✨ Flicker Series #2: The Summer They Let Us In (1,360 words)
Dreams. Division. Daring to walk away on your own terms. In this week's Flicker Series, a summer boardwalk holds more than just magic for a girl trying to find her place.
Welcome back to the Flicker Series—tiny stories built from stubborn creativity, random sparks, and a little bit of magic.
This week’s genre is Historical Fiction, and the emojis we spun for inspiration were: 👙 🎈 🥥.
The result? A bittersweet story about dreams, division, and daring to walk away on your own terms.
Thank you for reading. Here's The Summer They Let Us In.
The boardwalk glittered under the brutal summer sun, a wavering mirage of gold and promises.
Florence adjusted the borrowed dress clinging damp to her skin, feeling the pinch of her mother’s old bathing suit underneath. Too small across the chest, too loose at the hips, just enough to pass if no one looked too closely.
"One day," she whispered to herself. "One day this'll be mine."
The air tasted of salt and frying dough and coconut sweets roasting in the heat. She wove between shouting vendors and glittering lights, her heart pounding not from fear, but from the electric thrill of possibility.
This part of Coney Island wasn’t built for girls like her. It was built for the ones who wore satin shoes to the sand, who had milk delivered to summer houses with gingerbread trim.
Florence was a laundress’s daughter from Neptune Avenue, a face the boardwalk only wanted in the kitchens or behind the game booths.
But today, she wasn’t anyone’s help.
Today, she was anyone she wanted to be.
He found her near the coconut shy.
Florence hovered, hands clutched behind her back, watching the others line up with easy laughter and thick silver coins pressed between their fingers. The game looked simple enough: knock down a coconut with a heavy wooden ball, win a prize. But each throw cost more than she had in her pocket.
She imagined the thunk of the ball in her palm, the satisfying crack of a coconut toppling to the sawdust-covered floor. Winning. Being cheered for.
Instead, she stayed back, shifting on the balls of her feet, pretending she was just watching. Pretending she wasn't aching to try.
That's when he appeared, all sun-browned skin and sand-colored hair, moving through the crowd like he owned it.
"Looks like you need some luck," the boy said, grinning as he handed over a balloon from the nearby vendor—a shock of red against the boiling sky.
Florence startled, blinking up at him. Linen shirt open at the throat, hair tousled, skin burnished gold. He looked like he belonged here. She tightened her grip on the balloon string, feeling its soft tug, the weightlessness of it.
"I've got plenty of luck," she said, chin lifting.
He laughed, easy and warm. "In that case, allow me to add a little more," he said, tossing a coin to the vendor behind the coconut shy.
"You throw first," he said, stepping back with a theatrical bow.
Florence laughed, nerves fizzing under her skin. She tossed—and missed by a mile.
"Terrible luck," he teased. "Try again."
Another coin flashed in his hand. Another toss. Another miss.
The balloon bumped against her wrist as if mocking her, but she couldn’t help laughing along with him. It wasn’t mean laughter. It was... easy. Bright. The kind of laughing you did when you forgot, for a second, how small you felt in a place like this.
"You're rigging it," she accused, breathless.
"Obviously," he said, deadpan. "It's part of the charm."
He bought two paper cones of coconut candy, handing her one with a mock solemnity.
"A prize for bravery," he said.
She accepted it, grinning despite herself, feeling the syrupy stickiness glue her fingers together as she bit into the too-sweet treat.
For a little while, it was easy to forget. Easy to imagine she really did belong here—bright and laughing under a sky strung with carnival lights.
They walked the boardwalk together, his hand brushing hers more than once. The balloon bobbed gently with each step, a bright, fragile thing tethered to her wrist.
Florence let herself smile. Maybe—just maybe—she was finally inside the dream.
"You don't belong here, do you?"
His voice was light, teasing, but there was something sharper underneath it. Florence stiffened, candy halfway to her mouth.
"How can you tell?" she asked, trying for breezy but hearing the nervous tremor in her own voice.
He smiled—not unkindly. "You stare at the coins I give the vendors like you've never seen one before. You drool at the sight of a sweet treat. You eat like you don't know when you'll have another."
Heat crept up the back of her neck. Florence looked down at the sticky mess on her hands, the half-eaten candy.
"My mother is a laundress," she said finally. "My father... a veteran. He still limps when it rains."
For a moment, she braced for laughter. Pity. Worse.
But Julian just shrugged, as if it meant nothing at all.
"Everyone's chasing something out here," he said, glancing out toward the glittering rides and the churning sea beyond. "Money just lets you chase a little faster, that's all."
Florence exhaled slowly. Something inside her eased.
Maybe he wasn’t like the others after all.
It didn’t shatter so much as it slipped, slick and casual, out from under her.
She was testing her aim at a ring toss when she heard it.
"Where’d you find her, Jules?" The voice behind her drawled, lazy with amusement.
Florence’s stomach knotted. She turned just in time to see Julian smirk at his friends.
"Picked her up by the penny games," he said. "Thought I'd see what it’s like to slum it."
The others laughed—sharp, ugly.
Heat rose to her cheeks. Her borrowed dress itched. The suit underneath felt suddenly, unbearably tight, like it was strangling her.
She stared at Julian, willing him to look back, to shake his head, to say something that would undo the sour turn of her stomach.
He was already laughing, already turning away, walking away. But just before he rounded the corner, his head turned—and his eyes found her. And in them was a fading light, a knowing that she will never be what he was. She will never have what he has. She will never live, like he lives.
Florence looked down at the balloon, the string still wound neatly around her wrist like a leash.
For one terrible, clear moment, she saw herself the way they saw her: a story to tell later, a joke over ice cream and sodas, a souvenir from the "rougher" side of town. The Working Girl.
She didn't cry. Not yet.
Florence slipped away, weaving through the crowd with numb feet. The games, the rides, the music—they all blurred together into one long, aching noise.
She ducked behind a shuttered popcorn stand, pressing her back to the warm wood, trying to steady the wild flutter of her heart.
"What did you think would happen?" The voice in her head wasn’t cruel. Just tired.
She looked down at the coconut candy in her hand, half-melted and sticky, the balloon floating idiotically at her side.
For a dizzy second, she almost ripped it free—wanted to watch it shoot into the sky, wanted to leave nothing of this day behind.
Instead, she sank to the ground, curling her knees to her chest, hiding in the growing shadows.
The sun dipped lower, pulling the color from the sky.
Still, Florence sat quietly, letting the evening swell around her. She watched the boardwalk move on without her: couples laughing, children dragging their parents to rides, tourists tossing coins at rigged games.
No one noticed the girl sitting alone behind the popcorn stand.
Maybe the magic had never been real. Maybe it didn’t matter.
Florence unwound the balloon string from her wrist with slow, deliberate fingers. She held it for a moment longer—just long enough to feel its pull—then opened her hand.
The balloon soared upward, weightless, indifferent, disappearing into the bleeding blue of the sky.
She stood, brushing sand and salt from her skirt.
No more pretending.
The coconut candy, sticky and half-forgotten, she tucked into her pocket. A reminder. Not of the lie—but of the fact that she'd seen it for what it was and kept moving anyway.
Florence stepped barefoot onto the cooling boards of the boardwalk, the wood rough under her soles, the scent of salt and sugar filling her lungs.
She didn’t look back.
"Next time," she murmured under her breath, steady and sure, "it'll be on my terms."
And for the first time that summer, she smiled—not because she'd been let in.
Because she'd let herself walk away.
💬 Before you go:
I'd love to know—
Was there a moment in Florence's story that stuck with you?
A feeling, a line, an image you won't forget? Drop a comment and share it with me. ✨
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See you next week for a brand-new genre, a brand-new set of emojis, and a brand-new world.
So good! I really like this part- Florence exhaled slowly. Something inside her eased.
Maybe he wasn’t like the others after all. To me it screams relief and caution at the same time. I also really enjoy the line breaks. I've been researching that lately :)