He says nothing, but his hand tightens on mine. I can see his chest rising and falling, breath shallow and quick. I worry, for a split second, that I’ve said too much. That I’ve ruined the fragile truce we’d built.
“I know about Melissa,” I add. “About her coming to see you. Nick, from the hotel, called and told me he saw you visiting a woman with Mecklenburg County plates. I just figured…”
“Melissa’s not—” He stops himself. “Yes, she came to see me. To see if there was anything left of our relationship to salvage.”
My heart seizes in my chest, fear spreading like ink through water. But he continues, his tone steady and calm.
“But I told her there wasn't. That even if there had been something, it was long gone. She’s in my past, Diane. You’re what’s here now.”
I let out a breath I’ve been holding since forever. My hand is still trembling in his, but I don’t care if he notices. The trembling feels like permission.
Nathan turns to face me. He brings my knuckles to his lips, a gesture so old-fashioned and sincere it nearly undoes me.
“Diane,” he says again, softer. “You scare the hell out of me too. But I want this. I want you. All of you. Even the parts you think aren’t worth wanting.”
A sob lodges in my throat, not from sadness but from relief. When I try to answer him, my voice is shredded, barely there.
He kisses me then, and it is nothing like I expected. It is awkward and urgent, a collision of teeth and nose and wet, brinylips, and I love it more than anything that came before. I grab his shirt and pull him closer. The sketchbook falls to the planks, forgotten.
When we part, our foreheads lean together, and the whole world seems to be holding us in place.
Nathan looks at the lighthouse in the distance, its beacon slicing the twilight in slow, predictable sweeps. “That’s us,” he says, nodding toward it. “Always a little bit lost. Always finding our way back.”
I want to say something witty, or poetic, or even just coherent. But all I can do is laugh again—this time with the reckless certainty of a person who has nothing left to lose and everything left to want.
We stay until the last molecules of daylight are gone. Then he takes my hand, and together we walk up the beach, footprints erased almost as soon as they are made.
Home is not the same house I left an hour ago. It is wherever he is, and wherever Cassie waits, and wherever I let myself want something badly enough to risk falling for it.
At the front door, he wraps me in his arms, and I let the night take us. Above, the lighthouse sweeps its beam across the dark, steady and unwavering. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
42
Diane
OCTOBER
I wake to the scent of salt and burnt sugar. It takes me a minute to orient myself. My mind is still half-tangled in the dream where the three of us stand at the edge of the sea, but every time I reach for Cassie, she vanishes into foam.
The kettle is already screaming on the stove by the time I stumble into the kitchen. Cassie sits at the breakfast table, arms folded, staring at the linoleum like it holds the secret to a happy life.
“Morning,” I say, and it comes out like a cough.
She shrugs, which is teenager for “go away,” but I take it as a win.
I pour the water, spilling a little on the counter, and the hiss reminds me that every day is just a series of tiny messes you learn to clean up. I reach for the coffee, shaking the tin over the filter, and realize my hands are trembling. Not from caffeine. From the anticipation of everything that might go wrong before 9:00 a.m.
“Cereal?” I ask, but Cassie’s already poured herself a bowl of Froot Loops, the colors bleeding into milk that looks like an art project gone wrong.
“I have a math test tomorrow,” she mumbles. “And a science project due Tuesday.”
I want to say something reassuring, but all I manage is, “You’ll do great.” The words hit the table and roll away.
Through the window, I can see Sara’s garden, a riot of wild violets and neglected raspberry canes, the trellis listing to one side like a shipwreck. I imagine us out there, three mismatched survivors trying to build something that floats.
Nathan is late. I check the oven clock, then the front door, as if he might materialize just by thinking hard enough. This is ridiculous. I remind myself I am a grown woman who has lived through far worse than an awkward breakfast.
Still, my fingers tap out Morse code on the Formica: anxious, anxious, anxious.