Chapter 17 Two Things Can Be True At Once
TWO THINGS CAN BE TRUE AT ONCE
NORA
The bell over Gracie’s Bookstore door chimes the way it always has—soft but insistent, like it’s gently calling me back to myself.
I step inside, and the air wraps around me in that familiar scent of old paper, dust, and something faintly floral—lavender, maybe, from the sachets Gracie used to hide between romance novels so customers would “breathe in love while reading about it.”
The floorboards hum underfoot the way they did when I was eight, when every squeak felt like a secret.
Sunlight slants through the front windows in buttery ribbons, catching motes that look like planets suspended in stillness.
Time here breathes differently; it slows just enough for me to let my shoulders drop and remember how to inhale without counting.
And then there’s Alfie.
He emerges from behind a leaning stack of leather-bound volumes, his face folding into that warm, crinkled smile that reads like a welcome-home. We meet halfway in a hug that undoes the city from my bones for a minute, the kind of embrace that doesn’t ask anything of you except to be present.
“Well hello, stranger. Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” he says, voice full of that weathered warmth. “You were missed while you were away, Miss Lenora.”
“I missed you too, Alfie.” The words are true in a way I don’t bother to qualify.
What I love about him most is what he doesn’t do. He doesn’t do the small, reflex questions—no, not the hollow “How was London?” or the performative “Are you okay?” that people sling around because silence makes them nervous.
Alfie reads the space between my sentences.
Then, as if he’s reaching for something that matters, he asks, “So tell me… what have you been reading?”
It lands perfectly—less a question than an invitation. Books have always been the place I sort myself out.
“The Bell Jar,” I say.
“Ah—Sylvia Plath.” He adjusts his glasses, the way he does when he’s gearing up to go somewhere interesting. “An excellent choice.”
Then, as if pulling a thread through conversation, he reaches for a book on the shelf.
“May I recommend something?”
He holds up The Hours, and I shake my head—not in refusal, but in that curious tilt that means yes, tell me more.
“It threads three women together across eras,” he says. “Weaves the ordinary into meaning. Reminds us that who we are now is not lessened by who we might have been.”
I accept the book with a smile that feels like something loosening—a muscle remembering its job.
He settles into his usual armchair; I sink into the next one over, and I’m eleven all over again, building worlds with Jake in these very seats. He asks about writing and I tell him about the essay—about how the piece on him and Gracie led to the scholarship.
His face lights up like the reward is partly his, which it is.
“And—the publishing house? They want a manuscript,” I say, swallowing some of the strangeness that comes with naming it out loud.
“Nora, that’s extraordinary,” he says, joy plain on his face.
“I guess,” I answer, and my own voice surprises me with its flatness.
He notices because of course he notices.
“Why the hesitation?” he asks, soft as always.
I could rattle off reasons—too young, too inexperienced, timing—but I give him the honest one.
“Fear, I guess.”
“Of course,” he answers without a blink. “We grow up thinking fear needs to disappear before we can move. It won’t. You don’t wait for it to vanish—you learn to walk with it until you don’t notice it holding you back.”
He says it like someone who’s walked that path a few times. The words settle but then the other thing shifts into place—the weight I’ve been carrying alone.
“Go on then,” he says gently. “What else is on your mind?”
“I’m keeping the truth from someone I care about,” I admit. “And it’s… eating at me. More than I want to acknowledge. If I tell them, I could ruin everything. But if I don’t…” I trail off, swallowing. “I keep dying a little inside.”
Alfie studies me for a long moment, fingers steepled, eyes kind but sharp. Then he asks the exact, awful question I’ve been avoiding.
“Are you shielding him from the truth,” he says softly, “or shielding yourself from the consequences?”
“How did you—”
He smiles, a hint of mischief breaking through the wisdom. “I may be an old man, but I’m an old man who pays attention.” Then, gentler now, he repeats, “So tell me—are you protecting him, or protecting yourself?”
It lands like a clean strike, and I have nothing pretty to say in response. My throat works around a dozen half-formed thoughts, none of them brave enough to make it past my teeth.
“I don’t know anymore.”
The words fall out of me small, raw, like they’ve been scraped loose from somewhere tender.
Alfie nods, slow and thoughtful, as if he expected nothing less.
“Confusion is honest at least,” he says. “Certainty is often just fear wearing a tidy mask.”
I look at him, startled, and he smiles gently.
“You know,” he continues, leaning back in his chair, “people think clarity arrives like lightning—sudden, bright, unmistakable. But more often, it’s a tide. It comes in quietly, inch by inch, reshaping the shore while you’re busy staring at the storm.”
I swallow, the weight in my chest shifting in a way that feels almost like relief.
“So what do I do?” I ask.
His words settle over the space between us, not heavy, but grounding—like someone quietly placing a stone in your hand and trusting you to know what to do with it. For a moment, neither of us speaks.
“Thank you,” I whisper, because there isn’t a bigger or better word that fits.
Alfie smiles, that soft, knowing bend of his mouth that always makes me feel eight years old and entirely seen.
“Oh—before I go, do you have any editions of The Chronicles of Narnia? I want to give it to someone.”
A knowing smile crawls up his face, gentle as dusk.
“Wait here” he says, before shifting from his chair and walking towards the back of the store.
I watch the familiar shuffle of his steps, the way his fingers trail along spines as if greeting old friends, and when he returns, he’s holding a battered early copy of The Chronicles of Narnia. The exact edition Jake and I used to fight over.
My hand goes instinctively to my pocket.
“How much do I—”
Alfie clicks his tongue, already offended on principle.
“No. Absolutely not.”
“Alfie—”
He presses the book into my hands with surprising firmness.
“Family doesn’t pay here,” he says with a wink.
The word family lands softly—warm, anchoring, right.
He will be a part of us soon.
The feeling follows me home—a quiet, steady warmth in my chest—right up until I pull into the driveway and see Nate sitting on the front steps. And instantly, I know something’s wrong.
His posture is a fortress, his shoulders are tense and jaw is tight. It’s the kind of stillness that isn’t calm at all, but more like containment.
“Hey,” I say softly, sliding down beside him.
Nothing.
“What’s wrong?”
He looks at me, and the hurt in his eyes knocks the breath from my lungs.
“Liam sent you flowers.”
The words shouldn’t matter but he says them like they do.
“What?” I get to my feet. “Nate—”
“They look pretty expensive.”
“And?” My voice sharpens.
“It’s a cute romantic gesture.”
I stare at him.
“Don’t—don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make accusations.”
“That’s not an accusation,” he fires back, shifting on the porch step as if the wood itself has gone uncomfortable beneath him. He plants his elbows on his knees, fingers laced, head bowed for a breath—then he looks up at me, eyes sharp, guarded.
“There are flowers. From a guy you met in London. In the kitchen.”
“Why are you being like this?”
“Like what?”
“You’re being—” I swallow hard. “You’re being unfair.”
“Unfair?” His voice cracks—barely, but enough that my ribs go tight.
He scrubs a hand over his mouth, then pushes himself upright from the step in one fluid, restless motion, coming to stand toe-to-toe with me.
He isn’t looming—just meeting me, eye-level, as if he needs to see the truth in my face and nowhere else.
“You’re going back,” he says, breath unsteady. “Aren’t you? End of summer? Back to London? Back to him.”
“I don’t know—”
“What are we even doing, Nora?” he says, running both hands over his face. “What the fuck are we doing?”
The words slice right through me because they echo something I haven’t dared admit.
“You really don’t trust this,” I whisper. “After everything.”
“How can I when it feels like you’re building a life that doesn’t include me,” he says, voice breaking. “Fuck.”
It hurts. God, it hurts.
And then he says, “I can’t do this right now,” and walks toward the dock without looking back.
Inside, the bouquet sits on the counter. Nate was right about one thing, they do look ridiculously expensive. I open the card, and Liam’s tidy handwriting stares up at me:
Please answer my calls.
I have exciting news you need to hear.
And just so you know, I don’t regret the kiss.
Liam x
Heat flares through me—anger, frustration, guilt, all tangled.
I text him quickly:
Nora
Thank you for the flowers, but you shouldn’t have. Sorry for not calling, things are a little crazy right now. What’s the big news?
I hit send before I can overthink it then stand there for a long moment until my phone buzzes.
Liam
The flowers were a congratulations because she read it and she loved it. Like I told you she would!
Liam
She wants to set up a meeting when you’re back to chat about potentially publishing your manuscript.
Liam
When are you back by the way? Missing you at the office. Morning coffee’s aren’t the same x
My first instinct is to retreat and give Nate space, give myself space, let the dust settle so neither of us shatters.
But that’s the old pattern, the old fear.
So I breathe and I think of Alfie and the conversation I just had with him. Of how fear masquerades as protection, and how joy—quiet, steady joy—asks more of you than running ever does.
Nate is out on the dock, shoulders curled in on themselves, fighting a storm he thinks he has to weather alone. And maybe in the past, I would’ve let him. I would’ve convinced myself that distance equaled safety.
But I’m done shrinking.
I’m done choosing silence over truth.
Despite the argument, despite the fear and the tangled uncertainty, he’s still the person my heart moves toward—not away from.
So I take a step, then another.
Toward the wind.
Toward the water.
Toward the boy I love—carrying my fear with me instead of letting it decide for me.