I remember her in the hospital, bone-thin and furious at the world. “Promise me you’ll live,” she said, “because I won’t be around to make you do it.”
Outside, a storm gathers itself into a low, rolling roar across the horizon. The sun has started its descent, bleeding pink into the undersides of the clouds. I step into the entryway and lace up my shoes, the act of preparation both grounding and absurd. Each knot feels like a commitment. When I stand, my knees are weak, but I force them steady.
I lock the door behind me and start down the driveway, the shells popping underfoot like distant fireworks. The air is sharp with ozone and seaweed, the smell of the coming rain. The path to the beach is familiar, but tonight it feels entirely new, as if the world has shifted five degrees off its axis, and now everything glimmers in a way it never has before.
I walk past the neighbor’s house and cut through the narrow trail lined with salt-blasted dune grass. The sand is cold, almost electric against my ankles. I follow the curve of the shore, heart hammering, every muscle in my body wound tight.
Up ahead, the beach opens into a gentle arc. I see the pier and a shape that could be only one person. Nathan. His silhouette darkened against the backdrop of the sea and sky. His sketchbook lies open on the rail, and he is so focused on the page that he doesn’t notice my approach. There is something unbearably tender in the way his head tilts, his brow furrowed in concentration.
I stop twenty feet away, uncertain, afraid to interrupt. I watch him for a long minute, memorizing the slope of his shoulders, the way his hands move. The wind snatches a lock of his hair and tosses it across his forehead, and he absently tucks it behind his ear.
The sky behind him is a riot of color, a smudge of purple melting into fire, and for a second I am almost paralyzed by the beauty of it. There is no right time to do this. I take a step forward, and the board creaks beneath me. I take another, and he looks up.
Our eyes meet across the distance, and I think of all the ways this could go wrong. But then he smiles, and I remember what Sara told me, that you only get so many chances.
I close the rest of the distance, the words lining up in my chest like dominoes, waiting for the right nudge to send them tumbling out.
Nathan closes his sketchbook with a slow, careful motion, as if afraid any sudden movement will startle me back into the dark.
I stop, not quite close enough to touch. The salt wind scours my skin, goosebumps rising in its wake, and I have the sudden, unhelpful urge to laugh. I do not.
“Hey,” I manage. The word cracks in the middle.
“Hey,” he answers, softer than I expect. His hair is a mess, sticking to his temples in wild, wind-drawn lines. He looks tired, but not in the way that means defeat. It’s more like the tiredness that comes after you finish a race and, win or lose, you’re glad it’s over.
The water is just beneath us, and I can hear the waves eating away at the shore, again and again and again. The ocean, it seems, is never afraid of repetition.
He glances at me, mouth opening, then closing. I beat him to it.
“I’m sorry,” I say, not because I am, but because it’s easier than saying anything else. “For interrupting. You probably want to be alone.”
He shakes his head, a smile flickering in the half-light. “Don’t be. I’m glad you came.”
I stare at the ocean, at the pale foam tracing the edge of the beach. It feels like a long drop, standing on this precipice.
He follows my gaze. “You ever feel like the whole world is just…waiting for you to jump?”
I want to tell him I do. I want to tell him the waiting is the worst part.
Instead, I twist the hem of my sweater, fabric bunching between my fingers. “I’ve been thinking,” I say. “I can’t keep pretending I don’t—” My voice snags on the word. “Care. About you.”
He blinks, the moment landing between us with a weight that feels like gravity. I force myself to look at him. He is so close that if I reached out I could touch the curve of his jaw, trace the lines that worry has etched around his mouth.
“I know I should be careful,” I say, the words spilling now, “but I don’t want to be careful. Not with you. I’m tired of living like I’m afraid of my own shadow.”
His eyes never leave mine. I see the pulse in his neck, the twitch of a muscle along his jaw. “Diane?—”
I barrel ahead, knowing if I stop, I might never start again. “I’m in love with you, Nathan.” The confession comes out small, defiant, barely more than a breath. “I’m in love with you, and it scares the shit out of me. Because I thought—” I swallow hard. “I thought if I let myself want something this much, the universe would just…take it away. Like it always does.”
I wait for him to tell me I’m wrong, or that it’s too late, or that Melissa is waiting for him at the hotel.
Instead, he covers my hand with his. His fingers are warm, calloused, anchoring me to the now.
“Diane,” he says. The name is careful, like he’s holding it up to the light. “You don’t have to be afraid of that. Not with me.”
My body trembles, but it’s a good kind of shaking, the kind that means the adrenaline is doing its job. I let out a ragged laugh, half sob, half exhale.
“I watched you today,” I say. “With Cassie, and with the kids at the art walk, and even with strangers. You’re…different. You listen, really listen. You look at me like you see something worth seeing. I haven’t felt that in a long time.”