Chapter 13 #3
“But that’s why I came to visit my aunt that last summer. Because he was dating someone, and he didn’t want me in the way.”
Oh, Livvie.
“He didn’t marry her, but he did remarry within a couple years of Mom’s death.
Katherine. I never even went to the wedding, and we’ve barely spoken since.
Suddenly I had this stepfamily that wasn’t really mine.
And my dad…” She finally looked at him, and her eyes were bright with tears she was refusing to shed.
“He barely talks to me now. Not out of anger. Not because I did something wrong. I’m just not important enough to think about. I’m not on his radar. I never was.”
The words hung in the cool morning air.
“That’s the worst part,” she said quietly. “If he hated me, at least that would mean I mattered enough to hate. But I’m just…not significant. Not to him. I never was.”
Something fierce and hot rose in Nate’s chest. Something that wanted to find her father and shake him. And maybe everyone who made her feel invisible.
Including himself, maybe.
“Your father is an idiot.”
She startled. “What?”
“I’m serious.” He looked at the water, jaw tight. “He has this incredible daughter—someone who sees people, who believes in them even when they’ve stopped believing in themselves, who makes beautiful things happen just by caring—and he doesn’t even call?”
“Nate—”
“You are not invisible, Livvie.” He turned to face her, and the resignation in her expression made his chest ache. “Your father just isn’t looking. But I am.” His voice dropped, rough at the edges. “I’m looking. And I see you.”
She didn’t speak. Just stood there, her gaze locked in his.
Something enormous pressed against his ribs as the moment stretched on, but just as he began to wonder whether it would crush his lungs, she reached over and laced her fingers through his.
Just that. Just the warm press of her hand against his, steady and certain in the brightening air.
He didn’t pull away. His thumb traced a slow circle against her knuckle, and the lake held its breath.
“Aunt Lila was the one who saw me,” Livvie continued.
“I barricaded myself at her place in New York on the weekends and spent summers here, and she was the one who introduced me to the publishing world. Told me I was worth more than the space I didn’t take up.
” A small, sad smile. “But I’ve never really believed it.
Not down where it counts. I’ve spent my whole career being useful. Being easy. Being invisible.”
She looked at him. The first light was strengthening, her face half in shadow, but he could see her clearly. The freckles. The tear tracks. The hurt she was trusting him with.
And he just wanted to pull her into his arms and tell her that she was safe.
“That’s why I didn’t tell you about the deadline,” she said. “I was trying to be useful. Trying to manage the problem so you wouldn’t have to deal with it. Because that’s what I do. That’s what I’ve always done. Made myself necessary by solving things no one asked me to solve.”
He reached over with his free hand. Touched her arm. Just briefly—his fingers on the soft wool of her cardigan—and she stilled.
“Why aren’t you running that agency?”
She blinked. “What?”
“You heard me.” He didn’t let her deflect, didn’t let her look away.
“You see things other people miss. You know what makes a story work. You believed in this book, in me, when everyone else had written me off. So why are you letting them treat you like you’re disposable?
Why are you still junior anything when you should be running the whole operation? ”
She stared at him. Her lips parted, but no sound came out.
“I’m serious. You keep talking about being invisible, being easy, not taking up space. But you’re not invisible to me. You’re the most—” He stopped. Swallowed. “You’re not invisible. Not even close.”
The silence stretched. Her eyes turned glossy, her cheeks flushed. She opened her mouth, paused, then closed it again.
“What?” he said.
“Nothing.” She shook her head. “Just…an email I received.”
“Your face doesn’t say ‘nothing.’” He squeezed her hand. “Show me.”
She released his hand, then pulled out her phone and tapped the screen a few times before passing it over to him. “I emailed her just before I came to Maple Lake—and maybe I shouldn’t have. But she replied yesterday.”
Nate read the email thread between Livvie and a Nora Whitcomb. Twice, scrolling slowly.
“You found this writer,” he said. Not a question.
“Well, I flagged her query letter. Richard made the call to—”
“Don’t do that.”
She blinked. “Don’t do what?”
“Don’t minimize your work to make someone else comfortable.” He passed the phone back, and she turned it over in her hands, stared at it as though rotating it took all her concentration.
“You’ve been doing it since you got here. ‘Richard knows best.’ ‘I’m just a junior agent.’ You are brilliant at what you do, Livvie. Why do you keep pretending you’re not?”
She stilled.
“You told me Emma would want me to claim my own voice.” He reached for her hand again, and Livvie finally raised her eyes to meet his. “So I’m telling you the same thing. Stop waiting for permission to be who you already are.”
“It’s not that simple—”
“Say it.”
“Say what?”
“You found that writer. You pulled her out of the slush pile. You saw what no one else saw. Say it.”
She swallowed and looked out at the lake. Just breathed for a moment. In, out. In, out. Then, “I found her,” she whispered.
“Louder.”
“I found Nora Whitcomb’s manuscript. I pulled it from the reject pile. I gave the notes that made it work. And I should be the one who gets the credit—” She stopped. Pressed her lips together.
Nate couldn’t have resisted the smile that broke free, even if he’d wanted to. “There it is,” he said quietly.
She laughed—a wet, wobbly sound that surprised them both. “You’re insufferable.”
“Learned from the best.”
She wiped her eyes with the back of her free hand. The lake glittered. And Nate suddenly became very conscious of the hand he still held. The soft warmth. The…connection.
Something clicked in his head. Like a key turning. Like a door opening.
“Wait,” he said. “I have an idea.”
He stood, tugging her up with him. “Come inside. I want to try something.”
The house was cold—he’d let the fire die while he was wallowing in self-pity—but he didn’t stop to stoke it. He crossed to his desk, grabbed the pad of yellow Post-its and a pen, and thrust them at her.
“Write,” he said. “Everything I say. One scene per note.”
She took the pad, confused. “Nate—”
“Trust me.” He was pacing now, the energy building in his chest. “You said you wished you could help me write the words. You can’t write them—but you can help me see them.
That’s how Emma and I used to work. She’d tell the story, I’d ask the questions, and we’d come up with the answers, and by the time we were done, I’d know what the story needed. ”
He stopped pacing. Looked at her.
“So ask me questions. And when I answer, write down the scenes. We’ll map the whole thing. All ten chapters. Everything that needs to happen.”
She uncapped the pen. “Okay. Where does Aldric go after the grave scene?”
“He has to reach Elara before the Blood Moon. But the forest of the Valdorians stands between him and the city of Sintra. He thinks he can’t get through—he’s been told his whole life that only masters can survive the forest. But his mentor left him something. A key. A piece of himself.”
She wrote. Slapped the note on the wall. “What’s the key?”
“I don’t know yet. But it’s connected to what Morvain taught him. Something Aldric thought was weakness—his ability to feel, to empathize—turns out to be the thing that unlocks everything.”
Another note. Another slap on the wall.
“What about Kaela? The woman who’s been helping him.”
“She has secrets of her own. Aldric doesn’t know yet that she’s—” He stopped. The story was crystallizing in his mind as he talked. “She’s working for the people who want him to fail. Or she was. She changed sides. But she hasn’t told him yet. She’s afraid he won’t forgive her.”
Slap. “Does he forgive her?”
“I don’t know.” He ran his hands through his hair. “I think so. I think he has to. The whole point of the story is that you don’t heal alone. You can’t. You need other people. Even when they disappoint you. Especially when they disappoint you.”
Livvie paused, pen hovering over the pad. Their eyes met.
“Okay,” she said softly. “Keep going.”
He kept going. The scenes poured out of him—plot threads he’d been carrying for years, character arcs he’d outlined with Emma, new ideas that sparked as he talked.
Livvie wrote and listened and asked the right questions at the right moments, and the wall filled with yellow squares, a constellation of story.
The confrontation. The betrayal. The reconciliation. The final battle. The epilogue.
When he finally ran out of words, the wall was covered. Fifty Post-its, maybe more. A map. A path through the chaos.
“This was all in your head?” she asked, stepping back to look at it.
“Mostly.” He moved to stand beside her, both of them studying the yellow squares. “Emma wrote some of it down in her notebooks. Although there’s one I can’t find—the one with the finale ending. The blue one with her initials on it.” He shook his head. “But we’ll figure it out when we get there.”
She was quiet for a moment. Something flickered across her face, but it was gone before he could read it.
“This is amazing,” she said. “Ten chapters. It’s all right here.”
“Because of you.” He turned to face her. “I couldn’t have done this alone. I tried. For three years, I tried. And the only thing that worked was you showing up and refusing to let me disappear.”
She lifted her fist to bump his.
He looked at it. Then reached out and pulled her to himself instead.
And just like that, she was in his arms.
He’d meant it as a hug of gratitude. A thank-you. Something simple and friendly and safe.
But the moment her body pressed against his, nothing about it was simple.