The Summer That Wasn't

The Summer That Wasn’t

By Shehzad Ahmad

They say summers are for becoming.
But that year, we were just trying to hold ourselves together.

We had been planning it since February. A group chat called “Four Idiots, One Map” was created purely for this trip. Me, Nabeel, Sara, and Leah. Four university friends caught between final exams and adulthood, gasping for one last breath before real life swallowed us.

It wasn’t extravagant. No flights. No Instagram aesthetics. Just a secondhand tent, Nabeel’s loyal but moody Honda Civic, and a route from Sheffield to the Cornish coast. The plan was to camp near the sea, toast marshmallows under the stars, and argue about 2000s music like our lives depended on it.

We wanted the kind of summer we could write about someday.

But the thing about “somedays” is, they rarely wait for you.


May 22nd: The First Crack

Nabeel messaged: “Guys, my dad’s had a stroke. It’s bad. I’ll keep you posted.”

Just eight words, and suddenly, summer didn’t seem so close anymore. We waited, giving him space. Leah dropped by with food. Sara didn’t say much, but I could see it in her eyes—guilt, helplessness, maybe fear. We all felt it.

By June, it was clear: Nabeel wasn’t going. “He needs full-time care now,” he texted. “Mum can’t handle it alone. Go without me. Please.”

We didn’t want to. But we also didn’t want to let the whole thing fall apart.

Then came blow number two.


June 4th: The Paris Email

Sara got the internship. That internship—the one she’d applied for on a dare, never expecting to hear back. A publishing house in Paris. Dreamy, glamorous, too good to turn down. “They want me to start mid-June,” she whispered, eyes darting between us.

“You should go,” Leah said instantly. I nodded, even though my heart clenched. Nabeel, surprisingly, sent a voice note: “Don’t be stupid. You’re not missing Paris for three rain-soaked weirdos in a tent.”

We laughed at that. But by then, there were only two weirdos left.


June 18th: We Go Anyway

Leah and I sat in the Civic, parked outside my flat. It was drizzling. Not heavy rain—just that annoying British kind that makes everything damp.

“Should we even bother?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Might as well be miserable by the sea.”

So we drove.

Past roundabouts and service stations, through silence and static-filled radio. There were no singalongs. No dumb games. Just two friends stubbornly chasing a version of summer that had already crumbled.

By the time we reached the coast, the sun had dipped behind thick clouds. We pitched the tent on uneven grass and cooked half-burned noodles on a borrowed stove. The wind laughed at us.

We didn’t laugh back.


June 20th: The Wall of Postcards

On our third morning, we stumbled upon a tiny café down a muddy road. No Wi-Fi, no music—just mismatched chairs, the smell of burnt toast, and a wall plastered with postcards from travelers. Some dated back to the '90s. Some were just names and locations. Others carried fragments of heartbreak, joy, hope.

Leah stood there for a long time.

Then she scribbled one of her own and tucked it quietly behind a postcard from Finland. I only read it after she stepped outside for air.

> “To the summer that was supposed to fix us:
Maybe you’re just running late.”



I didn’t ask about it. But that night, she cried in the tent. And this time, I cried too.

Not because of Nabeel’s absence, or Sara’s departure, or even the rain. I cried because it had all slipped away so quietly, like sand through fingers. No dramatic goodbye. No cliffhanger. Just a slow undoing of something we thought was untouchable.


Back Home, Everything Had Changed

The road trip ended early.

We packed up two days ahead of schedule. We didn’t even say it out loud—we just kind of... folded. Like an agreement made in silence. On the drive back, we didn’t talk much. A couple of jokes, a few old stories, and the rest was rain.

Life resumed. Or pretended to.

Sara left for Paris. Her Instagram turned into snapshots of wine glasses, metro stations, and poetry books on café tables. I wanted to hate it. But I couldn’t. She looked like someone chasing herself, and I respected that.

Nabeel stayed mostly offline. I’d get the occasional update—his dad was learning to walk again. His mum was exhausted. He sounded older. Worn.

Leah stopped texting as much. We’d been close—closer than I’d admitted even to myself. But something had changed. Not badly. Just… subtly. Like two people who’d survived a storm but washed up on different shores.


Three Months Later: The Realisation

I was cleaning my room when I found the postcard Leah had written. I had tucked it in my backpack without her knowing.

> “To the summer that was supposed to fix us:
Maybe you’re just running late.”



I sat with it for a long time. Thought about the version of that summer we had imagined. Laughter echoing off cliffs. Bonfires under clear skies. Four friends completely alive.

Then I thought about what we actually got:

Silence in a storm

A crumbling plan

Two people trying to find meaning in the grey


And somehow, I realised: both versions mattered.


Now: The Summer That Was

It didn’t fix us.
It didn’t even feel like it happened properly.

But looking back, I can see it differently now.

I see two friends on a beach, wrapped in hoodies, laughing about nothing.
I see a postcard on a wall, quietly holding space for a future that hasn’t arrived.
I see the kind of heartbreak that doesn’t involve romance—just the ache of life pulling people apart.

And I see growth. Not the glamorous kind. The quiet, raw, human kind.

Sometimes, the best stories aren’t the ones you set out to write. They’re the ones that sneak in when you're mourning the ending you didn’t get.

Two Weeks Ago: A New Chat Appeared

Group name: “Maybe Next Summer”
Members added: Nabeel, Sara, Leah, and me.
First message from Nabeel: “My dad’s walking. Mum’s planning a trip. So… where are we headed next year?”

Sara replied with a photo of a Cornish beach.
Leah sent a sun emoji.
I smiled.

Maybe next summer, we won’t need fixing.
But we’ll go anyway.

And this time, we won’t plan it to be perfect.
We’ll just let it be.