Chapter 17
Once Nora has thought them, the words take root in her brain and don’t let go.
I think I’m in love with you.
This new knowledge stays with her for every moment of her dwindling time with Dani, even when they’re apart. It leeches into her sleep. Most nights, she dreams of Dani, even when the subject of her dreaming is right next to her in bed. She then wakes up with an ache in her chest because she dreamt of impossible futures.
It sits in the back of Nora’s mind as she finally finds a moment to look over her survey report for the first time in almost two months. The text reads like it was written by another person—succinct and emotionless. Reading it now, the prospect of any of it coming to fruition is horrifying. All the things Nora had suggested so easily when she arrived now feel like the worst possible outcomes, and in the few days after her botched confession, she throws herself into new ideas while Dani is at work.
It’s not an easy prospect. The ideal, shoot-for-the-stars solution is deceptively simple—it’s what Nora has wanted all along, really.
Two of the old CromTech warehouses are still usable. Refurbishing them to produce and test the experimental tech on Nora’s docket would bring jobs to the area in a more productive way. It could be a mutually beneficial arrangement if the people of Riverwalk can be convinced to trust a company that’s already screwed them over.
It won’t, however, make CromTech the kind of money the shareholders want. She could emphasize the cost savings of not needing to lease manufacturing space, but investing in an eco-tech division in the first place is a big ask when Nora is no longer recommending a development project to fund it. It isn’t the easy money-maker that Riverwalk was supposed to be.
Nora writes the new proposal anyway. She outlines a retrofitting plan for the warehouses. She even provides a few of her own prototypes with the most potential. Maybe it’s a pipe dream, but something in her needs to see it all on paper, even if the board is going to shout it down. She needs to have something to present when she gets back to Toronto, and it’s not going to be her original project. It can’t be.
Nora can only imagine the look on her father’s face if he knew she was planning to throw this amount of money away. The disappointment. If he were here, he’d tell her she was being frivolous and weak. He’d say she was squandering everything he left to her. He’d absolutely hate Dani.
Somehow, that idea makes Nora smile.
All of it marinates in Nora’s mind as her departure date approaches, and it stays with her as she cancels the moving van and emails Ash and Kayla to inform them of her intent to extend her trip. After sending the email, Nora has barely managed to close her laptop before her phone is vibrating.
“Hey, how are you, et cetera,” Kayla says as soon as Nora has accepted the call, her voice high and sharp. “Couple things to address: Firstly, what the fuck?”
Nora sighs, curling her legs underneath her as she switches her phone to the other ear. Dani is at work, and Nora has set up a mobile office on her back deck facing the water. “I just need two more weeks.”
Ash chimes in. “But you tell us in an email? Days before you’re supposed to be coming back?”
Nora winces. She’s agonized over this decision for days before making it at the last minute, and although she wishes she didn’t need to spring it on them, she doesn’t regret it at all.
She feels better already.
“I know. And I’m sorry,” Nora says, only half meaning it.
“We had board meetings set up! Debriefs! Press conferences!” Ash says, his voice getting consistently more high-pitched, but thankfully Kayla interrupts him before he builds up too much steam.
“What Ash means to say is, we’re really worried about you. Are you okay? It’s not like you to cancel things at the last minute like this.” Kayla does sound concerned, and Nora will grant her that it’s warranted—she isn’t exactly known for making last-minute selfish decisions.
“I’m fine, Kayla. I just need some more time.” It’s a half-truth, but it’s all Nora is comfortable admitting. Even to them. She needs more time to finish her new proposal, and she needs more time to say goodbye.
Not to mention that she still hasn’t told Dani the truth.
“All right,” Kayla says, but she sounds skeptical. “Much longer than two weeks and we might not be able to hold Renée off.”
“What’s my dear stepmother up to now?” Nora mutters, scrolling through the massive backlog of unread emails that probably contain the answer.
“The same thing she’s been doing all summer—questioning the necessity of your trip.” Kayla sighs. “And doing it loudly. Lately she’s taken to insinuating that you’ve been gone for so long because you’ve abandoned your job.”
“She’s always been dramatic,” Nora says distractedly. A glance at the clock tells her that it’s almost one o’clock, when Dani promised she’d stop by for lunch—Nora has a salad waiting in the fridge, which Dani had insisted she’d only eat if it had protein in it.
“It’s been four months,” Ash says flatly.
Nora pauses. Though intellectually she knows she’s been here since early May, it hasn’t felt like four months. It’ll be going on five by the time she gets home. If she were in Renée’s shoes, she’d probably be thinking the same thing.
“You haven’t abandoned us, have you?” Ash continues. “You are coming back?”
“Of course I am.”
“At this point, it seems like you want to stay there. If you do, just tell us so we can prepare properly,” Kayla says.
“I’m not staying forever,” Nora says quickly. “I’m coming back. Just…not yet. You’ll see me in September.”
The line goes quiet. She’s sure Ash and Kayla are having some sort of silent conversation.
“We’ll let the board know. You’re going to need to be ready for a fight,” Kayla finally says. “Renée has had a lot of time to butter them up to reject your project.”
“That’s fine,” Nora says absently. “I’m changing my project.”
The line explodes with noise.
“I’ll explain later,” Nora says loudly over their overlapping protests and questions, perking up when she hears the front door open and close and Dani’s boots hitting the mat. “I’ve got to go. Dani’s here for lunch.”
Nora hangs up before they can keep yelling.
She does feel guilty for switching her phone off afterwards, even though it brings her peace. She’s been a bad friend lately; she’ll think of a way to make it up to them. But, for now, Dani is here.
“Hey!” Dani says once she’s closed the sliding glass door behind her, tipping Nora’s face up to kiss her upside down as she passes. “How’s your day?”
“It’s good. I just got off the phone with Kayla and Ash,” Nora says carefully. Dani sits in a deck chair, taking a swig of the iced tea Nora’s already poured. When she takes her hat off, the sun hits her hair and makes it shine. “I’ve decided to stay two more weeks.”
Dani sets the glass down slowly. Her eyes have lit up like fireworks.
“Really?” Her voice is hushed, like she can’t believe her luck. “Like, into September?”
“If you don’t mind?”
“Mind? Babe, that’s awesome!” Dani stands, abandoning her glass to sweep Nora up and into a kiss tinged with lemon and sugar.
Nora sinks into it. Quietly, the voice in her head whose volume has only been rising lately whispers.
I think I’m in love with you.
I think I’m in love with you.
Dani cups Nora’s face with gentle hands, her broad thumbs stroking across Nora’s cheeks like she’s memorizing her features again. She dips down to capture Nora’s lips more firmly.
I am in love with you.
* * *
And so Nora stays in Riverwalk as summer transitions into fall.
The weather changes gently, with the chilly September nights dusting a hint of orange onto the tips of the leaves that canopy the tree house. Dani doesn’t mention Nora’s new departure date again, but every day is a pleasure made even sweeter by the knowledge that they almost didn’t have it. Nora takes advantage of every scrap of Dani’s free time.
“I think I’m always going to have a fondness for the place where you emphatically did not ask me out,” Nora says, swinging her feet idly from the tree house platform.
Dani groans, flopping onto her back. The planks creak loudly underneath her as they always do, but Nora ignores it; over the course of the summer, they’ve been going up into the actual structure of it more and more, and now Nora pays the instability of the structure as little mind as Dani does.
“Am I ever going to live that down?” Dani asks the leafy canopy. Nora chuckles.
“Never. I’ll be telling that story when I’m sixty-five.”
Dani laughs, too, but there’s a heaviness to it that Nora almost doesn’t catch before Dani rubs her face and sits up, nudging Nora with her shoulder. “When you do, at least mention that I made you a picnic?”
“I’ll be sure to include that.”
Dani nods absently, swinging her legs back and forth. It makes an incredibly endearing picture—Dani at the edge of the platform, framed by the pink sunset, her blue ballcap on the wood planks next to her and her loose hair falling over one shoulder. She flashes a smile when she catches Nora staring. When Nora averts her own gaze back to the horizon, she can still feel Dani’s gaze on the side of her face.
“Hey, Nora?”
Dani’s voice is suddenly soft, and Nora looks over to find her fiddling with the cuffs of her faded hoodie. She’s chewing on her lower lip.
“Hmm?”
“I was thinking. Would you maybe… I mean, only if you want to,” Dani says, interrupting herself. “Feel free to say no. I know you’re leaving soon, so you might not—”
“Dani,” Nora interrupts, squeezing Dani’s hand, “you have to actually ask me a question in order for me to have an answer.”
“Right.” Dani laughs shakily, clearing her throat. Nora hasn’t seen her this nervous since their first date. “Um. Do you want to add your name to the tree?”
Such a simple question, yet with such a heavy context.
Nora’s eyes trace over the tree in question. The names stand out in bold against it, a timeless expression of friendship and support. Inscribed so deep that they’ll be there until the whole tree comes down. Dani shouldn’t want Nora to put her name there. Nora shouldn’t want to put her name there, symbolizing the twisting half-truths she’s lived in all summer. It’s a deeply meaningful gesture, a show of care and investment that should have Nora running in the other direction.
But Dani’s bright smile when Nora nods in the affirmative is all she cares about.
Dani leads her to the trunk, kneeling down and flipping open a pocketknife. There’s a spot over by Owen and Ryan’s names where she could easily make her mark. There’s also room near the floorboards where Mila’s name is in the heart, over the blank spot hacked away all those years ago.
Nora has wondered about the blank spot before, but she’s never asked. Now she runs her fingers over the splintery wood. “Who used to be here?”
“That’s…not exactly my story to tell,” Dani says. There’s a hesitation to her voice. A layer of meaning Nora doesn’t understand.
Nora swallows, her fingers curling against the tree bark.
Was it someone they lost? Or if not someone they lost, did this spot belong to someone Dani doesn’t want to talk about anymore? If everyone found out who Nora is, what she’s here for, would it be her name that becomes nothing but a scarred reminder on the tree trunk?
“Is it a bad memory?” Nora whispers.
Dani settles behind Nora. One of her arms tightens around Nora’s waist, and the other reaches out to touch the tree. She scrapes at a corner of the blank spot with her fingernail.
“No. But they needed our support,” Dani says. “That name wasn’t who they really were.”
Her fingers drift to Mila’s engraving, tracing the edges of the heart. And then Nora understands.
“I know you’re not here for much longer. But you’ve become part of our lives, our little group,” Dani says softly. “I think that’s worth remembering, right?”
Dani’s surety is calming. The blank spot isn’t the result of a conflict but something that came from love. A gesture of support. And Dani wants Nora’s name there, too.
When Dani hands her the pocketknife, the area Nora is drawn to is further to the right, just under where Dani’s slanted writing was carved in years ago.
Nora clutches the handle tightly. Now that she’s here, she’s hit with a dilemma.
Nora, or Eleanor?
She’s gone by Eleanor her whole life. Introducing herself to Dani was the first time since childhood that she’s tried anything else. Though it had felt strange at first, Nora now fits her so comfortably that it feels foreign to be addressed by her full name. These days, the Eleanor in her email signature is just a reminder of her father’s disapproval, a reminder that she’s never lived up to the name she was given. She’s taken a new one now, and it fits better than the old one ever did.
She makes the first line of her swooping N carefully, and Dani’s eyes follow her hands all the way.
It’s slow work when Nora insists on perfection. She leans forward to blow the sawdust out of the lines when she’s finished, flipping Dani’s knife closed, and together they survey her handiwork.
“Your writing is so elegant,” Dani says, reaching up and tracing over the letters with her fingers. Her calloused fingertips catch on the uneven surface, and she rubs them together to brush off the wood chips. “How did you manage to do cursive on a tree trunk?”
“Determination,” Nora drawls, resting her head back on Dani’s shoulder as she laughs. “Hopefully you don’t regret asking me to do that.”
“Why would I regret it?”
“Things change,” Nora says, swallowing past the knot of secrets that’s only grown with time. “I’m leaving soon. This is quite permanent, that’s all.”
Dani says nothing for almost a full minute. When Nora cranes her neck back, Dani is frowning.
“I hope you didn’t do it just to make me happy,” Dani says. There’s a seriousness behind her words, a deep contrast to the goofiness of earlier—she’s fiddling with the zipper of Nora’s sweater, moving the clasp up and down rapidly until she gets it caught on the fabric and has to abandon the fidget. “Please don’t ever make yourself uncomfortable for my sake. You should do what you want, not what you think someone else wants.”
“When did you become a self-prioritization expert?” Nora says. She pokes gently at Dani’s ribs with an elbow. “You think of yourself less than anyone I’ve ever met.”
“You taught me. This summer.”
Nora’s breath catches.
The change in Dani surrounding her own needs has been noticeable over the last few weeks. She’s more eager to ask for what she wants, or to let Nora give it to her without hesitation. The introduction of the toy they now use almost daily has been a godsend. But to hear Dani emphasize Nora’s part in this new outlook makes her heart race for a different reason.
“Did I?” Nora says, swallowing thickly. “Does that mean you’re going to stop getting up half an hour earlier than you need to just so I have coffee when I wake up?”
“I called my brother last week,” Dani says out of nowhere.
Nora sits up straight. She turns to look back at Dani with wide eyes, her brief attempt at humour forgotten.
“Yeah,” Dani says, laughing a little. “Sat and stared at my phone for an hour before I dialed the number. Then I heard your voice telling me my feelings mattered just as much as his.”
“How did it go? What did he say?”
“It was weird, but…good, I think,” Dani says carefully. “He said he’s wanted to reach out a couple times, but he was worried I hated him. He apologized. We both cried. We’re gonna talk again in a few days. So, thank you.”
“Dani, that’s a huge step,” Nora says. “But there’s nothing to thank me for.”
“I wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t suggested it. I probably would have let myself keep hurting forever to keep from inconveniencing him,” Dani says. She makes a small noise, almost like a laugh. “I wouldn’t even have realized what I was doing. Turns out he was hurting, too.”
“I’m really proud of you,” Nora says quietly. Whatever credence Dani is giving her, she doesn’t deserve it. She hasn’t even been able to bring herself to repeat her botched confession yet. “You’re braver than I’ve ever been.”
Dani doesn’t seem to be able to look at her, but Nora can see the ghost of a wry smile at the corner of her lips.
“It’s getting dark,” Dani says, pulling Nora closer to kiss her forehead. “Do you want to go home?”
Nora closes her eyes, pressing her head into Dani’s chin. She knows what Dani means by the question, but it strikes her suddenly just how much the meaning of home has changed.
She doesn’t want to go home, because it feels like she’s there already.
“No,” Nora says softly. “I want to stay.”
Dani doesn’t argue, even as the sun sets and the mosquitos start to appear.
It’s one more example of all the ways Dani makes her feel welcomed here. Welcomed and safe and absolutely accepted. Dani holds her tight, admiring the now-permanent name carved into her favourite spot, and Nora clings to her while she still can.
They do head back to Nora’s place once they’ve collected a few bug bites, and when 2 a.m. comes and goes without a wink of sleep, Nora grabs her phone from the bedside table and opens her text thread with Kayla.
Eleanor: I have a few things to wrap up here. I need two more weeks.
Kayla’s reply comes quickly, despite the fact that it’s the middle of the night. It’s just as skeptical as Nora knew it would be.
Kayla: This is some serious self-denial you’ve got going on.
Eleanor : I need time to say goodbye.
On the other side of the bed, Dani shifts, seeking out Nora’s warmth, and wraps herself around Nora’s back with a pleased, sleepy noise.
Three little grey dots appear right away. Kayla is nothing if not prompt and honest.
Kayla: You’ve had months, honey. I think you know what you want.
Nora purses her lips. It’s cowardly to do this via text, avoiding what she knows will be a confrontation over the phone, but she stands firm in her decision.
Eleanor: Two more weeks. Schedule the board.
Kayla doesn’t reply after that. Nora sets her phone down, and instead of the crippling guilt she’d been expecting about cancelling yet another departure date, all she feels is relief. She will tell Dani everything before she leaves. Just not yet.
She still has some time.
* * *
Kayla stays quiet in the following days, as does Ash. Nora can assume they’re angry with her, but their ire is worth the delight in Dani’s eyes in the morning when Nora wakes her up with the news.
Just a little longer and Nora will be ready to let go and do what she needs to do. She’s sure of it.
She gets exactly five days.
It happens when Nora least expects it. Everyone is at the River Run taking advantage of the warm evening by making use of the patio when Nora sees something that makes her chest constrict to the point of possible cardiac arrest.
Down Main Street, past the tiny shops and mid-range cars Nora has come to know so well, crawls a shiny black Rolls-Royce. The windows are tinted, but the car and its license plate—reading A5HH0L3, which Ash had been delighted to get past the vanity plate censors—is as familiar to Nora as her own.
Just as she’s making this horrifying realization, the car comes to an abrupt stop just past the River Run. In true Ashwin fashion, it reverses without so much as a rear window check and comes to a halt directly in front of the patio.
Dani seems to have noticed both Nora’s sudden silence and the strange activity of the very fancy car in front of them, and she puts a hand on Nora’s thigh just as the windows roll down and Nora’s worst nightmare becomes real.
“Nora? You okay?” Dani asks, but the end of the question is drowned out by two very familiar, very loud voices.
“Eleanor! I have a bone to pick with you!” Kayla shouts.
Ash lowers his sunglasses, peering past Kayla’s shoulder. “Beep, beep, darling. Where does a homosexual park on this godforsaken street?”
Nora’s best friends are here, hanging out the windows of Ash’s car in the middle of Nora’s perfect summer, and her months-long fantasy pops like a soap bubble.