Chapter 21 Eli
Eli
The hill looks different without stars.
I trace my fingers over the damp grass where we once sat together watching meteors streak across the sky. Everything felt possible then—the world crackling with potential and magic. She’d dragged me up here with no warning, no plan, just a couple flashlights and her infectious enthusiasm.
Trust me, she’d said, and I did. I, Eli Lancaster—who tracks ISBN editions for fun and once timed how long it takes my tea to steep for optimal flavor—followed her into a dark forest without hesitation.
Now there’s just darkness, heavy clouds blocking even the faintest glimmer of light.
The air is thick, oppressive, nothing like the electric anticipation of that night when everything felt magical because I was sharing the same air as her.
The sparkle of possibility. The warmth of her hand finding mine in the shadows, her touch making my carefully constructed world tilt on its axis in the best possible way.
“I’m an idiot,” I mumble as I pull out the Cyrus Whitlock book she gave me. After all, everything she said was true. She only agreed to this when I promised it would end. I set the terms. I shouldn’t feel this broken over it. It followed the ending that was foreshadowed from the very beginning.
The leather shows little wear considering its age. Even in the flashlight’s dim beam, the pristine condition is obvious. I trace over the gilt edges and remember her expression when she handed it to me. The way her eyes danced with excitement. How she bit her lower lip trying to contain her smile.
For someone who’s spent his life studying stories, you’d think I’d have recognized the story here. The temporary nature of summer romance, the inevitable parting at the season’s end. That has to be a romance trope. Or maybe not. Rhianna said romances always end with happily ever afters.
I guess I thought we were writing a love story. Turns out, I was the only one who believed the ending.
The leather is soft beneath my thumb as I brush over the title’s raised letters. I can be logical about this. That’s what I do, isn’t it? Analyze, categorize, make sense of chaos. If I had my notepad with me, I could write it down. As it is, a mental list will have to do.
1. She’s planning to leave—has been since before we met.
2. She hinted at it during our first dinner together.
3. She obviously didn’t want to talk about the future on the beach.
4. I was the one who said just for the summer. I told her—if she ever said she was done, I’d let her go. And she said she was done.
5. She’s afraid. Not just of love, but of being loved—fully, honestly, in a way she doesn’t think she deserves. And I can’t fight that fear without breaking the promise I made.
6. She believes ending things now will hurt less than ending them later. And maybe she’s right.
My hand stills and I close my eyes. Logic isn’t working somehow. It feels hollow. Like trying to analyze the technical aspects of a poem while missing its heart entirely.
Because, damn it, logic aside I’m in love with Rhianna Wilder.
Unrequited love.
Talk about a trope.
I came here to shake up my life, to do bold things, to actually live after being reminded how quickly everything could end.
I never expected to find someone who made being bold feel natural.
Who made me want to be spontaneous. Who made color-coding a calendar seem unnecessary because every moment with her was worth rearranging any plan.
I tilt my head back, searching for even one star through the clouds.
Just one point of light to prove that magic still exists.
That the feeling I had that night wasn’t just because of her—her laugh, her soft hand in mine, her smile that seemed brighter than any star.
That maybe I can take even a drop of that joy home with me.
The sky remains stubbornly dark, though.
Of course it does.
The light was never the scenery, the meteors, or even the magic.
It was Rhianna, all along. But she streaked by so quickly.
My hands shake as I pull back the book’s cover and remove a stack of photos. Each one captures a moment where she illuminated my carefully structured world. When she shined a light that made me realize how dark everything was before.
I smile at the first one. The Blue Moon Festival.
We both wear ridiculous Elvis wigs and Rhianna is dramatically strumming an inflated guitar.
The photo had caught me mid laugh, and now looking at it, I barely recognize myself.
That man isn’t thinking about proper citations or comparative literature or book curation checklists. He’s just… happy.
I slide it to the back of the stack and reveal the next image.
The Tipsy Mermaid group shot. The bartender took it at the exact moment Rhianna threw her head back laughing at one of my terrible music puns.
Her hand rests on my arm, and I’m looking at her like she’s a first edition I’ve spent my whole life searching for.
Except that’s not quite right—I’m looking at her like she’s something far more precious than any book.
The skydiving photo makes my stomach drop all over again. I remember gripping her hand so tightly before we jumped, but in the photo, we’re both beaming. She taught me that fear and joy could coexist, that sometimes the scariest moments lead to the most beautiful ones.
I reveal the last photo—my favorite. It’s a selfie I took one morning, the two of us tangled in my sheets, her curled against me in my oversized college sweater.
She’d stolen it as soon as she got out of bed, padding around my kitchen while I made French toast. The morning light gleams copper in her ebony hair and I look like a man who just stumbled into his own fairytale.
A tear splashes onto the photo and I quickly wipe it away.
My hand shakes so hard I struggle to slide the photos back into place.
It’s like I’m vibrating with emotions. I’ve felt that way since the moment I met Rhianna.
Up to this point, it was joy rushing through me until it seeped through my pores.
Now, it’s an altogether different feeling—
My thumb grazes the book’s cheap floral endpaper. It’s starting to peel at the corner. The academic part of my brain kicks in, the part that can identify binding techniques and paper types at a glance.
When she gave me this book, I’d barely examined it.
Just the fact that she knew I’d love Whitlock, that she’d thought of me while finding it—that was enough to make it precious.
As soon as I’d seen the cheap end papers, I’d mentally marked it as not financially valuable.
It had become the most treasured book in my collection anyway, simply because it came from her.
I should have noticed though. The end pages don’t match the era. With shaking, careful fingers I pull the paper down. It releases from the book easily, like someone had only glued the outline.
Under the decorative paper lies the original end page, pristine despite its age. And there, in the top right corner, is a flourish of faded ink that makes my breath catch. I grab the flashlight, fingers clumsy as I lift it closer.
The signature.
The distinctive ‘C’, pressed so hard it left an indent.
The flowing ‘k’ at the end of Whitlock. I’ll need to authenticate it officially, but I already know.
It’s real. One of the mythical signed Whitlock’s that got me into rare book collecting in the first place, that launched my entire career studying folklore and mythology.
And Rhianna just… gave it to me.
Handed it over beneath a starry night sky with a casual smile, like she wasn’t changing my entire world. Like she hadn’t found the holy grail of my profession.
The floral paper folds back in place again, revealing the photos. The one of us tangled in my sheets blurs through my tears. I found exactly what I’ve spent my career hunting for, only to realize it’s not what I’ve been searching for at all.
Or rather, it’s not all I’ve been searching for.
The sobs come without warning, echoing into the empty dark. I don’t even try to hold the sound in. There’s no one here to see me fall apart.
“You’re what?” Piper’s voice crackles through the speaker as I wrap another book in bubble wrap.
The record player hums softly in the background, the crackle of vinyl spinning. It’s the only thing I haven’t packed yet. I told myself it was because I’d need the box last. But the truth is, I couldn’t bring myself to silence the music just yet.
I check the book off my packing list—all categorized, organized, just as it was before Rhianna swept into my life and rearranged everything, including my heart.
“Moving back,” I say, keeping my voice steady as I place the wrapped book in Box 7: Office—Reference Materials (Non-Fiction.) I’ve labeled all the boxes as precisely, each category a desperate attempt at order.
Fiction, non-fiction. Reference. Personal.
As if putting my life back into the neat little containers will somehow make sense of everything that’s happened.
As if I could pack away the way she’s changed me as easily as I store away these books.
But where’s the box for the sound of her laugh?
Which carefully labeled container holds the way she made my heart race every time she said my name?
There’s no classification system for the hollow ache in my chest that expands with every item I wrap.
Piper hums sadly before speaking again. “But—what about Rhianna? Did something happen?”
Her name pierces through me. A pain that’s as explosive as a lightning strike, sudden and searing. “I’d rather not discuss it.”
“Eli…” Her voice is soft and I have to close my eyes against the concern in it. Piper, who’s spent years teasing me about how she could set her clocks on my schedule, now sounds worried about my return to the routine. “Talk to me, Brubba.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” I check another item off my list. The pen makes a satisfying mark against the paper. Clear. Definitive. Final. “Sometimes things just… end.”
“Are you sad?” Piper’s voice is brutally soft.
Not teasing, like when she used to ask me about Sarah, my girlfriend of several years.
She’d always said Sarah was as exciting as a library card.
Our relationship had ended that way as well.
Quiet. Expected. Like returning a book you never really wanted to check out. We’d gone our separate ways amicably.
But with Rhianna…
“I’m fine.” My voice sounds hollow and broken and very not-fine even to my own ears. “It was a summer fling. A temporary adventure. That’s all it was.”
“Eli…” She lets out a soft sigh. “You don’t have to pretend with me. Not about this.”
I grip the bridge of my nose. “What do you want me to say, Pipes? That I fell in love? That I forgot who I am and what my life is actually like? That I let myself believe in something magical only to wake up and realize that it’s a kind of magic that doesn’t exist?”
A long pause. Then Piper says quietly, “Maybe you should say those things to her?”
“I can’t,” I whisper, then clear my throat. “She ended it. She made it very clear that this was never a good idea.”
“Oh, Brubba.” Her pity is worse than any teasing she’s ever dished out.
“It’s fine. I wanted to move away, try something new. I’ve done that. Now it’s time for me to return home and back to my real life.”
“Well,”—she says after a moment, her voice carefully light—“I’m at least looking forward to a giant hug and a lunch date. It’s your turn to pay.”
My lips curve into what might be a smile, though it doesn’t feel like one. “I’m looking forward to that too.”
“See you soon.”
After we end the call, I pick up the Cyrus Whitlock book. My hand moves automatically to open it, to look at the pictures one last time. Instead, I wrap it carefully in bubble wrap and place it in Box 12: Personal Items—Books (Special Collections).
I close the lid. The label is perfect. No wrinkles. No air bubbles. Everything in its ideal place.
Gold Dust Woman plays softly in the background, crackling faintly through the record player’s worn speakers. Rhianna had been aghast when she discovered I didn't own the album. She’d changed our entire plan for the evening and bought me a copy.
Now it plays in a room that feels far too quiet.
I cross to the record player and gently lift the needle. The music dies with a sigh. I slide the album back into its sleeve, careful not to crease the cover.
Chapter closed.