Chapter 9 #4
The beard had gotten worse than he’d realized. What had started as stubble had become something shaggy, unkempt, the kind of facial hair that said I’ve given up on mirrors more clearly than any words could.
The dark circles were still there, bruised and permanent. His hair was too long, curling past his collar in a way that might have been artistic if it wasn’t so obviously neglected. His eyes—
His eyes looked tired. Hollow. Like someone had scooped out everything vital and left only the shell.
You’re not how I remember you.
He wasn’t how he remembered himself either.
It’s your story too.
He turned on the hot water. Let it run until steam started to fog the glass.
The razor was in the drawer. He pulled it out. Tested the blade against his thumb.
Still sharp.
He looked at himself one more time. The stranger in the mirror. The man who’d been hiding behind grief and stubble and hollow eyes.
He picked up the shaving cream. Lathered his jaw. Lifted the razor to his face.
The first stroke revealed skin he barely recognized. Pale. Vulnerable. The sharp line of his jaw that used to be visible, back when he was the kind of person who showed up for things.
He kept going. Slow, careful strokes. The beard falling away in pieces, swirling down the drain.
When he finished, he rinsed his face with cold water. Looked up.
The man in the mirror wasn’t fixed. Wasn’t healed. The dark circles were still there. The tiredness. The weight of three years of grief.
But he was closer. Closer to the person he remembered. Closer to the person Emma would recognize.
The person he might recognize.
He grabbed a towel. Dried off. Walked back downstairs.
The kitchen was empty.
The coffee maker was cold. No mug waiting on the counter. No sounds of her moving through his space, tidying things he’d stopped noticing were messy.
For one terrible moment, the old fear surged—then he saw her through the window.
She was standing on the dock, silhouetted against the sunset.
The September sky had gone full fire—oranges and pinks and deep bruised purples streaking across the horizon, the lake reflecting it all back like molten glass.
The dogs sat at her feet, Huck’s head resting on his paws, Finn pressed against her ankle.
She wasn’t doing anything. Just standing there. Watching the light fade over the water.
The wind caught her hair, blowing it across her face, and she reached up to tuck it back—that same gesture, over and over, the one he’d been noticing all day. Something shifted in his chest. Cracked open a little further.
You two are ridiculous.
Emma’s voice. From that summer, from the firepit, from a thousand moments when she’d caught him looking at Livvie and refused to let him pretend he wasn’t.
Just kiss already.
He’d told her to shut up. He’d told her it wasn’t like that. He’d told her Livvie was too young, too much her friend, too much of everything he didn’t deserve.
Emma had just rolled her eyes. Sure, Nate. Whatever you say. But she’ll be back. And when she is, try not to be such a coward about it.
He stood at the window, watching Livvie watch the sunset, and thought:
You’re right, Em.
She’s back.
And maybe he had to stop being a coward about it.
He stood there a moment longer. Then he turned away from the window and walked back to his office.
The laptop was still open. The cursor blinking, expectant, waiting.
He sat down.
Put his fingers on the keys.
Aldric pressed his palm to the ancient stone, and the wall woke up.
The words came slowly at first. Then faster. Sentences stacking on sentences, the story unfurling like something that had been waiting—coiled and patient—for him to finally reach for it.
The sunset faded to dusk. The dusk deepened to dark. He heard Livvie come back inside, heard the dogs’ nails clicking on the hardwood, heard her moving quietly through the kitchen like she was trying not to disturb him.
She didn’t knock. Didn’t check on him. Just let him write.
He wrote until his eyes burned. Until his coffee went cold and his back ached and the words started blurring together on the screen.
When he finally stopped, the clock on his laptop read 11:47 p.m.
He looked at the word count.
Two thousand three hundred and twelve words.
He sat back in his chair. Stared at the screen. Let out a breath he felt like he’d been holding for three years.
The house was quiet. Livvie must have gone back to her aunt’s house hours ago. The dogs were asleep somewhere—he could hear Huck snoring.
But he didn’t feel alone.
Emma’s chair sat in the corner, the blanket undisturbed. And for the first time since she’d died, looking at it didn’t make him want to disappear.
Not bad, he could almost hear her say.
He saved the document. Closed the laptop. And walked upstairs to bed.
Tomorrow, Livvie would come back. Tomorrow, he’d have to tell her what’d happened—the words, the breakthrough, the two thousand three hundred and twelve reasons to believe he might actually finish this book.
Tomorrow, everything might change.
But tonight, for the first time in three years, Nate Rivers fell asleep without dreading what came next.