Chapter Eighteen
Present Day
I woke to my phone buzzing insistently on the nightstand. The room was still dark, the early morning light just beginning to creep through the curtains. I fumbled for it, squinting at the screen.
Sloane - CALL ME NOW EMERGENCY
My heart lurched. I sat up, immediately dialing. She answered on the first ring.
“Oh thank god.” Her voice was high, panicked. “Gin, I need you.”
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“The venue.” She was crying now, ugly sobs that made her words barely intelligible. “The ceremony venue. There was a fire last night. Electrical. The whole building is condemned. We don’t have anywhere to get married.”
Of course it had.
“Shit.” I was already out of bed, pacing. “Okay. Okay, it’s okay. We’ll figure it out.”
“The wedding is in two days, Gin. Two days! Where am I supposed to find a venue in two days?”
Behind me, I heard Theo stir. “What’s going on?”
I covered the phone. “Ceremony venue burned down.”
He was up immediately, pulling on jeans. “Put her on speaker.”
I did. “Sloane, Theo’s here.”
“Theo?” She hiccupped. “I’m sorry, I know it’s early—”
“Don’t apologize,” he said firmly. “We’re coming to you. Where are you?”
“Home. Mom and Dad are freaking out. Jasper’s calling every venue within fifty miles but everything’s booked. It’s summer. It’s wedding season. We’re fucked.”
I wasn’t used to hearing Sloane so defeated. She was always a rock - a pillar of positivity. We needed to fix this for her, and fast. Theo seemed to be on the same page as well.
“We’re not fucked,” Theo said. “We’re going to fix this. Gin and I will be there in twenty minutes.”
We hung up. I was already pulling on clothes, the same black dress from yesterday because it was the closest. Theo was dressed before me, grabbing his keys.
“Let’s go.”
The drive to the Bennett house was silent, but it was a different silence than last night. This was focused. Purposeful. We had a problem to solve.
When we pulled up, Kay answered the door, her face pale and drawn. “Thank god you’re here.”
The living room was chaotic. Sloane was on the couch, surrounded by bridal magazines and her laptop, mascara streaked down her face. Steve was on the phone, clearly getting nowhere. Jasper sat next to Sloane, looking helpless.
“Okay,” Theo said, taking charge in a way I’d never seen. “Everyone stop. Just... stop for a second.”
The room went quiet.
“We’re not going to find a traditional venue on two days’ notice,” he continued. “So we need to think outside the box.”
I ran my fingers through my unruly hair, which I hadn’t had the chance to do yet. I looked at Sloane and then Jasper and shrugged.
“The lake.” The words were little more than a whisper. Mostly because the emotion behind them was palpable and if I’d tried to speak up my voice would probably break.
I hadn’t been back since before,before my parents died.
Sloane sat forward and wiped her eyes. “You think it would work?”
Theo pulled out his phone, and was tapping hard.
“Isn’t that where you two met?” Their Mom asked.
“Yes.” Sloane and Jasper replied at the same time, in sync - just like they always had been.
“If you want to do it there…” I smiled and placed my hand over hers. “I will move heaven and earth to make sure it does.”
Sloane nodded, a tear fell down the apple of her cheek and onto her pyjama top.
“I’ll go out there, talk with the owner. He doesn’t have contact information online. Not up to date anyway. I think the camp has been closed for a couple of years.” Theo said, he jumped up and put his phone back in his pocket.
I stood up too and nodded. “I’ll come with you.”
Awkwardness be damned, Sloane really did need us.
We climbed into his truck, the morning sun now fully risen. The awkwardness from last night still hovered between us, but less. Solving Sloane’s crisis had reminded us how to exist in the same space again.
“Thank you,” I said as he pulled onto the highway. “For coming. For helping.”
“Of course.” He glanced at me. “She’s my sister.”
“I know, but...” I trailed off, not sure how to finish.
“But things are weird between us?” He said it plainly, without accusation.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. We drove in silence for a minute. Then: “I’m sorry. About last night. About... not talking.”
“I’m sorry too. I was—” I stopped. “I was protecting myself. I do that.”
“I know.” He said it gently. “I’ve seen you do it before.”
We arrived at the lake just after 9am. The water was perfectly still, morning mist rising from the surface. It was beautiful—more beautiful than I remembered. We walked to the main house and knocked on the door. After a minute or so an older man opened the door.
I let Theo do the talking, he explained the situation and the man agreed for us to use the area by the dock for the wedding, free of cost - as long as we organised everything.
Before we left he told us he remembered us, and that he’d had to close the camp grounds the summer after we’d stopped coming because his wife passed away.
“When you find love, don’t let it go.” he said, misty eyed. “Life is too short… too short.”
He closed the door and Theo and I looked between one another - though neither one of us said anything.
“We should go check out the site.” Theo said finally.
“Yeah, check what prep needs to be done before Thursday.”
We walked back to the truck and Theo grabbed his camera from the back seat because of course he’d brought it.
We walked to the pier, where the clearing in the shoreline was vast and beautiful and green, the water was a scenic backdrop. It was perfect. Despite the campsite not being open, he’d still maintained it, so the grass was freshly mown.
I walked out onto the pier and I sat down, my feet dangling over the edge, not quite touching the water.
The memories hit me all at once—summers here with my parents, before they died.
The feeling of being weightless in the water, safe, loved.
My mom calling me in for lunch. My dad teaching me to fish off this very dock.
I hadn’t been back since they died. I couldn’t bring myself to face it.
The grief came suddenly, unexpectedly. Tears spilled down my cheeks before I could stop them.
“Gin?”
I hadn’t heard Theo approach. I wiped at my face quickly, but it was too late.
“Sorry, I’m fine. Just—”
“Don’t do that.” He sat down next to me, close enough that our shoulders touched. “Don’t apologize for feeling things.”
“I haven’t been back since they died. I couldn’t...” I took a shaky breath. “It hurt too much.”
Theo didn’t say anything. He just sat with me, letting me work through it. After a moment, his arm came around my shoulders, pulling me against his side.
“They would have loved this,” I said. “Sloane is getting married here. It would have made them happy.”
“Yeah,” he agreed softly. “It would have.”
We sat there for a long time, me crying quietly against his shoulder, him just holding me. The sun climbed higher. The mist burned off. And slowly, the grief settled into something more manageable.
“Better?” he asked eventually.
“Yeah.” I pulled back, wiping my face. “Sorry, I got your shirt all gross.”
“I don’t care about my shirt, Gin.”
Our eyes met. There was something in his expression—tenderness, maybe. Or understanding. The awkwardness from last night felt far away now.
“We should—” I started.
“Yeah, I’ve uh… I’ve got the photos I need.” He helped me up to my feet and then we started to walk back to the truck.
But I stopped. I looked at the forest path that led to my secret spot. The one I’d shown him all those years ago. Was my engraving still on the rock?
“Can we—” I gestured toward the path. “Just for a minute?”
He followed my gaze and nodded. “Of course.”
The path was overgrown now, branches reaching across where they hadn’t before. But it was still there. Still familiar. We pushed through until we reached the small clearing—the hidden swimming hole with the flat rock where I used to sit and write.
The rock was still there. And carved into it, barely visible now but still there, were our initials. IG + TB.
I’d never finished carving them. Theo had found me mid-way through and I’d been so embarrassed I’d run off.
Summer 2016
I’d brought my pocketknife and was carefully carving the T when I heard footsteps.
“What are you doing?”
I jumped, nearly dropping the knife. Theo stood at the edge of the clearing, looking at me with that expression he got when he was trying to figure something out.
“Nothing.” I stood up quickly, blocking the rock with my body. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you. Sloane said you disappeared.” He stepped closer. “This is a nice spot. How’d you find it?”
“Just... exploring.” I could feel my face burning. “I should get back.”
“Gin.” He caught my arm as I tried to pass him. “Why are you always hiding from me?”
“I’m not hiding.”
“You are.” His eyes were serious. “You’ve been weird all summer. Did I do something?”
Yes. You exist and I can’t stop thinking about you and it’s making me insane.
“No. I just... I like being alone sometimes.”
He’d looked at me for a long moment, then nodded and let me go. I’d run back to camp, leaving the carving unfinished.
After I’d caught him with the girl… I never went back to that spot and I’d never finished the carving.
“You brought a girl here after I showed you my spot.” I ran my hands over the engraving I’d made. The I was deeper than the T - because Theo had interrupted me that day.
“She followed me.” he croaked out. “I didn’t mean for it to happen.”
“You don’t owe me an explanation. I was a kid with a crush.”
Theo let out a chuckle but then followed it up with. “It was your spot, it is your spot. It was shitty of me to kiss her here.”
I flinched, the thought of him kissing someone else, of wanting to kiss someone else… It did something to me that I didn’t know how to process. It was stupid really this had happened so long ago that it seemed almost childish to still care, but I did. Especially after the last few days.
“Theo.” My voice was stuck in my throat, and his name came out so low I wasn’t even sure he’d heard it.