Chapter 29
Opinion: If it scares you, that means you’re doing something right.
—Lyla Dune, aspiring author
M emory Lake was empty. People in town were still cleaning up after Hurricane Bill. After such a big storm, one would think the water would be murky and full of debris. It wasn’t, though. The lake was crystal clear. The reflection showed nothing but blue sky that went on for miles. It was as if there’d been no storm at all.
She kept walking, ignoring the slight tremble in her body. It felt like it was now or never—like the rest of her life hinged on gathering her courage, being brave, and jumping off that stupid Pirate’s Plank.
Sink. Or swim.
“You can do it!” Allison called out in her best cheerleader voice from high school. She had stopped walking several feet back. Maybe it was all talk that she’d be going down too if Lyla sank like a piece of lead. “You got this! You are—!”
Lyla cast a glare over her shoulder, silencing Allison. Then she continued forward, one foot in front of the other. She left her towel on a large rock. The same rock she’d left it on that summer when she was fifteen. She climbed the wooden steps that led to the Pirate’s Plank, a narrow strip of wood that had been the focal point of all her adult nightmares.
Slowly, she stepped onto the plank and felt a rush of adrenaline zip from the top of her scalp to the tips of her toes. No wonder she’d been scared that day. Being up here was indeed terrifying. Actually, it was a bad idea. So bad. If she drowned out here today, there was no one to jump in and save her. Allison said she would dial 911, but by the time any emergency crew got there, it’d be too late. Lyla would be dead, and what would be the point of that?
She took a step backward and her body lost balance momentarily. Her arms flew out by her sides.
Jump, Jump, Jump.
The sounds of the past haunted her. She was suddenly frozen, listening to the chant in her head, too scared to turn on the board and lose her balance again. But she couldn’t move forward either.
As she stood there, trying to figure what her next move was, a light flashed in her peripheral vision. A firefly. It flashed again, a few feet forward, and this time she saw it plainly. It was so clear that she could make out its little wings and body. The light flashed as bright as a candle even though it was daytime.
Opinion: Magic isn’t just for children with big imaginations. It’s for everyone willing to believe.
Lyla closed her eyes, shutting everything out for just a moment. No more freeze mode. No more flight. This time she was going to fight.
Taking a breath, she opened her eyes, and stepped forward again. It was a silly bucket list. Not checking items off didn’t give her bad luck, surely. The only thing left to repeat itself that summer was saying goodbye to Travis. He’d already said goodbye, though. Keeping him in Echo Cove wasn’t the reason she needed to do this. She needed to do this because she was tired of letting her fear win.
“You can do it!” Allison called from far away.
Lyla didn’t acknowledge her this time. She looked down into the depths of the clear lake water. The fear was still there, taunting her. The urge to turn back was so strong, but she was stronger. I can do this. If she didn’t, some part of her would always regret it.
Sucking in a deep breath, she bent her knees, and canceling out the loud voices in her head, all telling her to turn around and go back, she propelled herself forward. The one-point-five seconds it took for her to hit the water felt like minutes. A million thoughts rushed through her mind as if her life was flashing before her eyes. Her most pressing thought was that she hadn’t done anything in her life that she’d wanted to. She wasn’t who she wanted to be—not yet. She was treading water in this life, surviving but not thriving. She hadn’t succeeded in love, hadn’t landed her dream job. Hadn’t written that book and become the author her younger self had wanted to become.
The water swallowed her up and sucked her down before it spat her back out. She gasped as she broke through the lake’s surface, flailing her arms and legs and thrashing wildly about. Then she laughed as she gathered her bearings, treading water while using her hands to wipe water from her eyes. “Yes! Yes! Yesssssss!” Her voice echoed off the surrounding trees.
She kicked and looked around, making sure she was only making a fool of herself in front of Allison. Then she yelled one more time. “Take that, fear! My professional opinion is that you’re overrated!” Breathlessly, she swam to the shore and lay out on the ground, face up to the sun, soaking in its warmth and this moment. She felt amazing. A weight had been lifted off her, and she imagined that she could float away right now if she wanted to.
Tears rose in her throat, making their way to her eyes. She wasn’t even sure what they were for. Happiness? Sadness? Both?
“I can’t believe you actually did it.” Allison lay back on the shore beside her. “You. Are. Amazing.”
Lyla wiped at a tear that slipped down her cheek and turned her head to look at Allison. “So are you.”
They lay there quietly for minutes that turned into half an hour.
“I wish Travis could have seen me,” Lyla said when she finally sat up. “He won’t believe that I actually jumped. He used to call me a scaredy-cat.”
“Well, you have me as your witness. I saw it. Is this the thing that’s always scared you most?” Allison asked.
Lyla was taken off guard by the question. She thought about her answer, wanting to say yes, but that wouldn’t be the truth. “No,” she finally said.
“No? There’s something scarier than jumping off a piece of wood suspended over a large bottomless lake?”
Lyla’s breath hitched as she realized that, yeah, there was something that had always scared her more. That last summer in Echo Cove had ended with leaving Travis without telling him how she felt. She’d been too terrified that he would laugh or reject her somehow. She was still harboring that same fear.
She could make a different choice this time, though. She could tell Travis how she felt, even if it was scary. Even though he still could leave and probably would. Their relationship didn’t hinge on checking off the final item on their bucket list. It hinged on her taking another leap—a leap of faith.
“I need to go home and get dry,” she told Allison, holding a hand above her eyes to shield them from the sun. “And then I need a glass of wine and some time to think. I have a lot to think about.”
Allison seemed to understand. “I know you do. Anything I can do to help?”
Instead of answering, Lyla leaned over and gave Allison a long, tight hug. “You are the best friend. Thanks for being here. I’ll call you later.”
“If you don’t, I’ll show up at your door,” Allison threatened, pointing a finger in her direction.
“Counting on it.” Lyla stood. “Are you coming?”
“No.” Allison shook her head. “I have some things to think about too. I’m going to sit here a while.”
Lyla nodded. “You’re not jumping though?”
Allison laughed. “No way. I don’t have any bucket list to take care of.”
“We’ll take care of that next summer,” Lyla said.
Allison pulled back and tilted her head. “Sounds like a plan. Can we put hosting a few Dinnerware Parties on your next list?”
“We’ll talk about it. Later.” With a wave, Lyla headed back to her car as a million thoughts raced through her mind at once. She’d jumped off the Pirate’s Plank, but deep down, she knew the only way to change fate for this last looming awful thing—Travis leaving forever—was for her to tell him how she felt.
Travis was upset with her, and she understood why. When she’d left for college, promising to keep in touch, she hadn’t. Now they’d grown close again and her last opinion article had sent a clear message that she wasn’t committed. In his mind, that probably meant that Lyla would ghost him again when she left this time.
Maybe that was true before this afternoon. Maybe she would have let the fear of exploring something real with Travis scare her. Not now, though. Now she knew it was okay to be scared, but jump anyway. Always jump.
Before she put her car in motion, she stared at her phone debating whether to text Travis one more time. He wasn’t responding to her, so she should have gotten the message by now. She should leave him alone. He had made his choice. It was clear. But unable to help herself, her finger began tapping along the screen to send one more text that he could ignore. Maybe not even read.
Lyla: Hi. I was wondering if you knew a good handyman to help me with some damage on my home?
She hit SEND and immediately regretted it. She’d already texted apologies. What more could she say? Nothing. And he was saying nothing as well. On a deep exhalation, she put the car in motion.
Once she got to her parents’ house, she changed clothes and poured herself a red Solo cup of cheap Chardonnay. She had an opinion article to write. One she was pretty sure would be her last. She was tired of holding on so tightly to something she didn’t love anymore. She loved writing, but she was tired of writing opinions that weren’t necessarily hers. It was time to move on. Move forward. Dive into the unknown.
Sitting against her kitchen wall, her laptop laid across her thighs, she sipped and typed. Instead of writing her final article, however, she opened a new Word document and started working on a story. There was no outline. She had no idea what this story was about, but the characters showed up on the page as if they were real live people. Inspiration flowed in and through her, and the story poured out like it was writing itself. She was just the instrument. This is how writing had felt when she was young and had first fallen in love with the process. Writing was supposed to feel like magic, and in this moment, it did. It felt like fireflies and those little coincidences that were never coincidences at all. It felt like those first sparks between two people destined to fall in love.
Opinion: If it feels easy and effortless, it’s probably right.
Being back in Echo Cove felt easy too. She loved this house. No, it was more than that. It was a home. She didn’t mind that her parents were ready to leave. She wasn’t. In fact, maybe she wanted to buy the house. The thought sprang up out of her as if it had come from some other source, just like the words of her story. There’d been some sort of wall blocking her from even considering the thought. But now the wall seemed to have crumbled, and there the thought was. The idea of staying no longer seemed like a death sentence. It felt like the golden ticket to the life of her dreams.
Dreams didn’t have to be on such a grand scale. Dreams could be small, at least in others’ eyes. A dream only needed to feed excitement. Contentment. Happiness.
Who was she, and where had the old Lyla gone? Maybe the old Lyla had been left at the bottom of Memory Lake this morning. She’d plunged into the chilly waters and had left her fear and reservations at the bottom, and she’d come back up taking the first breath of a new life.
As she sipped from her red Solo cup, she poured herself into her story. Time disappeared, which was exactly how it felt to be in “the zone.” Once she was done for the day, she got up and stretched. The list was done, and all the events of that last summer had repeated, playing out in the same, but also different, ways.
All except . . .
Oh, no. A memory surfaced. There was one final disaster from that summer. Sonny. He’d chased a couple of kids on the street, being his watchful, guard dog self and no doubt trying to keep the children safe. And in return, he’d died.
Sonny was dead, but Ms. Hadley had another little dog that loved to chase and bark, as well. What if that was yet another event destined to reoccur?
Crap! Crap, crap, crap! She’d drunk an entire cup of wine. She couldn’t drive. What was the likelihood that this new dog would have the same fate as Sonny? A sane person would say it was next to nothing, but she knew better. Nothing about this summer would make sense to a sane person.
Veering toward the garage, she grabbed her bike and pedaled as hard and fast as she could. Ms. Hadley’s new little dog didn’t come out to chase after her, which was a small confirmation that something horrible might happen. But not if she could stop it first.
Sweat rolled down her face and her breathing was labored. Sonny had been hit near the town square, right where the little memorial for him was these days. She’d just ride around the area and make sure the little dog was nowhere in sight.
As she drew closer to the town square, however, she heard tires screech—an unmistakable sound of a car slamming on brakes. She heard the screams of a child as well.
“No. No, no, no!” Lyla pedaled impossibly faster, nearly getting hit by a car herself. Poor Ms. Hadley couldn’t lose another dog, and Lyla didn’t want to lose this new little dog either. He reminded her so much of Sonny.
Rounding a corner, she saw a car and a blue truck were stopped diagonally in opposing lanes as if they’d hit each other head-on. Travis’s truck.
Lyla got off the bike, threw it down, and raced toward the scene. Travis’s truck and the car had T-boned. The impact was clear, but it didn’t look like they’d hit at high speed. The indentation on both vehicles was minor. In a panic, Lyla searched until she spotted Travis sitting on Sonny’s memorial bench with a little boy at his side. The child was obviously upset, but he didn’t appear to be hurt.
Lyla stopped for a moment, wondering at the scene. As she stood there, a woman ran past her, screaming the boy’s name.
“Jeremiah!”
The boy looked over and ran toward his mother, embracing her and crying harder.
“I was almost hit by a car!” the boy cried, loud enough for Lyla to overhear. His voice was shrill and upset. “If not for the truck, it would have hit me for sure!”
Lyla couldn’t process what she was seeing. She’d come to save the little dog, but there was no dog. Just Travis sitting there, his shoulders rounded as if he was exhausted.
“Are you okay?” she asked, gaining his attention as she walked toward him.
He looked exhausted, like someone who’d been through an ordeal. Honestly, she felt the same. “I suppose so. I’m a hard man to break. At least physically.”
Guilt bloomed in her stomach.
He watched her as she stood there in front of him, wringing her hands. “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same. I thought you left already.”
“I did. Then I remembered that Kevin was nearly hit on his bike that last summer here.”
Lyla’s mouth fell open. “I thought you didn’t believe things were repeating.”
“Maybe it’s not that I believe that things are repeating as much as I believe in you.” His brown eyes narrowed. “I was driving out of town, and I remembered how Ms. Hadley’s little dog was hit chasing Kevin on his bike.”
Kevin, who was now the town’s mayor.
“I thought there was a slim possibility that another kid might find themselves in the same situation. It was nearly noon because the church bells were tolling. I looked at the time on my dash and turned around and came here to the town square.”
“Where the bench for Ms. Hadley’s dog Sonny is now,” Lyla agreed. “That’s why I was racing up here too. I worried another of these wild coincidences might happen.” She looked around for the dog, suddenly worried. If the boy was okay, did that mean—? “Where is he?”
“Where’s who?” Travis asked.
She thought they were on the same page, trying to stop fate one more time. “Ms. Hadley’s dog.”
Travis shook his head. “Ms. Hadley doesn’t have a dog. I did a job for her a few weeks back. She told me she could never replace Sonny.”
“No dog? There wasn’t a little brown dog here?” she asked, her mind whirling.
“Just the boy on the bike, which is what I was looking for. I was parked across the street, waiting for noon to pass to ensure there wasn’t a kid in danger somehow. Truth be told, I was about to leave when I saw the kid ride up on his bike. He was holding an ice cream cone and trying to steer with one hand. Then he veered into the oncoming lane as a car was coming fast. I honked my horn, but realized the driver wasn’t going to see the boy before it was too late.” Travis ran a hand through his hair, looking stressed as he relived the moment. “I hit the gas and just plowed between them.”
“Saving the boy’s life. The woman. Is she okay?” Lyla asked, taking in all the information.
“Yeah. She was texting and driving. She seemed a little shaken up about what nearly happened, but she’s fine. Everyone is fine.”
“Your truck,” Lyla said.
“It can be fixed. As a handyman, it my firm belief that anything can be fixed.” The way he was looking at Lyla suggested he was referring to so much more than just his truck. “Now that my truck is damaged, though, I guess I’ll be staying in Echo Cove a little longer.”
Well, that was new. The first time they’d parted, she’d kept her feelings hidden, and there hadn’t been a second chance for her to say all the things built up inside of her. Maybe that meant fate was changing.
“Travis, I didn’t mean what I wrote in my article. In fact, it was all a huge lie. A lie I told the entire country—and myself. All my opinions over the last year have been lies. They aren’t real. They don’t reflect my true values. My thoughts.”
His brows lifted high on his forehead, but he remained silent, waiting for her to say more.
“I’ve only been writing those things out of fear of losing something I didn’t even want. I only stayed with Joe out of fear of never finding what I truly want and need. Everything I’ve done since leaving town at eighteen has been out of fear.”
“And now?”
“And now . . . Now, I’m still afraid,” she admitted. “In fact, I was terrified when I jumped into Memory Lake this morning.”
Surprise crinkled his forehead. “I thought you didn’t believe it was bad luck not to finish the bucket list.”
“And I thought you didn’t believe things from that last summer together were repeating.”
“Maybe not, but I believe in you, Ly. I always have.”
It was hard to pull in a full breath with all the butterflies— scratch that —fireflies in her stomach. “That’s why you always pushed me with those things on our lists.” She reached out and laid a hand over his. “Travis, I’m sorry I hurt you. If this summer has taught me anything, it’s that do-overs actually do exist. I’m not sure how it would look if we gave our relationship another chance, because I’ll be here in Echo Cove, and you’ll be roaming the world. I want to try, though.”
“What do you mean you’ll be here?” he asked. “Last I heard, you were in a hurry to get on with living your life.”
“That’s still true, but I’ve decided I’ll be living my life here. I’m staying. In fact, I’m buying my parents’ home.” She couldn’t contain the smile that stretched through her cheeks. “I’m also writing the book of my heart, thanks to your encouragement.”
“Yeah? That’s great, Ly. I’m happy for you.”
She laughed even though she was all nerves, knowing the next thing she was about to say. “And I’m hoping my best friend will forgive me and consider widening the friend zone.” She raised a finger. “Because it’s my true opinion that you don’t have to step out of the friend zone to fall in love. In fact, love and friendship go hand in hand.”
Travis’s eyes bore into hers. “That doesn’t sound so delusional to me,” he said quietly.
“That’s because it’s not ‘Delilah’s Delusions’ talking. It’s Lyla Dune. Me.”
His gaze roamed the town square. The commotion had died down, the boy and his mother were gone, and a tow truck was hooking up the woman’s car. “The thing about being a traveling handyman is that I decide where I want to be. I’ve been looking for home since I left town.” He returned his attention to her. “And I think I’ve realized that home has been here all along.”
“Echo Cove?”
“No, Ly.” He angled his body on the bench. “Opinion: Home isn’t a place. It’s a person. For me, home is you.”
She wondered if she should say what she wanted to. The only reason not to was the fear that he might not say it back. But it didn’t matter. When you felt this deeply about someone, you had to say it. No matter what. “I think I love you.”
Travis didn’t even blink. “You think ?”
Her smile was shaky, like her legs while standing on the Pirate’s Plank. She was facing something that terrified her to her core, but turning back wasn’t an option. “I know, actually.”
“This isn’t one of your pranks, is it?” There was a teasing glint to his eyes.
She tilted her head. “You were always more the practical joker. And that would be one brutal prank, wouldn’t it?”
“It would. Because I think I love you too. In fact, I know it.”
The admission felt like nothing Lyla had ever experienced. Like every cell in her body was overflowing with joy. “That’s a good thing.”
“Yeah, it is. Look at the two of us. I wish I could rewind time and get back all the years we’ve lost.”
Lyla shook her head quickly. “No, no—no time traveling, okay? How about we just leave time exactly how it is, shall we? I happen to like this point in time very much.” She tilted her head, watching him. “I was thinking, maybe you need a home with roots to rest up in every now and then.”
“And I might need a traveling partner every now and then too.”
Seeing that she worked remotely, that sounded perfect. “The best of both worlds.”
Something flashed in Lyla’s peripheral vision. She turned to see a tiny firefly as it twinkled again, already knowing that Travis couldn’t see it. She also instinctively understood that it was the last “magic” firefly she’d ever see in broad daylight or in places where fireflies shouldn’t be.
She’d done what she hadn’t even known she’d come home to do. She’d dug up the time capsule full of memories, which were never truly buried in the past, and with Travis, she had completed that old bucket list and faced her fears. Now it was time to move forward.
Opinion: Sometimes moving forward means staying exactly where you are.