Chapter 30
I didn’t want to go home.
I didn’t want to go anywhere that felt like mine, because nothing did anymore. Everything had started to feel foreign. Like my life had been built on someone else’s foundation.
Trevor glanced over as we sat at a red light, the glow from the dashboard painting soft shadows on his face. “You want me to take you home?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“No?”
“I can’t go back there. Not yet.” I swallowed hard, voice low. “Will you just … drive?”
He didn’t ask questions. Just gave a short nod and turned left instead of right.
We passed shuttered gas stations, empty diners, streetlamps that flickered against the hush of the night. Charleston slept while my world came undone.
After a few quiet miles, he said, “There’s a place I could take you.”
I turned my head toward him. “Where? ”
“Isle of Palms. Remember that stretch of beach? Where we went that one night after dinner at Poe’s?”
A memory bloomed like a bruise—salt air, bare feet, Trevor’s laugh as I chased him through the surf, both of us half-drunk and foolish enough to think nothing could touch us.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
He glanced over again, searching my face. “We don’t have to talk. We don’t have to do anything. Just sit. Watch the waves.”
“Okay,” I said. “That sounds perfect.”
We didn’t speak much after that. Just drove in silence, the kind that felt suspended, sacred. Like we both knew something fragile was hanging in the air between us, and neither of us wanted to break it.
When we got there, he parked in a space near the dunes and popped the trunk. I slid out of the car and wrapped my arms around myself, the ocean wind cutting through my hair.
Trevor came around with a blanket tucked under one arm and a few cans of rosé in the other.
I raised an eyebrow. “Prepared much?”
He shrugged with a small grin. “Old habits.”
I didn’t have the energy to roll my eyes, but I gave him a half-smile, grateful in spite of myself.
We walked across the sand barefoot, the granules warm and fine under our feet. The moon was barely visible behind a curtain of clouds, casting everything in shades of charcoal and silver. The waves rolled in soft and slow, rhythmic like a lullaby.
Trevor spread out the blanket and sank onto it, patting the spot beside him.
I hesitated, then dropped down next to him, pulling my knees to my chest .
He popped open the rosé and handed me a can.
I took a long sip. It was the first thing that had cut through the numbness all day.
Trevor leaned back on his elbows, looking out at the water. “Still beautiful out here.”
“Yeah,” I murmured. “It is.”
We sat there like that for a while, passing the can back and forth, listening to the ocean. A part of me wanted to pretend I could stay in this moment forever—untouched, suspended, safe. But another part, the sharper one, knew better. Knew the pain would follow me no matter where I went.
He broke the silence first. “I know you said you didn’t want to go home. But do you want to talk about what’s got you this shaken? Besides your parents?”
I stared at the horizon, my voice quiet. “I made a big mistake.”
Trevor didn’t speak. He just waited.
“I fell in love with a man who has secrets. Deep ones. And I found out about them in the worst possible way. I saw something …” I trailed off, the memory of the flash drive twisting in my stomach. “Something that made me question everything.”
He handed the can back. “You don’t have to tell me the details. But you can, if you want.”
I took another sip, then passed it back, letting the silence stretch between us.
“And my parents are really going to lose everything,” I said finally. “Everything they’ve built their lives around.”
“I’m so sorry, Zara,” he said, his voice gentle.
I turned to look at him. His face was open, soft with concern. And something else.
“I’m not saying this to overstep,” he said quickly, “ but you’re not the only one who cared about your parents. Or that place. I’d do anything to help. You know that, right?”
The tears that had been threatening all night spilled over.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I whispered. “I don’t know who I am anymore.”
“You’re still you,” he said. “Still the woman who writes truth to power. Still the girl who used to stop and talk to every plant in the nursery like they were people.”
That made me laugh, even as I wiped my eyes.
“I miss her,” I said.
“She’s not gone,” he said softly. “She’s just … overwhelmed.”
I looked back out at the water.
The waves kept coming.
Just like the truth. Just like grief.
Trevor’s hand brushed mine, tentative. Warm.
I didn’t pull away.
Not yet.
His hand lingered beside mine. He didn’t say anything at first—just let the moment stretch, his fingers barely touching the edge of my skin. Then, softly, he said, “I’ve missed you, Zara.”
The words were quiet, but they landed like a wave crashing against rock. Familiar. Inevitable.
“I think about us more than I should,” he added, voice rough with restraint. “Some nights, I imagine what would’ve happened if we hadn’t let it fall apart.”
I turned to look at him, but he wasn’t watching me. His eyes were on the horizon, the wind brushing his hair back from his forehead. He looked older than he had the last time we were together—but in a good way. More grounded. Like time had worn down the sharp edges .
“What do you imagine?” I asked, my voice thin.
He glanced over then, and this time he held my gaze. “I’d have a key to your townhouse. Maybe we’d have a little garden out back. You’d wake up at four in the morning to write your column, and I’d bring you coffee and try to convince you to go back to bed.”
A soft, involuntary smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. “You were never good at early mornings.”
“No,” he said, “but I was good at loving you.”
The quiet that followed was loud in my chest. It wrapped around my ribs and squeezed.
It would be so easy, wouldn’t it?
To lean into this again. To let Trevor be my comfort, my fix.
He was good. Steady. The kind of man who remembered anniversaries and brought me soup when I was sick and called my mom on her birthday without needing to be reminded.
He wasn’t flashy, but he was warm. Solid. Familiar in all the ways that mattered.
We hadn’t broken up because he failed me. We broke up because I wanted more. More fire. More edge. More something I couldn’t even name at the time.
And then Ronan had walked into my life, cloaked in shadow and mystery, and offered me the world I thought I wanted—only to reveal it was lined with danger I wasn’t sure I could survive.
Trevor, though?
Trevor didn’t need to be deciphered. He didn’t come with bloodstained secrets. He came with steady hands, and safety, and the smell of old books and laundry detergent. He came with decency. With roots. With something resembling peace.
My voice cracked when I spoke. “It would’ve been easier, wouldn’t it? If I’d stayed with you? ”
He looked back toward the ocean, nodding once. “Probably.”
I let that sit. The ache of it. The weight.
“Sometimes,” he said after a moment, “I let myself believe we’re still in that version of reality. The one where we’re happy. The one where you didn’t need to chase something darker.”
I sucked in a breath. “I didn’t mean to.”
“I know.” He shifted a little closer. “But maybe that version doesn’t have to stay imaginary.”
I closed my eyes against the sudden sting. It would be so easy to pretend I could slide right back into that old rhythm. To rewind time. Rewind pain. To choose the safe thing instead of the storm.
He shifted again, closer this time, until our shoulders touched. His warmth seeped through the fabric of my sweatshirt, grounding and gentle.
“I could take care of you,” he said, low and earnest. “Not in some macho way. I just mean … I’d never put you through what you’ve been through. I’d never make you question whether you were safe.”
It was the kind of thing any woman would want to hear. A promise of stability.
Trevor wasn’t dangerous. He wasn’t haunted. He didn’t come with a trail of dead bodies or folders labeled Lady. He came with vintage records and New Yorker subscriptions and a dog-eared copy of The Fire Next Time on his nightstand.
So, why did it feel like I was suffocating?
I looked at him again, at the lines around his eyes, the soft curve of his mouth. He was handsome. He always had been. Boy-next-door kind of handsome. The kind that aged well. The kind your parents liked.
And once upon a time, I’d loved him for exactly that .
But now, sitting here on a moonlit beach with his hand brushing mine and his voice offering me a life I used to dream about, something felt off.
Not wrong.
Just … dim.
Like someone had turned the color down on a memory and I couldn’t get it bright again.
Could I live with that?
Maybe.
Trevor leaned forward, plucking a shell from the sand and running his thumb along the ridges. “Do you remember that night we got caught in the thunderstorm on Folly? You yelled at me for dragging us out to walk the pier, and then you kissed me under that broken awning like we were in a damn movie.”
I laughed softly. “You were soaked. Like a dog. You looked ridiculous.”
He grinned. “You said it was the best kiss of your life.”
“I was tipsy.”
“You were tipsy in love.”
My smile faltered.
Maybe I was.
Maybe I’d been young enough to believe that kind of love would be enough. That comfort and affection could carry me through decades of real life. That wanting to build a future together was the same as actually knowing how to build one.
Trevor tucked the shell in my hand. “We could still have that. You and me. We were good together, Zara. We had something real.”
I ran my fingers over the shell’s edge, sharp in places, smooth in others.
We had.
I didn’t pull away.
Not when he shifted closer again, his thigh pressed against mine. Not when he reached for my hand fully this time, lacing our fingers together.
His palm was dry. Steady.
Not like Ronan’s.
Ronan’s hands had scorched me. Possessed me. Spoken to parts of me I didn’t know existed. When he touched me, it wasn’t comfort—it was combustion. A controlled burn that licked along every nerve ending and left me aching for more.
Trevor’s touch didn’t hurt.
It didn’t thrill.
It just … was.
Could that be enough?
I looked at him then, really looked. His eyes searched mine like he was hoping for something—permission, maybe. A sign that I wanted this. Wanted him.
And I almost said yes.
Almost leaned in.
Almost let the moment become something.