Chapter 2
TWO
HALLIE
“Rise and shine, babycakes!”
I groan as sunlight blasts through the living room, thanks to the curtains my best friend just threw open.
The light illuminates our cramped quarters, which have been made worse by the piles of moving boxes shoved into the available spaces around the room.
Same as when I first left home, I don’t have much in the way of belongings, but Clara’s apartment is really small.
“Too bright,” I whine, pulling my blanket over my head. Until it’s rudely ripped away.
“Up,” Clara demands. In answer to my quizzical look, she nudges my knee. “You’re not allowed to wallow on my couch today. This is now a wallow-free zone.”
I pout. “But I’m comfy.”
“Hallie, babe, I love you, but this isn’t you.” She shoves my legs aside and perches on the edge of the couch cushion. “Where has my bestie girl gone?”
I lost her, and I’m not sure how to get her back .
I’ve known Clara Bowman since our first day of kindergarten twenty-four years ago.
We’ve been inseparable since. For the first few years, our teachers had a hard time telling us apart.
We were both blonde, and we often wore similar outfits.
The only difference was Clara’s were new while mine were hand-me-downs and thrift store purchases.
When we hit our teen years, though, things changed. Clara started to stand out while I wanted nothing more than to fade into the background. I worried sometimes that she would tire of me, but she hasn’t left my side, even when I left hers.
“She’s on strike. Try again tomorrow.” I attempt to pull my blanket back up, but Clara doesn’t budge.
“I know being back home feels weird, but hiding away inside is only going to prolong the inevitable,” she says.
She’s right. Returning home and winding up on her doorstep, tail tucked between my legs, is certainly not how I pictured my life going when I set my sights on the city all those years ago.
Leaving the island behind for the lure of the unknown—for this big city that wouldn’t hesitate to chew me up and spit me out—felt preferable to staying stagnant in this town that was slowly bleeding me dry.
I was damned no matter how you sliced it, so I took the coward’s way out. But life is a circle, and one way or another, you end up back where you started. For me, that place is Kip Island.
Hemmed in on all sides by the waters of Lake Huron, the island is a popular tourist destination when the weather is warm. Cottagers flock here on the weekends and holidays during the summer months. For the people who live here year-round, the island is home. A community. Family.
That closeness was both a blessing and a curse growing up. Now that I’m back, I haven’t yet decided which is most true.
I offer Clara a small smile. “I’m scared.”
While I’m not a celebrity by any stretch of the imagination, every resident of the island has a certain level of notoriety among the locals.
My family is well-known in that regard, for reasons a lot less wholesome than the Bowmans’.
Growing up, my mother was something of a problem child, and as a result, I had all kinds of eyes on me.
Waiting to see if I’d follow in her footsteps.
Clara’s eyes soften, and she takes my hands in hers.
“You’re going to figure things out, Hallie.
Losing your job and giving up your apartment in such a small span is a lot of change.
That would throw anyone for a loop. But as your best friend, it’s my duty to keep you from withering away in here while life passes you by. ”
Guilt churns in my stomach. Clara took me in without hesitation when I came back to town ten days ago.
Her apartment is barely a one-bedroom. As it is, she has little space for her home library—an impressive collection of books she has been curating for years—yet she hasn’t complained once about sharing it with me. I need to get myself together.
“Can you do me a favour?” she asks. “Just this one thing, and that’ll be your accomplishment for the day.”
I nod. It’s the least I can do. While I’ve been doing my best to clean up after myself and keep out of her way, I feel a little bad that I’ve essentially commandeered her living room for the foreseeable future.
“I have a list of things I need from the store, but I need to head to Dockside,” she explains. “Can you go for me? You can take my car, if you drop me off first.”
Dockside, the restaurant built into the base of the island’s old lighthouse, is owned by her parents. Clara has worked there since we were in high school, but she’s been managing it for about five years now, and it’s effectively her baby. The only baby she’ll ever have, according to her.
“Of course I can.”
She grins as we both stand up from the couch. Then, never one to pass up the opportunity for a good hug, she throws her arms around me. Settling into the familiar weight, I let out a sigh.
“I’ve missed you, Hallie girl,” she says. “Welcome home.”
I blink back the sting of tears. I want to tell her nothing has felt like home in a long, long time, and coming back here makes me feel like a failure. I want to tell her that I’m homesick for something I fear doesn’t exist anymore, if it ever did.
But I don’t.
The shopping list Clara texted me is a mile long. I know for sure she has enough tampons stocked up to last a year, so it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that she sent me on this goose chase to keep me out of the apartment for as long as possible.
I can’t blame her, though. Any longer and I’d probably transform into a sad lump of goo on her couch.
It’s hard to admit, but walking through the parking lot of the grocery store with the early September sun beating down on me feels…good. Normal. And I needed that—normal.
But normal promptly goes out the window as soon as I step into the cool embrace of the air conditioning.
I’ve never felt more on display than I do right now. Eyes. So many eyes. Some are strangers simply following a natural inclination to stare at anything new, but some are people I’ve known since I was a kid. If it isn’t already popular knowledge that I’m back, it will be now.
Trying to appear unaffected, I grab a shopping cart and pull up Clara’s list. As I head for the produce section, the store manager watches me with a curl of his lip.
Gordon has never liked me, even back when I worked for him one summer as a cashier.
Then again, I’m not sure he likes anyone.
What he’s doing in a job that forces him to interact with the public, I’ll never know.
Slowly, as I round up food and household items, I can feel those stares fall away. A melancholic woman shopping for groceries doesn’t make for good gossip fodder, it seems. I’m relieved.
Until I hear someone loudly calling my name.
“Hallie! Hallie Foster!”
When I turn, my cheeks heat at the amount of people looking in my direction now. Leave it to Carole Dramus to draw every ounce of attention in the building.
“I thought that was you!” Carole exclaims with a beaming grin. “I missed you at Delilah’s exhibition the other week.”
The day I got into town, Clara dragged me to Haven House, her childhood home. I hadn’t been there in years, long before her parents turned it into the bed-and-breakfast many tourists now know and love.
That night, half the town was at the house because Clara’s older brother was trying to grand gesture his way back into the good graces of the woman he had fallen for. When Clara told me about Luke’s plan to hold Delilah’s photography exhibition there, I stupidly agreed to go.
That decision came back to bite me when I locked gazes with the one person I’ve been desperate to avoid for the past ten years.
The town, I can… sort of handle. Gabriel Bowman? Not so much.
You would think that by now, I wouldn’t care this much. That seeing him wouldn’t send me into a tailspin. But every time I think about him, I think about that day on the beach.
It isn’t like I’ve been totally cut off from him. Over the years, Clara has told me bits and pieces. I know he has a daughter. I know his life has been steadily moving forward in my absence. But sometimes, that just makes it hurt even more.
“Sorry,” I say to Carole. “I was pretty tired from the move. I slipped out early.”
Not a total lie. Just a small, partial one.
She pats my arm. “No bother! But listen, I’ve been meaning to talk to you. Clara mentioned you’re back for the long haul, and I’m looking to cut back on the amount of hours I spend at the gallery. You wouldn’t happen to be looking for some work, would you?”
Ever since my most recent nannying position was made obsolete, I’ve been trying to make a plan.
But as far as plans go, I currently have none.
With the tourist season on Kip Island winding down soon, the job options are limited.
There is more opportunity on the mainland, but taking the ferry to work every day isn’t ideal when I don’t have my own car.
I could only borrow Clara’s for so long.
When I smile, it feels like the first genuine one I’ve worn in weeks. Months. “Actually, Carole, that would be great.”
She claps. “Wonderful! It’s unfortunately nothing grand, given the time of year. About fifteen hours a week. Is that alright? I figured I’d ask you first, seeing as you were such a good customer before.”
Before . Before I left. Before I tried to pretend I was someone else entirely.
“That works for me,” I reply. Fifteen hours really isn’t anything grand, but it’s better than the aimless nothing I’ve got going on otherwise. Baby steps.
“Oh, you are a gem ,” she gushes, placing a hand on my arm and giving it a quick squeeze. “Come by the gallery on Monday and we’ll get everything sorted.”
With a quick goodbye, Carole departs in a whirlwind of neon. As I watch her walk away, I envy her confidence. For as long as I’ve known her, she has been content to follow her own path, and screw anyone who has anything to say about it. She is unyielding in her right to exist.
I want to be like her—to shed this inherent need to apologize for simply living in my own skin.
My thoughts are scattered as I round the corner into another aisle. When I look up, I startle, meeting a familiar pair of brown eyes. My stomach does an award-winning somersault.
Gabe .