27. Nolan
Chapter Twenty-Seven
NOLAN
The unbearable part of heartbreak isn’t the grand, explosive moment when it all ends. It’s the silence afterward.
The thought settles heavily through me Friday morning while I stand alone in the marina apartment kitchen staring at two coffee mugs instead of one.
Mine and the one Hadley left behind the other day.
This apartment still smells like her. Vanilla candles. Salt air. The faint floral scent that always lingered on my sweatshirts after she wore them.
Home. Or at least it used to feel that way. Now the apartment feels hollow. Like someone removed the center of gravity from my life overnight.
I slept maybe two hours. Not consecutively.
Every time I closed my eyes, I heard her voice again.
I don’t think love is supposed to feel this lonely.
The memory slices straight through my chest all over again. Because she was right. That’s the unbearable thing about this breakup. Neither of us stopped loving the other person.
Love wasn’t the problem. Fear was.
I grip the kitchen counter harder while morning sunlight spills across the marina through the windows. Outside, life keeps moving: dock workers hauling supplies, tourists wandering the boardwalk, boats preparing for charter runs.
The marina survived another storm. Slip renewals have been coming in weeks earlier than usual.
Walter says it’s the strongest season he’s seen in years.
Local businesses have already committed to sponsoring next summer’s festivals.
Every report says the same thing. People are investing in this place long before anyone asks them to.
Meanwhile, I destroyed the best thing that’s ever happened to me trying to protect everything too hard.
My phone buzzes against the counter.
Hope flares before logic crushes it a second later.
Not Hadley, but Walter.
Walter
Meeting at ten. Don’t spiral beforehand.
Too late. I already am.
I force myself through a shower, into clothes, and into movement purely because standing still hurts worse.
Every room in the apartment feels haunted now. The couch where Hadley curled against me during storms. Her favorite oversized sweatshirt still draped across the chair near the bedroom. The dog treats she started keeping beside the fridge for Rook.
Evidence. Proof that somebody loved me enough to build a life here beside me. And I still managed to lose her anyway.
By the time I make it downstairs to the marina office, exhaustion buzzes painfully behind my eyes.
Walter takes one look at me and grimaces. “Jesus.”
I lean against the office doorway. “She left.”
A gentle warmth spreads across Walter’s features, his eyes crinkling at the corners as a faint smile touches his lips.
“You surprise me every day with your emotional intelligence,” I mutter.
Walter snorts. “Sit down before you fall.”
I collapse into the office chair heavily while the sunlight glitters across Back Bay beyond the windows.
The marina looks beautiful this morning. Alive. Warm. Which makes the emptiness inside me feel worse.
This place doesn’t feel like home without Hadley in it anymore.
Walter watches me for a long moment before finally asking, “What happened?”
I laugh once under my breath. “That’s a really long answer.”
“You got nowhere to be.”
My phone buzzes again.
Holt.
For a second I consider ignoring it.
Instead, I open the message.
Holt
You eat yet?
I stare at the screen.
Type.
Delete it.
Finally settle on:
Me
Working on it.
Three dots appear.
Holt
Mom says that’s not an answer.
Despite everything, I laugh.
Walter notices. “Good.”
I look up. “What?”
“Nice hearing that sound again.”
The irony almost kills me.
I scrub both hands down my face, trying to steady myself against the pressure crushing my chest.
“She said love shouldn’t feel lonely.”
Walter stays silent. Listening.
The memory physically hurts.
“I kept trying to protect everything,” I whisper. “The marina. Her. The future.” Emotion roughens my voice sharply. “And I made her feel shut out instead.”
The truth leaves the office painfully still afterward. Now that the relationship is gone, I can finally see everything clearly. Every withheld fear. Every late night. Every decision made from panic instead of trust.
Walter leans back in his chair. “You ever call the lender Dean told you about?”
The question catches me off guard. “Yesterday.”
“And?”
“They’re interested.”
“Good.”
“Didn’t say they’d approve anything.”
“Didn’t say they wouldn’t either.”
Walter folds his arms. “So what now?”
I stare down at the lender packet sitting open on my desk.
“Now...”
The answer doesn’t come. The old me would’ve taken the paperwork home, locked myself in the apartment, and spent another week trying to solve it alone.
Instead, I slide the folder across the desk toward him. “What am I missing?”
Walter blinks. “You asking me?”
“I’ve been pretending I know everything for weeks.” The admission tastes unfamiliar. “I don’t.”
He studies me for a long second before pulling the folder closer. “Well...”
He flips through the first page.
“Right off the bat?” He taps one section. “They’re asking for cash-flow projections through hurricane season.”
“I saw that.”
“You didn’t see this.” His finger moves lower. “They’re also asking for community commitments.”
I frown. “What does that mean?”
Walter shrugs. “Means they aren’t just lending to a marina.” He glances up. “They’re lending to Coral Bell Cove.”
Something settles inside me for the first time in weeks...
I don’t try to take the folder back. I just listen.
I instinctively look toward the marina windows, then toward the investor renderings still sitting closed on the edge of my desk.
Yesterday, I thought I might need it. Today, the idea makes me feel sick.
In a flash, a devastating truth dawned on me. I was so terrified of losing my home that I almost traded away the very things that made it feel like home in the first place. The marina. The community. Her.
Walter studies my face carefully.
“There it is.”
I glance over tiredly.
“What?”
“The look people get when they finally stop lying to themselves.”
For weeks, I kept telling myself I was protecting everyone. I’m being responsible. I’m doing what’s necessary.
But underneath all of it? It was a bottomless pit of fear.
My phone buzzes again. This time my entire chest tightens painfully before I even look.
Hadley.
I grab the phone too fast. Too desperate. And hate myself for it.
But none of that matters once I see the message.
Hadley
Rook keeps sitting outside my cottage waiting for your truck.
The breath leaves my lungs hard enough to hurt.
Even now she found a gentle way to tell me she misses me too.
I stare at the message while grief and love and longing tear through my chest so violently I physically can’t breathe for a second.
Then finally, quietly enough that it almost breaks apart before leaving my mouth, “I can’t lose her.”
Walter watches me for a long second.
“Then stop trying to win her back.”
I frown.
“What?”
“Start trying to deserve her.”
Silence settles between us, knowing those aren’t the same thing.
By Saturday afternoon, I’ve officially reached the stage of heartbreak when even the marina employees start looking concerned when I walk into rooms.
Which honestly feels excessive.
“You look haunted,” Miguel tells me the second I step onto the fuel dock.
I keep moving anyway, clipboard tucked beneath one arm while humid coastal air presses heavily across Back Bay.
The marina buzzes with weekend traffic around me. Life keeps moving. That’s the cruel thing about heartbreak. The world doesn’t stop just because yours did.
I stop near the western slips, checking storm repair reports I’ve already reviewed twice because concentrating on numbers hurts less than thinking about Hadley.
Unfortunately, nothing hurts less than thinking about Hadley. Everywhere I look, she exists here. The dock bench where she fell asleep against my shoulder after fireworks night.
The café table where she once spent forty minutes passionately explaining why fictional men in romance novels needed therapy. The marina railing where she kissed me like staying was the easiest thing in the world.
God, the memories are unbearable now.
“You planning to emotionally spiral all weekend or should we schedule shifts?” Walter’s voice cuts through my thoughts from behind me.
I glance over tiredly. “Can everybody in this town stop psychoanalyzing me for five minutes?”
“No.” Walter falls into step beside me while we walk toward the repair dock.
For several quiet moments neither of us speaks.
“She okay?” he asks, kicking a piece of gravel off the dock and back toward the parking lot.
The dawning realization that I don’t know sends a sharp, painful twist through my chest.
“I think I broke her heart,” I admit.
Walter exhales heavily beside me. “Probably.”
I glare sideways. “You continue to be shockingly unhelpful.”
“You want helpful or honest?”
I stare out toward Back Bay where gray clouds drift low over the water while guilt presses painfully beneath my ribs.
Because the awful truth is Hadley tried to warn me weeks ago. Every conversation. Every argument. She kept asking me to let her stand beside me honestly while I kept retreating farther inward every time fear showed up.
I confused emotional isolation with protection for so long that I stopped realizing how lonely I was making the people around me feel.
But Hadley loved me through it all anyway. Loved me patiently. Openly. Bravely. And I still let fear shape too many decisions.
My chest aches, a tight coil of guilt twisting within me.
Walter studies me carefully for another moment before speaking again.
“You know why the Wright girl finally walked away?”
I look over.
Fear flashes low and ugly beneath my ribs.
Walter gestures vaguely toward the marina around us. “Because she realized you’d destroy yourself trying to carry everything before you’d trust somebody enough to help you hold it.”
That’s exactly what happened. I kept trying to shoulder every possible disaster alone until eventually there wasn’t room left for Hadley beside me emotionally anymore.