Chapter 18 Moira Sullivan
MOIRA SULLIVAN
NATE
The dock creaks under my feet as I watch the sun bleed orange across the water. Everything's too quiet—no wind, no birds, just the gentle lap of waves against the pilings like the dock.
I fucked up, again.
Coming home to see those fucking flowers sitting on the kitchen counter like a declaration of war. Flowers were one thing, but the fucking card, with its casual mention of "that kiss" like it was nothing, like it didn't tear a hole straight through my chest.
I snapped and just completely fucking lost it.
The rational part of my brain knew it wasn't Nora's fault, obviously.
She did nothing wrong, it's not like she asked for some guy to send her flowers.
She doesn't even like flowers, at least not those flowers.
She's more of a wildflower kind of girl—daisies or sunflowers, something simple and honest that doesn't wilt after three days.
But like always, I shut down every time someone gets too close, and I snapped at her like she was the enemy. Like she hadn't spent god knows how many years proving she wasn't going anywhere.
The thing is, I'm not fucking naive. I know she had every right to build a life in London that didn't include me after last summer. After the way I left things. But knowing something logically and feeling it in your gut are two different beasts entirely.
The thought of her world existing without me in it—of her being happy, fulfilled, loved by someone else—it feels like drowning with my eyes wide open.
And then there’s the whole thing with Jake, which already had my nerves scraped raw. The flowers from Liam were just the match that lit the whole fucking powder keg.
My hands are still shaking.
Not from anger anymore—that burned out the moment I saw her face crumple.
Now it's something else.
Something that feels like standing at the edge of a cliff and realizing the ground beneath your feet was never solid to begin with. I run my palm over my jaw.
Fuck, I'm an idiot.
How could a heart like hers ever love a heart like mine? That's the thought that fucks with me the most.
It's the one that keeps me awake at night, the one I try to drown out with anything that makes enough noise to quiet the voice that tells me I'm fighting a losing battle.
There was a time when I would have reached for something stronger to silence that voice. Pills stolen from Mom’s medicine cabinets, whatever I could find at parties, anything that would blur the edges of thoughts too sharp to live with.
Not because I wanted to get high to feel good.
I just wanted to feel less. Less angry, less afraid, less like I was drowning in my own head every time someone got close enough to matter.
The twisted psychology of it wasn't lost on me—I'd learned early that if I hurt myself first, really went deep with the self-destruction, it somehow made everyone else's abandonment hurt less.
Like building up an immunity to pain by injecting yourself with small doses of poison.
The irony wasn't lost on me even then: using substances to numb the pain of watching my mom destroy herself with alcohol or sleeping pills.
But when you're fifteen and everything inside you feels like broken glass, logic doesn't factor into survival.
You just do whatever it takes to make it through another day without bleeding out.
The thoughts lead back to the original question: How could a heart like Nora's ever love a heart like mine?
Hers is all soft edges and open doors.
She gives pieces of herself away like she has an endless supply, like she doesn't know how rare that kind of generosity is. How dangerous it can be.
Mine came with deadbolts and warning signs.
Scarred over from too many people who took what they wanted and left. I learned to love with my fists clenched, ready to fight or flee.
But I guess some hearts understand each other even in silence. She never asks me to explain those kinds of feelings. Just sits beside them like they're not weapons aimed at anyone who gets too close.
Talks to me like I'm not dangerous, like the sharp edges weren't designed to cut. And I never ask her to dim that light of hers. Even when it hurts to look at.
Even when it shows me everything I'm not.
Of course she should go back to London.
Of course she should follow her heart, her dreams.
Even if none of them include me.
Maybe that's what love really is.
Not two identical hearts beating in perfect rhythm, but two different kinds of broken finding a way to fit together.
Her openness doesn't make sense with my caution.
My darkness shouldn't complement her light.
But it does.
Somehow, it does.
The sun has dropped lower while I've been lost in my thoughts, painting the water in shades of amber and rust. The light catches on the ripples, fracturing into a thousand tiny mirrors that dance and disappear.
There's something almost violent about the beauty of it—the way the sky bleeds color across the horizon before surrendering to darkness.
Like the day is putting on one last show before it dies.
I always preferred sunrises to sunsets.
Maybe because it's the start of a new day, filled with hope rather than the slow death of another twenty-four hours. But standing here now, watching the sky turn from gold to deep purple, I think maybe I've been looking at it all wrong.
Maybe there's something beautiful in the ending too—in the way light fights against the dark before letting go. Maybe sunsets aren't about death at all, but about the promise that even when everything falls apart, there's still tomorrow waiting on the other side.
I hear footsteps on the dock behind me and I don't have to turn around to know it's her—I'd recognize the way she walks anywhere.
The slight hesitation before each step when she's thinking, the way she favors her left foot just barely since she broke her ankle, climbing a tree that one summer.
When I finally do turn, she's closer than I expected.
Close enough that I can see the careful composure on her face, the way she's holding herself together like she's made of glass and one wrong move might shatter everything.
She looks calm.
And that scares me more than if she'd come here screaming. I'd almost prefer she did that.
"Hi," she says quietly, stopping a few feet away.
My voice comes out low, controlled. “Nora, I—what I said was out of line.”
Her breath stutters. Just barely.
“It was.”
The honesty is sharper than anger.
“I shouldn’t have—” I swallow. “You didn’t deserve any of that.”
She steps closer, her eyes searching mine like she’s looking for something she’s scared she won’t find.
“You shut me out,” she says quietly. “You didn’t even ask.”
“I know.” It comes out hoarse. “I know.”
I drag a hand to the back of my neck. I can’t look at her because the truth is too close.
“I was a complete fucking asshole.”
“Yeah, you were.” She says, but there’s no heat, no judgment, just fact.
“I saw the flowers and the card. And it just—” I shake my head.
"I know what you saw." She cuts me off, but gently. "And I know what it looked like. But you didn't ask me about it. You just assumed." She looks out to the water, contemplating something. “It doesn’t excuse it. But… I get it.”
She shouldn’t. She shouldn’t understand me this well.
Then she says it. Calm and steady, like she practiced it on the walk over.
“I don’t need you, Nate.”
It hits like a blunt blow to the ribs. Not sharp enough to drop me, just enough to make it hard to breathe. But she steps closer—close enough for warmth to reach me.
“I want you.” Her voice is firmer now, but low.
“I want you on purpose,” she says.
I close my eyes just for a second because it feels too good. She strokes my hair out of my face, and I swear I feel it everywhere.
My throat feels tight, like I'm trying to swallow around broken glass. "Len—"
"What I’m trying to say is, I love you by choice, Nate," she interrupts, and the words knock the air out of my lungs.
"Not by necessity. I love you because I wake up every morning and decide to love you.
Because even when you're being an ass, even when you're scared, even when you're convinced I'm going to leave—I. Still. Choose. You."
She touches my face, her palm warm against my cheek. "I choose you, Nate. Every single day."
"Say it again," I whisper, my voice barely audible.
“I—”
Before she can answer, I'm kissing her—desperate and hungry and like she's the only thing keeping me tethered to the earth. When we break apart, both of us breathing hard, her forehead pressed against mine, I can feel something fundamental shift in my chest.
Like puzzle pieces clicking into place after years of trying to force the wrong shapes together.
"I've never not been yours," I say simply, the words carrying the weight of every fear I've ever had about not being enough, about being too broken to deserve this kind of love.
And for once, it doesn’t feel like losing.
The drive with Mom should’ve been easy—one of those peaceful mornings we’ve been trying to reclaim. Pick up the last of the wedding decorations, grab a coffee, maybe talk about nothing in a way that feels like something.
Lately, the distance between who we were and who we’re trying to be has been shrinking, and for the first time in a long time, it felt like maybe we were finding our way back to each other.
By the time we’re standing in the farmer’s market, sun slipping through the awnings and Mom weighing apricots like they’re delicate little decisions, I almost let myself believe it.
For a minute, I’m just holding a paper bag and pretending this—this small, domestic calm—is our normal.
“So, how are you doing Nate? Really doing, since you’ve been back?”
There’s a carefulness to her tone and I can feel her watching me from the side, waiting for some unpredictable reaction. Waiting for me to be, what? Fragile? Explosive?
“You don’t have to tiptoe around me,” I say, tossing an apricot between my palms. “I’m not Scott.”