15. Meredith
MEREDITH
Almost a year ago, I walked down this same pier to escape the crowded beach and the overeager questions about my fifteen-year absence.
It had been an odd sort of day. The local barbecue was a tradition steeped in warm, comforting, coming-of-age nostalgia. The fact that it hadn’t changed in all those years I’d been away had been bittersweet at best and overwhelming at worst.
That had been the day that Eddie spoke to me again, where I began my first of many apologies, and we made a pact to attempt to rekindle some sort of friendship.
Had I known back then that his easy forgiveness and tolerance for my inexcusable cruelty would one day lead me here, to this moment, I’m not sure if I would’ve offered him friendship.
If only to save him from suffering through more of me.
None of this was fair to him. Not when he had already given up so much for me. I should run a mile, a hundred, a thousand miles to stop myself from repeating the same mistakes over and over.
And yet…
And yet when he messaged me this afternoon…
“Mer?”
I couldn’t help myself.
“Hey,” I offer, more to the wind than to Eddie. It nearly wails past my face as I step farther out across the wooden planks, deeper into the endless darkness of the sea and sky. Nearly undiscernible now in this late hour.
Eddie’s form is more of a shadow that looms at the end of the pier, lightening to a gray monotone as I get closer. I almost don’t want to look at the details of his face beginning to form.
My stomach is twisted into knots—dread and longing battling for dominance.
God, but I’ve missed him.
His hands are shoved into his jacket pockets, curls messy from the wind, expression soft yet unreadable. He gives me a small smile as I approach, something warm and familiar melting the tension in my chest.
“You want to sit with me for a bit?” he asks gently.
I nod, taking his offered hand as I lower myself to sit next to him at the edge of the pier, my feet dangling off the side.
Somewhere down there, my Versace sandals are making a sandy home for the sea creatures below.
I think about that instead of how Eddie’s calloused fingers feel like they’re sanctifying mine. He drops them quickly, anyway.
He takes a moment to settle and adjust next to me.
His thigh is close enough to mine that I can feel the warmth radiating from him.
It takes everything in me not to lean into it, to steal some of it for myself.
Better yet, I would nuzzle into the space between his chest and beg him to let me stay there.
But I do neither and focus on the waves.
He says nothing. Which is somehow worse than if he yelled, because then at least I’d know what page we were on. But Eddie was never the type to yell. Not in the hospital, not when he told me he’d broken up with Nancy. Not even when I left for Boston.
In fact, the only person I’ve heard him get truly angry at is Richard.
I try not to flinch when he suddenly breathes in deeply.
“I’ve been thinking a lot,” he says.
“Yeah. I imagine you have.”
The waves crash around us for a moment before he speaks again. “You know, the first time I saw you again—last summer—I really thought I was hallucinating.”
I blink. “What?”
“I’m serious. I walked into the Shack like I was in some sort of dream.
Because surely that wasn’t the Holloway sisters arguing like they always used to.
” He laughs under his breath. “You know, the number of times I’d look across the street from Birdie’s and imagine you were back… Yeah, it didn’t feel real.”
Something lodges in my throat. “I think I almost had a heart attack when you called me Mrs. Perez.”
“Yeah, well. I needed to remind myself it was a nightmare.” His tone drips with irony. “Otherwise, I would have walked straight across that room and kissed you. Right there and then.”
He’s already looking straight at me when my head snaps to him.
“Don’t look at me like that, Mer,” he says, tilting his chin.
“I knew it was all in my head. It was my own stupid fantasy. I had to remind myself you were married and happy and successful, that you had moved so far beyond me it wasn’t even worth considering that I was the crazy one for clinging to the idea of a person for so long.
That I was pathetic enough to see your face in every single person I’ve dated since. ”
“Eddie…”
“Then at the barbecue, when we sat here like this, I felt…lucky,” he says, his voice dipping. “Stupidly lucky. That you were back. That you even wanted to talk. That you didn’t want just to disappear again. That was more than I even let myself fantasize about.”
Guilt burns hot behind my ribs. “Stop it. Don’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“Act like you don’t mean anything to me,” I say, aware that my breathing is wrecked and ragged but moving on anyway.
“That you didn’t mean everything to me. I have missed you, Edward Jones, since the moment I left this godforsaken island.
I’ve missed you in every second since I got back, every single one wasted when I wasn’t with you. ”
I swallow hard.
“You think I wasn’t on fire that day at the Shack? The night of the barbecue? You think I wasn’t looking for you around every corner, straining to hear your voice in every crowded room. Eddie!” I let out a manic laugh. “I might be terrible at being in love with you, but I am in love with you.”
He stares at me, searching my face for something I can only desperately hope he finds.
“Is it true? What Linda said about what happened at the café.”
I almost get whiplash at the change in direction. “I—what?”
“She said you were there with Mark.”
It dawns on me a beat too slowly. Then, far too quickly. Curse this stupid little island and these gossipy little people. “That’s why you said you wanted to meet? Because you heard through the grapevine that I’d had a public dispute with Mark?”
There’s amusement then, in the crinkle of his eyes. “I also missed you, too.”
Embarrassment surges up my face in hot flushes, causing my hands to offer themself up as a perfect burying place. Of course Linda couldn’t keep her mouth shut.
“Meredith?” His voice sounds closer than I expected. Then, a second later, calloused hands wrap around my wrists, gently pulling my hands from my face. “There’s no need to be so dramatic. From the sounds of it, you had everything handled.”
“I hate this stupid island,” I grumble petulantly, but I allow myself to be maneuvered. I allow Eddie to rest my hands back in my lap. I allow myself to tighten my fingers around his when they threaten to slip away.
“Really?”
The waves crash and fall—crash and fall. “No.”
His thumb rubs against the back of my hand, up and down. Up and down.
“I do need to apologize,” I say quietly.
His eyes flick to me, brows pulling together in confusion. “I thought we’d done this already.”
“I think you deserve to hear it again.” I take a breath. “I should’ve told you what was going on. I should’ve told you months ago, before Christmas, before everything got so twisted and complicated.”
His jaw twitches enough for me to see the echo of the hurt there. To make this feel like a justified apology.
“All that time in New York, waiting for June to be cleared…those were some of the worst weeks of my life.” The memories hit me hard. “I felt trapped. Cornered. Stupid for being manipulated by Mark. And ashamed that I’d been pulled back into his orbit at all.”
His expression softens, but I keep going before I lose my nerve.
“When I came home after all that, I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want it to follow me.” I swallow hard. “I didn’t want it to touch whatever was happening between us. You were…too important.”
He breathes in like he’s preparing to speak, but I’m not done.
“And…if I’m being brutally honest?” I meet his eyes.
“I think I was using our relationship to escape everything that happened. To get over how awful it was. To feel something good again. I didn’t want that to be true.
But looking back, I think it was. I know you deserved better than that.
Better than someone who is too afraid to tell you the truth because she thought it would ruin everything.
You deserve someone who isn’t scared. Someone who doesn’t abandon you for sixteen years and then shows up covered in baggage. Someone who…isn’t me.”
His brow furrows. “Mer, come on.”
“No. Let me finish.” My breath trembles out of me. “I love you. God, Eddie, I love you. I always have. And I want what’s best for you. Really, truly. So, if that’s not me?—”
A laugh bursts out of him. A sudden, loud, incredulous laugh that startles birds off the railing.
I blink. “Why are you laughing?”
He shakes his head like he can’t believe me. “Because you’re ridiculous.”
“I’m pouring my heart out here!”
“I know,” he says. “And you’re adorable. And dramatic. And somehow still missing the most obvious thing in the world.”
“What obvious thing?” I snap, hands thrown up.
“That I never stopped loving you.” His voice lowers.
“Not once. Not for a single day in fifteen years. Certainly not for a single day since you got back. Mer, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.
” His hands squeeze mine, pulling me in closer.
“You think I waited sixteen years just to walk away because things got complicated?”
“I hurt you,” I whisper.
“I’d rather that than having to watch you walk away again.”
Tears burn at the corners of my eyes. I look down, blinking hard, but he squeezes my hands until I meet his gaze again.
“I love you,” he says. Not dramatic. Not hesitant. Not afraid. Just truth. “I’ve loved you since I was a stupid sixteen-year-old kid, watching you work through the window of your father’s Lobster Shack. And I’m not stopping now.”
And then he kisses me.
Soft at first, gentle, giving me space to pull away if I want to.
But I don’t. Of course I don’t. I lean into him, fingers curling into his jacket, and he kisses me deeper.
Like I mean something… Like I mean everything.
Like not one second has passed since the last time we did this.
Like every kiss we’ve ever shared across our lifetime was meant to happen so that we could share this one.
When we break apart, I’m breathless.
“Is this it?” I whisper. “Is it just us now?”
He brushes a strand of hair from my face, tucking it behind my ear like he used to. “Yeah. It’s us.”
I kiss him again, laughing into his mouth, unable to contain the sheer joy swelling up inside me.
Like maybe…just maybe…it could last forever.