Chapter 15 #2
As they walked from the burger place, through the forest, and down to the beach, Landon and Celia said nothing.
This far north, the sunlight would continue deep into the evening, making the forest and the stones gleam.
When they reached the water, they sat on massive rocks and watched the ocean thrash and churn and the seagulls swoop overhead.
Celia admitted, “This is the first time I’ve come down here since I got back,” which both surprised and didn’t surprise Landon.
From here, they could see the dramatic cranes, arching their arms, preparing to rip into the soil and the cliffs and the forest, all in pursuit of Hanson Smith’s massive development.
Landon felt a rage that he knew he couldn’t quell.
“Did you ever figure out that I was dating Hanson senior year?” Celia asked suddenly.
Landon lost his breath. He turned to look at Celia, whose eyes were focused purely on the construction site before them.
“You never told me,” he said.
Celia shrugged. “It was a big secret. Maybe dating a girl like me would have ruined his popular-guy reputation. Maybe he wasn’t sure if he liked me enough to tell the world.
But for several months there, we had something that felt pretty real.
I had all these fantasies about it. I was sure that he would join me at Georgetown and become this big football star and give football interviews that mentioned what a genius his girlfriend was.
” Celia laughed at herself. “I was just a girl with a crush.”
Landon couldn’t believe that she’d lived this entire life directly beside his, parallel to their everyday best-friendship. But he knew how secretive teenagers could be.
“He invited me to a Christmas dinner at his parents’ place,” Celia said.
“It was the strangest night of my life. His mother found out who I was, or who my parents were, and asked me to leave. I couldn’t figure it out.
Hanson never spoke to me again after that.
I was completely brokenhearted. I think that was the beginning of the end for my time in Bluebell, for my connections to people here.
And I couldn’t tell anyone what I was up to, because I didn’t want to admit that I’d been dumped so harshly.
” She wet her lips. “But this afternoon with Ivy and Wren, I went through more of my mother’s journals.
We read them together. And we discovered something that shed light on that Christmas dinner. It’s all starting to make sense now.”
“What happened?” Landon whispered.
Celia removed an old and worn journal from her purse and opened it to a bookmarked page. “Read this,” she said, handing it over.
February 22, 1991
It isn’t that I think this new baby is his baby.
The timeline doesn’t add up. It doesn’t make sense.
But late at night, I dream that I’m safe in his bed.
I dream that he’s coming to pick me up and sweep me away from all this, away from James, away from the inn.
Sometimes I want to hate him because he couldn’t do what he needed to do, which is leave his wife and join me and love me well.
I know his reputation comes above all else.
I know that there’s more money in that family than I can fully fathom, and that the money goes back generation after generation, long before the Bluebell Cove Inn (my prison).
But the love I felt for Gavin Smith was more love than I’ve ever known for another person—at least that’s how I feel about it now.
And it is my lot in life to understand that that amount of love isn’t enough for Gavin.
It isn’t enough for us to choose happiness.
Landon nearly let the little journal fall from his hands and onto the rock. He gaped at Margaret Harper’s gorgeous handwriting, unable to fully grasp what this meant.
“My mother loved Hanson’s father, Gavin Smith.
” Celia took the journal back. “Hanson’s mother must have found out.
That’s why I got kicked out of Christmas dinner.
That’s why everything fell apart for me.
But this was one of the reasons my mother was so miserable.
I’m sure of it.” She kicked the rock beneath them.
“She didn’t feel the love she needed from my father, and she fell in love with someone else. ”
Landon was quiet for a long time. These were the complications of living in a small town, he knew. Nobody’s business was ever really private. Every affair, every misguided love, and every pain was eventually made public. Their stories made up the foundation of Bluebell Cove.
“My son’s dating his daughter,” Landon said, surprising himself. “I hate that my son’s involved with a wealthy girl like that.”
Celia touched Landon’s shoulder gently. “Maybe they’re different from our generation,” she suggested. “I mean, look at Sophie. She has more optimism than I’ve ever had in my little finger.”
“That isn’t true,” Landon said, looking her dead in the eye. “We were both about as optimistic as they come. Perhaps we lost it. Maybe our kids have to teach us how to get it back.”
Celia’s eyes glinted. For a long while, they gazed at one another, finding in each other’s faces the teenagers they’d once been, finding the love and hope and freedom they’d once carted around without question.