CHAPTER 7 THE MORNING AFTER NORA
THE MORNING AFTER
NORA
I wake before the sun.
Not because I'm rested—because I can't breathe with Wes lying beside me.
He came home at four. The sound of the door opening, the uneven weight of him collapsing into bed, the sharp sting of alcohol on his breath when he turned toward me in his sleep.
I lay there staring at the ceiling until my eyes burned, counting the seconds between his breaths like it might anchor me to something solid.
It's seven now.
The house is quiet in that expensive, hollow way. Even the air feels staged.
I slide out of bed slowly, careful not to wake him.
The ring catches the light as I reach for my phone. The diamond bright and insistent, impossible to ignore.
My stomach tightens.
I pull it off and for a moment just hold it in my palm, feeling the weight of it. I place it on the bedside table like it might detonate if I'm not careful, then lace up my runners and slip out of the room.
The front door clicks shut behind me.
The morning air hits my lungs hard, sharp and clean, and I start running before I can think too much about why I need to escape.
Hidden Hills is eerily still this early. Mansions crouch behind gates and hedges, silent and watchful. Probably plotting their next property value increase.
I'm surrounded by houses that cost eight figures and somehow all look exactly the same. Beige. Tasteful. Soulless. The architectural equivalent of oat milk.
My feet hit the pavement in a steady rhythm, the familiar burn in my calves grounding me in my body when my mind refuses to cooperate.
I run because it's the only thing that's ever reliably quieted my head.
But today, nothing stays quiet.
Everything comes rushing in at once—my childhood, my dad's laugh, the sound of soft waves that would sometimes wash up against the dock at the lake in the early morning. The way grief rewired me at sixteen and forced me to grow up faster than I ever wanted to. Nothing feels real out here.
My phone vibrates against my arm.
I slow to a jog, then stop completely when I see the name on the screen.
Mia
Congratulations on the engagement! I know you're probably crazy busy, but I just wanted to give you a heads up that Lydia convinced me to have a baby shower in a couple of weeks. It's at the lake house. Please come. It wouldn't be the same without you x
I haven't been back to the lake house since Jake died. Since saying goodbye to Nate in my childhood bedroom in a way that felt unfinished and wrong and permanent all at once.
I haven't let myself imagine returning because imagining it means facing everything I left behind.
Including him.
And even if I wanted to go—even if I told myself it was just for Mia and Ollie and my soon-to-be niece or nephew—I would run into Nate.
Eden is too small to avoid ghosts. Especially the ones who are still breathing. Geography is cruel like that.
And what would I say?
Nothing comes to mind. Literally nothing that wouldn't either sound desperately pathetic or aggressively defensive, and I've already hit my quota for both this year.
I have nothing left to say to him. Especially after our brief interaction at Mia and Ollie's wedding five years ago, which was essentially a three-minute exercise in how many ways two people can hurt each other while standing at a bar holding champagne.
Turns out: several.
And I can't imagine he does either, not after the silence. Months turned into years with no word, no explanation, just fragments passed on through other people. Ollie mentioning he was out of rehab. My mom quietly reassuring me that he was alive and doing well for himself.
That was it.
Silence is its own kind of answer and sometimes, it's the cruelest one.
I stare at my phone for another moment before the screen dims. I don't reply.
My legs are shaking slightly. Whether from the run or the thought of Eden, I can't tell.
I start running again. Faster now, like I can outrun the thought of him.
But I’m having no luck outrunning anything that has to do with that place. My mind shifts, as it always does when I think of the life I left behind in Eden.
My brother is going to be a dad.
The thought still feels surreal. Ollie, who stepped into adulthood without hesitation when ours fell apart.
Who learned how to cook and budget and hold things together when Dad died and I was still learning how to exist in a world without him.
Who made pancakes every Sunday morning even when he was juggling school and a social life, just because it was something Dad used to do.
Who sat with me through panic attacks at three in the morning and never once made me feel like a burden.
He's going to be a good dad, the best even. I know that with a certainty that hurts.
Mia is lucky. Their baby is lucky.
Their wedding was small. Intimate. Perfectly them. A late afternoon ceremony under string lights at Eden's country club, Mia in a simple dress that made her look like something out of a dream, Ollie crying before she even made it down the aisle.
I stood beside them and felt the weight of all the things we'd survived together—Dad's death, Jake's death, the way our family had to learn how to be whole again when pieces of us were missing.
Nate was Ollie's best man.
We acted like nothing had ever happened between us. Polite. Distant. Careful not to stand too close or let our eyes meet for longer than necessary.
By then, the silence between us had stretched so long that pretending felt easier than acknowledging what we'd lost. Like grief we'd already done the work of mourning.
Things were going smoothly until I had too much to drink and remembered I was there with Liam. My then-boyfriend. The one I'd brought to family dinners a handful of times, the one who smiled in all the right places but never quite fit.
Nate's jaw tightened when Liam walked in. That, I remember clear as day. The air shifted and something that had been carefully contained suddenly wasn't.
That's when everything went sideways.
I don't think about that night if I can help it. Some memories are better left in the boxes where you've buried them, and that one has enough jagged edges to draw blood if I reach for it too carelessly.
By the time I make it back to Hidden Hills, my shirt is damp, my legs trembling, my head buzzing with too many thoughts colliding at once.
Forty minutes of running. Then another twenty walking around the neighborhood, taking the long way, killing time so I didn't have to go home yet.
I slow to a walk at the end of the driveway, breath ragged, heart still racing.
The front door is unlocked and Wes is awake. I hear him before I see him—movement, a glass clinking, the low hum of irritation thick in the air.
He's in the kitchen when I step inside. Hair disheveled, jaw tight, nursing a coffee. He looks at me and his expression darkens immediately.
"Where were you?"
The coffee cup sits perfectly still in his hand. No movement. No fidgeting. Just that careful, measured calm that means he's furious.
"I went for a run," I say, pulling my headphones out, already bracing myself.
He sets his coffee down, deliberately. The sound of ceramic on marble echoes through the kitchen.
"A run."
"I needed air, is that okay with you?”
“Don’t be a smartass” He says it, tasting the words, testing them. "So you just left. Without a word. Again."
I set my keys down slowly on the counter. My pulse starts to thrum in my ears, a warning drumbeat.
"I wasn't feeling well last night, so I left.”
"Right." He nods, rubbing his temples. "You know, I spent twenty minutes last night telling people you were in the bathroom. Another fifteen saying you'd stepped out for a call. By the time I realized you'd actually left—"
He pauses.
"Do you know how that felt? Having to explain to investors why my fiancée disappeared on one of the biggest nights of my career?"
Something in my chest tightens, sharp and immediate.
"I'm sorry you were embarrassed."
"I'm not talking about embarrassment, Nora." His voice softens, takes on that reasonable tone that always makes me sound like I'm the one being unreasonable. It's a neat trick. Very effective. I should take notes.
"It's about being there for each other. You know how important last night was."
"You seemed to have plenty of attention without me."
Specifically from the blonde reporter who laughed at everything he said like he was performing a Netflix special instead of discussing quarterly projections. But sure, I'm the problem.
His eyes sharpen.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing."
"No, say it." He steps closer. Voice still calm. Still measured. Still doing that thing where he sounds completely rational while making me feel insane. "You think I was doing something wrong? That reporter? Is that what this is about?"
Oh good, we're doing the part where he acts confused about why I might find his behavior concerning.
I force myself to relax.
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to." He exhales slowly, like he's the one being patient. "This is what I mean, Nora. Everything becomes about your anxiety. Your insecurities. Meanwhile, I'm trying to build something for us, and you're—"
"You announced our engagement without asking me."
The words come out sharper than I intended.
He blinks. Pauses.
Then his expression shifts into something softer. Almost hurt.
“That’s what you’re so pissed off about? That I didn’t ask you? Nora, we talked about this."
"No, we didn't."
“Last night felt right, I mean the media already leaked it anyway and I thought—" He stops, shakes his head. "I thought you'd be happy. I thought you wanted this."
"I wanted you to ask me first or at the very least give me a heads up. Because we’re a team, remember?”
"So you're saying you don't want to marry me."
He says it quietly, like a wounded observation, not an accusation.
I take a step back, feeling the counter press against my spine.
"I—"
"Because that's what it sounds like. That's what disappearing last night looked like. That's what this is starting to feel like."
He runs a hand through his hair, suddenly looking exhausted.
"I gave you a ring. I told you I loved you. And now you're upset because I wanted everyone to know how much you mean to me?"
The logic of it wraps around me, tight and suffocating. When he puts it like that, I sound ungrateful.
"It's not about that," I say, but my voice wavers.
"Then what is it about? The dress?" He says it gently, like he's trying to understand. "The ring, the announcement—it's all—"
I struggle to find the words. My hands are shaking now. I press them flat against the counter.
“I don’t like that you keep making decisions for me, and then I have to just go along with them."
He's quiet for a moment.
Then he nods slowly, like he's processing something difficult.
"Okay. I hear you. I do." He steps closer.
Voice dropping. "But Nora, you have to understand—this is the business we're in.
Timing matters. Momentum matters. I make quick decisions because that's how I've built everything we have.
That's how I got your book made into a film.
That's how I opened doors for you that no one else would have. "
We. Us.
He's good at that. Making it sound like we're a team when what he really means is that I should follow his lead.
"I was already a writer before I met you," I say quietly.
His face changes.
"Were you?" He tilts his head. "Because I remember a lot of rejection letters. A manuscript that nobody wanted. You were talented, absolutely. But talent doesn't mean anything in this town without someone willing to take a chance on you."
The words land exactly where he means them to.
I wrap my arms around myself. A defensive posture I hate but can't stop.
“Wow.”
"I'm not trying to be unfair." His voice softens again. "I'm trying to be honest. I believed in you when no one else did. I fought for your book. I put my reputation on the line."
He pauses.
"So when you say I'm making decisions for you, what I hear is that you don't trust the person who's only ever tried to help you succeed."
"You're twisting this."
"I'm not twisting anything." He steps back, like he's giving me space. Like he's the one being mature about this. "I'm asking you to think about what you actually want. Because if this—" he gestures between us, "—isn't what you want, then maybe we need to have a different conversation."
The threat is buried under concern, but it's there. Clear as glass.
"I just want you to talk to me before you go and make these decisions,” I whisper. "I want to feel like I have a choice."
He exhales. Slow and measured.
"You always have a choice, Nora. You're choosing right now. You're choosing to turn the happiest moment of my life into a fight."
"That's not what I'm doing."
"Then what are you doing?" He watches me. Waiting. "Because from where I'm standing, it looks like you're sabotaging something good because you're scared. And I get it—I do. You've been through a lot. But at some point, you have to stop running."
"Maybe this doesn't feel like love," I say. The words barely audible.
He goes still.
Then something shifts in his expression—not anger, but something harder. Colder.
“You’re joking right?” He laughs once. Short and humorless. "Okay. So that's where we are."
"Wes—"
"No, I get it now." He nods slowly, picking up his coffee. "You want to throw this away. Everything we've built. Everything I've given you. Fine. But just know—"
He pauses at the doorway. Looks back at me.
"You won't find this again. Not the success. Not the opportunities. Not someone who believes in you the way I do."
The threat sits between us, dressed up as concern.
"Think about that," he says quietly. "Think about what you're really giving up."
Then he walks away, leaving me standing in the kitchen with tears on my face and his words echoing in my head like poison.
I made you.
Even though he never said it out loud this time, I heard it anyway. It like something vital has been squeezed out of me. I sink down onto the floor, back against the counter, and let myself cry—not because I'm sad, but because I'm finally angry enough to see it clearly.
Somewhere beneath the panic, beneath the grief and the rage, Eden calls to me again. The memory of it. The safety of it. The version of myself I left there.
So does he.
My phone sits on the floor beside me where I dropped it. Screen dark. Silent. I reach for it. Pull up my contacts. Scroll to his name.
Nate.
My thumb hovers over it. Heart pounding. Tears still wet on my face.
I could call him. I could text him. I could break five years of silence with a single message.
But what would I even say?
My hand trembles. The phone screen blurs.
I close the contacts. Lock the screen. Set the phone down.
But the fact that I almost did—that I wanted to—tells me everything I need to know about where I am.
And where I can't stay much longer.