At her bedroom door, she leans in and whispers, “You two, don’t burn the house down, okay?”
Nathan chuckles, low and private, and I feel it somewhere in my ribs. “We’ll be good,” he promises, and Sara vanishes into her room, shutting the door with a soft click.
Cassie is already half-asleep, splayed across the couch in a tangle of limbs and blanket. I tuck the throw under her chin and listen to her breathe, steady and rabbit-quick. The candles are mostly gone now, puddled into a single trembling flame. I sit beside her, close enough that I can feel her warmth, and wait for Nathan to reappear.
He does, silent as a thought. “I should go,” he says, voice hushed so as not to wake Cassie. “Looks like the road’s clear, and I need to check on the gallery… Make sure there’s no damage.”
I want to argue, tell him it’s safer here, but the words catch behind my teeth. He stands by the door, keys in hand, raincoat hanging limp and heavy over his arm.
At the threshold, he turns. “If you need anything, just call.”
I nod, because anything else would sound like begging. But the truth is, I am begging. Not for assistance or even company, but for something more elusive, the chance to lean into this new possibility, to let our paths veer closer without the fear of collision.
He hesitates, just long enough that it becomes a statement, not a pause, and then steps onto the porch. The air is shockingly sweet, the storm having scoured away all the dust and pollen, leaving only the cold smell of the ocean.
He’s halfway down the walk when I hear myself say, “Nathan.”
He stops, turns. The light from the last candle paints him in strokes of orange and shadow. I want to say I’m sorry for the weirdness, or for wanting him, or for being unable todo anything about it. But all I manage is, “Thank you. For…tonight.”
“Anytime,” he says, then he’s gone, swallowed by the dark and the faint hush of receding wind.
I close the door and lean my forehead against it. For a minute, I listen to the way the house settles, the waves beating a softer rhythm on the shore. Cassie mutters something in her sleep and rolls over, her hand searching for mine.
I take it and let myself imagine what might have happened in that hallway if no one else was around. I sit in the dark, heart hammering, the ghost of a kiss pressed to my mouth, waiting for the storm inside me to subside.
Maybe, by morning, it will.
23
Diane
By morning, the storm has spun itself into memory. It leaves behind puddles that smolder with reflected sky and a beach strewn with fragments of driftwood, discarded shells, and a tangle of seaweed, as if the ocean had tried to move on land. In the aftermath, the whole town seems to exhale, the molecules rearranged by the violence of last night. Sara’s house smells of smoke and wet leaves and the sweet, synthetic wax of spent candles. Every window wears a fine patina of salt, and the wooden floor, still damp in places, groans with each of my steps.
I wake on Sara’s couch to the sight of Cassie curled against me, her knees drawn up, the back of her hand pressed to her nose. She’s snoring lightly, breath hitching in the way it used to when she fell asleep in the car on long road trips. On the coffee table, the relics of last night’s games are scattered. A single red checker, three Uno cards, a pawn from a chess set I’ve never seen. There’s a peace to it that feels borrowed, as if the moment will snap the second anyone moves.
In the kitchen, I set water to boil, the kettle hissing against the low drone of the refrigerator. I make a mental note to check the basement for flooding. Sara said the old place waswatertight, but last night’s wind could have blown the river through a pinhole. I can still hear the wind in my ears, the way it howled and rattled the glass, but now it’s only the slow drip of gutters and the static fizz of the radio left on overnight. Outside, the world is a palette of muted greens and pale sand, the dunes combed flat by the storm.
Sara emerges an hour later, wearing the same robe as the night before, though she’s pulled her hair up in a hasty knot that makes her appear both regal and deeply unwell. She walks with a measured slowness, her good hand splayed against the wall for balance. She shuffles to the table, her lips pinched white, her whole body folded in around her chest.
“Morning,” I say, trying to make it sound ordinary.
She nods, but her face has that sculpted stillness I’ve seen before—in hospital waiting rooms, on the faces of my own mother and her mother before her. There’s an economy of motion, a deliberate conservation, as if every movement is calculated for maximum efficiency, minimal pain. Her left hand, always the traitor, hangs useless at her side. Her right is trembling in a way I’ve never noticed, or perhaps refused to notice, until this instant.
“Cassie’s still out,” Sara says, voice like crushed gravel. “How did she sleep?”
I shrug, uncertain. “She didn’t seem scared. More…fascinated. Like the world’s best sleepover.”
Sara snorts, but it’s a ghost of the sound it should be. She pours herself a mug of black coffee, ignoring the sugar, and sits at the table without looking at the food I’ve laid out—toast, apples, a jar of homemade preserves she gave me last week. She stares at her hands for a long time before curling her fingers, knuckles whitening, and pinching the bridge of her nose.
I watch her, trying to read the meaning in each motion. I want to offer help, but there’s a pride in her posture that repelssympathy. Still, her right hand is shaking so badly that when she lifts the cup, a crescent of liquid laps over the rim and soaks into her robe.
“Damn it,” she mutters, and the cup rattles onto the tabletop.
I move without thinking, grabbing a dish towel and sopping up the spill. Up close, I can see the sheen of sweat on her upper lip, the dilation of her pupils, the way her shoulders hunch against an invisible weight.
“Sara, are you okay?” I ask, and the question sounds stupid even as I say it.
She gives a tight smile. “Bad night. I get these spells sometimes after a lot of excitement. Not a big deal.”