of soil and rosemary. Bonnie had gone back to her room with a book Emi had lent her earlier that week, something with worn corners and delicate underlines in pencil. She was halfway through a paragraph when a soft knock tapped against her doorframe.

Emi stood there barefoot, holding something in her fingers. She didn't come in, just leaned lightly against the edge of the door, hair still damp from her shower, skin flushed warm from the sun and something else.

Bonnie sat up slightly. "What is it?"

Emi stepped closer and held it out, a small, dried sprig of something green, pressed between two pieces of wax paper and stitched around the edge with thin red thread. It was delicate. Handmade. Quiet.

"I found this last week behind the fence," Emi said. "Didn't know what to do with it, but... I thought maybe it could keep your page."

Bonnie reached out, taking it gently between her fingers. Her thumb brushed the tiny stitching, uneven, but careful.

"I thought you'd like it." Emi was already stepping back.

Bonnie looked up before she disappeared. "Emi?" Bonnie hesitated. "Did you press it yourself?"

A small shrug. "I watched a video."

Bonnie smiled to herself, eyes dropping to the leaf again. "Thank you." Three weeks stood between them and the end of that summer.