29
Dylan
N ow
My fingers hover over the words as if touching them might burn me. My eyes rake over the sentences again, again, again—frantic, starving for a different version, some loophole that makes this easier to wrap my head around. But the ink doesn’t shift. The truth doesn’t change. It just sits there mercilessly, the one question I never stopped asking, finally screaming back at me.
With every reread, the anger spreads like oil in water, impossible to contain. A decade I spent gripping a lie so tightly it became part of me. Even then, in that cold parking lot, I knew he was holding something back. I stood there begging, my heart in my hands, and he didn’t even reach for it.
So I left. Tore myself from Rockport’s grip, convinced I was alone. Trust was a currency I’d never afford again. Because the one time I spent it, it bled me dry.
It’s funny, in a messed-up kind of way, how that betrayal didn’t just wound me—it rewired me. It left me cold, guarded, terrified of letting anyone too close. For years, the thought of tearing down those walls felt impossible.
And now? Now I find out it was all based on a lie. Not a cruel, vindictive one. A scared, messy, human lie. It’s almost worse, because there’s no easy way out now. I can’t just turn my back on him and be done. Instead, I’m buried under a heap of contradictions, stuck between what I should do and what I can’t seem to let go of.
I used to think I was reckless, letting myself fall so fast, so completely—for someone who abandoned me when I was at my lowest. I’ve replayed that story a thousand times, convinced my mistake was loving him at all. But now I see the real failure wasn’t in loving him. It was in believing he didn’t love me, in never demanding the truth, in running away without a fight.
Now I see it. I’ve spent a decade resenting him for a choice he made out of fear, believing it was the only way to protect me. He was terrified, convinced he wouldn’t make it, and he carried that burden alone. I’m furious—not just at him, but at myself—for never stopping to consider there was more to the story.
I was held hostage by my own grief, so ensnared by it that I never noticed he was breaking too. Bitterness became my armor, easier to cling to than the truth. That I wasn’t the only one hurting. That maybe Brooks wasn’t the villain I painted him as, just the easiest one to blame.
The realization slams into me— I’m my mother. Not with a bottle in my grip, but in every way that truly matters. I let affliction fester, let it burrow into me the way she let the liquor seep into her veins. Her addiction was alcohol; mine is this relentless, all consuming resentment. And just like her, I’ve let it incinerate everything good before I even realized I was holding the match.
I feel disgusted. I swore I’d never turn into her, yet I’ve let my own pain become the thing I lean on the most. I was too lost inside it to see how it was carving me into a reflection I couldn’t stand.
My phone is a live wire against my palm, radiating heat like it knows the war raging inside me. Brooks’ name stares back at me, a taunt, a challenge, a door I keep pacing in front of but never open. My heart pounds as I force my thumb down before fear can pull me back.
One ring. Two. Then his voice. “Dylan?”
“Hey,” I say, though the word fractures on its way out.
“I read the letter. Can you meet me? I know it’s late, but I think we should talk.”
Silence.
It stretches, pulls, swells into something unbearable. The longer it lasts, the more convinced I am that calling was a mistake—another entry on my growing list of things I should’ve left alone.
Then finally, “I’ll be there in ten.”
“Okay.” The word barely leaves my lips before I end the call, cutting off any chance for hesitation—his or mine. If I stay on the line I could second guess this entirely. And I can’t afford that. Not after learning the truth.
The dress I was wearing at the reunion felt like a costume—too delicate, too much like someone I was supposed to be. So, I stripped it off the second I could, swapping it for worn jeans and an oversized sweater that hangs loosely around me. The sleeves slip past my wrists, my fingers disappearing into the fabric as I flex my hands, grasping for something solid.
The low rumble of Brooks’ truck pulling into the lot startles me out of the endless loop I’ve been tracing in the damp grass. My footsteps have carved a restless path in front of the hotel, the salty air clinging to my cheeks, the briny bite of seaweed permeating the air. I didn’t realize how much I needed the aroma of it, something tangible to cling to while my mind spun itself in circles.
His truck door slams shut, but he’s already moving before the sound fades. There’s an ease to the way he crosses the lot, like he’s been waiting for this moment.
Stopping just short of me, he shoves his hands into his jacket pockets. “You okay?”
His words carry more than just concern, but I’m not ready to dissect what’s hidden beneath them. Not here.
Instead, I lift a shoulder, keeping my voice from cracking. “Can we walk?”
Brooks doesn’t ask where—we just move, my steps falling into rhythm with his like they always have. He steers us toward the beach, where the tide restlessly gnaws at the shore. The silence between us isn’t awkward, just tense with all the words we haven’t figured out how to say out loud yet. It lingers, pressing in around us, as if the night itself is holding its breath, waiting to see who will break first.
The sand shifts beneath me as we near the water. Each step buries me for a second before letting go. I stop just short of the tide, watching the waves roll in, as if they might tell me where to begin.
“I don’t really know where to start.” It’s an admission I didn’t mean to voice, but I know he hears it. I feel it in the way he shifts, like he’s steadying himself for whatever comes next.
“It’s like I’ve been dragging these heavy suitcases around for years, convinced they were packed with betrayal. And now you’re telling me they’re empty. That I’ve essentially been breaking myself under a weight that was never even there.”
“I wanted to tell you the truth. Even tonight, I wanted to say it.” His tongue swipes over his bottom lip, deliberating. “But every time I tried, it felt like prying open a door that wasn’t mine to unlock. So I left the letter in your room instead, hoping it could break through to you where I couldn’t.”
The sincerity in his voice cuts through me. It’s not grand, not laced with theatrics, but it’s real. And that’s all I’ve ever needed.
I tear my focus away from him, locking onto the horizon where the sea and the sky blur into something infinite. My fingers fidget, skimming over one another in frantic, meaningless movements. He’s given me honesty—I owe him the same. But the waves are louder now, their crash and retreat pressing in, like they can sense the fractures beneath my skin.
“I couldn’t afford both,” I say after a long moment.
“What? What do you mean?”
“When I left, I had just enough money to keep one phone active. I made a choice. I shut mine off and kept Beckett’s. That’s why no one could reach me.” I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth, attempting to sort through everything in my mind that wants to break free. “I needed his voicemail. I needed to hear his voice even if it was just a recording. It was the only piece of him I had left. I couldn’t risk losing it.”
The confession shakes something loose in me, but I press on, even as my voice wavers. “I got a new phone eventually, when I could afford it, but the number changed. I assumed my absence was just another thing people would adjust to without any effort. So, reaching back out was never something I considered. I wasn’t intentionally hiding from you, Brooks. I was just trying to survive.”
“You were surviving, I get that. But damn, I would’ve given anything to know you were out there, still breathing.”
“I convinced myself no one cared,” I murmur, exhaling like it might lighten the weight in my chest. “Until now.” I force myself to meet his eyes, to let him see everything I never had the chance to say, because this next part is what really matters. “But you know what hurts the most?”
He shifts slightly, tilting his head just enough to catch the moonlight, his short chestnut brown hair tousled in a way that makes something ache deep inside me. I used to tease him about the way it always fell into his eyes—now, I almost miss it. He watches me, waiting, like he’s searching for this moment when everything will finally make sense.
“I would have stayed,” I admit, a confession years too late. “Even when my entire world was caving in, even when I felt like I was nothing but broken pieces, you were always worth risking more pain for.”
“Would you still?”
His question is a scalpel, cutting clean through my defenses. Would I stay? Now? I barely know what that means anymore. I mean, New York was never really home, just a place I existed. And even if I wanted to return, what would be the point? The city wouldn’t notice my absence, my nearly empty apartment wouldn’t miss me, and Aaron. He was always meant for more than I could ever give him. We both know that now.
“I would.” The conviction in my voice seals off any room for doubt and I scrape my thumbnail against my knuckle, needing the sensation to remind me this is real. “For Blake. I can’t pretend like she doesn’t change everything. I’ve spent so long convincing myself that my choice to leave made sense, that I was exactly where I was supposed to be. Gone.”
I let out a breath that feels stolen from a version of me who never thought she’d say this. “But I wasn’t. I was lost, I just didn’t realize it until tonight. Knowing Blake’s been here all this time—that I’ve missed so much of her life—made it impossible to keep lying to myself.”
“So what happens next? What about your life in New York?”
I touch my necklace absently, a habit born from needing something to hold on to. “The life I built there wasn’t real, Brooks. It was a placeholder, something to keep me moving so I wouldn’t have to face the wounds I never let heal. Blake is proof that not everything in this town is stained with the memory of what I lost. Beckett. You .” My gaze drops to his hands, to the space between us, to the past and future colliding.
“My time in Rockport was brief, but it was real, and somehow it became the only place I ever felt at home. Staying feels like the first step to finding my way back to that.”
“So stay, Dylan. Not because of Blake. Or me. Stay because this is where you finally let yourself belong.” I take him in—the slight furrow between his brows, the worry settling in the creases at the corners of his eyes. And just like that, I know. He’s never been anything less than everything. My heart has belonged to him since that first bonfire, since the flames cast their glow across his face and made me believe, if only for a moment, that some things are meant to burn forever. Maybe not as we once did, but as something that still matters.
“After I read your letter, I realized I’ve spent the last decade treating my grief like a place to live. I barricaded myself in it, let it decide who I was allowed to be. I built a life so small it couldn’t hurt me, one without color, without anything real enough to lose.”
My breath hitches as I press my fingers into my collarbone and force myself to keep going. “Because of that, I haven’t touched a paintbrush since I left. The idea of it made me sick. Because Beckett was in everything I tried to create. So I didn’t. I refused. I lost the one outlet that helped me make sense of the world.”
I roll my shoulders back, forcing myself to stand in the moment instead of running from it. “But you…and Blake have opened my eyes again. I have to stop living like a shadow of someone I don’t recognize anymore. Staying would be for me, but it’s because of the two of you that I can finally see why it matters. I may never be who I was before, but if it leads me to something worth holding onto again, then maybe that’s enough.”
The wind picks up, threading through pine trees that line the beach, their branches shifting like restless hands against the sky. “You don’t owe anyone the person you used to be,” he says, his voice carrying through the breeze with a quiet certainty. “I just want you here, and I’m sure Blake will too. Take it slow, see where things fall. We’re not demanding anything.”
A restless gust catches my curls, blowing them across my face. I brush them back but the moment stills—something shifting within me, a question that’s been pressing against my chest, demanding its turn since I called him.
“I don’t want to cross any lines, Brooks, but…” I pause, gathering my thoughts carefully. “Can you tell me about your cancer? If you don’t want to share, that’s okay. Are you still fighting it?”
His shoulders tighten, and he tugs at his jacket, vibrant green eyes flicking to the side as if searching for an escape before returning back to meet mine.
“I’m not trying to cross any boundaries,” I say gently.
The truth is already there between us, waiting to be acknowledged. He simply gives it shape. “You’re not crossing a boundary. It’s just…it’s been a while since I’ve let myself put it all into words. But no, I’m not.”
I stay still, letting the conversation breathe, making sure he knows the choice to continue is his.
“Um.” His voice bends, as if carrying too much for one breath to hold. “The first few months, I was convinced I’d die anyway, so nothing felt like it mattered. But eventually, I told myself that if I just kept going—if I refused to acknowledge death—I could beat it. The doctors, the treatments, the way my parents looked at me like I was already gone. I shoved it all down and acted like it couldn’t touch me.” He stares at a fixed point in the distance, as if the horizon might hold the words he’s struggling to find.
“Chemo hit me like a wrecking ball, leaving nothing untouched. I lost weight, lost my hair, lost the ability to feel like myself in the mirror. I spent so much time throwing up that I forgot what it felt like to be hungry.” His words thin out. “My body didn’t belong to me anymore—it belonged to the disease, to the medicine trying to kill it, to the doctors deciding how much poison I could take before I broke.” He presses his thumb against the inside of his wrist, like he’s checking to see if he’s still here.
“And I did break. Over and over again. But I kept going, because what the hell else was I supposed to do? There were days I swore I wasn’t going to make it, nights I laid awake wondering if my heart would just stop in my sleep. Sometimes I thought that would have been easier.” He laughs, but there’s nothing light in it—just depletion.
“The worst part? It wasn’t the pain. It was waiting.” He presses the tip of his shoe into the sand, twisting it back and forth, burying it deeper. “The scans, the tests, the people who looked at me like a fucking puzzle missing half its pieces. The ‘maybes’, the ‘we’ll sees’, the ‘let’s hope for the best.’” He shakes his head. “That’s what no one tells you—it’s not just a fight. It’s a waiting game. Every test result a coin flip, and you’re the one waiting to see if it lands heads or tails.” Pulling his foot back, he kicks up a soft cloud of sand that scatters in the wind, disappearing too easily—too much like everything he’s lost.
“The years passed, and somehow, I was still here. But surviving isn’t the same as living, Dylan. And I didn’t live—I just existed for a long time.”
His words land with a nerve deep burn that doesn’t ask for permission. They don’t demand, or twist the knife—just settle, heavier than I expect. I sit with them, he’s choosing to share this with me, despite everything we’ve been through. A piece of me grips onto the anger, the betrayal. It’s familiar, easier to carry. But beneath it, something quieter stirs, something that has nothing to do with rage. Sorrow. Not just for what we both lost, but for the version of us that never had the chance to exist, for the story that faded before it could be written.
“I didn’t see it back then,” I confess, taking a deep breath. “But now, I get it. Why you made the choices you did, and I can’t hold that against you, B.”
It’s not about changing the past or wishing for another chance. It’s about accepting what happened, and finding a way to move forward, unburdened by it.
“When the doctors said I was in remission, I thought there’d be this…release. Like I’d finally gotten my life back. But I didn’t feel that way. Instead, I felt more disconnected than ever. I was still searching for something, but I didn’t know what.”
The despair in his voice is palpable, and I can nearly picture the version of him that never got the chance to find peace, the person lost to that struggle.
“So, I did the thing I promised myself I’d never do,” he admits, his tone laced in contempt. “I put my camera away, went to work for my dad, and buried myself in routine. At the time, I thought it was what I needed—something safe, predictable. Like I said, I was existing, merely drifting through my own life. And then one day, I passed the old church.” His attention drifts down, colliding with mine in a way that steals my breath. “Something pulled me in. And when I stepped inside, it felt like it was begging to be revived, waiting for me to breathe life back into it. In its own way, it did the exact same thing for me.”
“That’s when you decided to open The Drift?”
He dips his head in agreement. “It gave me a reason to look forward again. It wasn’t about making up for the past, or trying to prove something to anyone. It was about creating something meaningful. Something that could stand, no matter what else fell apart.”
The steady conviction in his voice pulls at me, as if he’s taken everything life has thrown at him and chose resilience over surrender. The Brooks I thought had faded into memory is still here—changed, tempered by time, but unmistakably the same. It’s unsettling and steadying all at once, something that echoes the fight still burning in me. It’s a collision of our past and present, a strange reassurance that even though we’ve been running parallel for years, we’ve finally found our way back.
Wordlessly, my fingers slip into his, the pulse beneath his skin proof that despite whatever was broken between us, we’re still here. Simply beginning a new chapter.
A barely-there kiss lingers on my temple, as I return to my room, the distant rush of the ocean fading behind me. Leaving only the quiet and the remaining letters on my nightstand. I pick up mine first, fingers gently tracing the seal. The fear of what’s inside has dulled—replaced with something closer to understanding. Or perhaps I’ve learned that courage doesn’t come from having all the answers, but from daring to face the questions.