CHAPTER NINE
The place didn’t even look like the gymnasium anymore.
Someone had strung white lights across the ceiling, draped gauzy fabric from the basketball hoops, and set up a punch table beside the bleachers.
It smelled like hairspray, waxed floors, and the faint sweetness of pastries from the Main Street bakery.
I smoothed my dress—pale blue, something I’d found at the thrift store—and pretended I wasn’t watching the door.
Teddy was late.
Not that it was unusual. Teddy Bowman lived his entire life on his own clock, somehow always forgiven for it. But tonight, of all nights, I wanted him to show up on time—if only to prove that this thing between us was as real as it felt.
When he finally walked in, the noise around me blurred.
He wasn’t even trying—his tie was crooked, his hair still damp from a shower, sleeves rolled to his elbows like he’d wandered in from some alternate, cooler universe.
But when his eyes found mine, his grin widened, like nothing else in the glittering, swaying room existed.
“Sorry,” he said, breathless, as he reached me. “Wes’s truck broke down on the way over.”
“I was starting to think you ditched me.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said—and somehow, I knew he meant it. When he offered his hand, I took it.
We danced, if you could call it that—more of a slow shuffle in the corner of the gym while some student DJ played early-2000s pop.
My cheek brushed his shoulder; his thumb traced lazy circles against my wrist. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel like I had to hold it all together. I just felt… held.
“Can’t believe we’re actually here. Together,” I whispered.
“Where else would we be?”
“Anywhere,” I admitted. “You, probably on a beach somewhere. Me, I don’t know—New York, maybe.”
He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You still planning on leaving?”
“I got in,” I said. “NYU.”
“That’s incredible, M.”
I hesitated. “I might defer a year.”
His eyebrows lifted. “Why would you do that?”
I didn’t answer right away. I wanted to tell him the truth—that I’d waited half my life for him to look at me the way he was looking at me now. That I didn’t want this to end before it had even begun.
But then he squeezed my hand, too gentle and too careful, murmuring, “You’d be crazy not to go.”
It was meant as encouragement. But the tone of his voice made my stomach sour.
We danced a little longer, swaying beneath the strings of light, the world shrinking to the space between us. Every time I blinked, I tried to memorize it—his laugh, the way his pulse beat steadily beneath my palm, and his eyes flitting across my face as he pulled me closer than I thought possible.
When the song ended, he leaned in until I could feel his breath against my ear. “You’re going to write about us someday,” he murmured.
I smiled, trying not to let my voice shake. “Maybe I already am.”
He laughed, low and warm, and brushed his knuckles against my jaw before pulling away. “I’m gonna get us some punch.”
I watched him go, the room shimmering and spinning and slightly unreal. In my head, this was only the beginning. I didn’t know yet that it was already the middle of the end.
???
PRESENT DAY
I sat on my mom’s couch at home—a patterned, faded thing that smelled as old as it looked—decompressing after a long evening.
Decorating the Main Street stoops was nothing less than a workout. About an hour in, my feet began to drag from the lack of caffeine. Luckily, Rhett joined somewhere along the way, providing the muscle while we gave him artistic direction.
Just as Georgie wanted, Bluebell Cove looked more like a painting than a real place when we finished.
Each shop face boasted a display of colorful pumpkins situated on and around a bale of hay, some surrounded by autumnal flowers donated by Janice and Frank, others flanked by galvanized pails bursting with dried wheat sheaves.
A truly idyllic subject for a luxury magazine spread.
I scowled at the blinking cursor on my laptop screen. Teddy had a knack for weaseling his way into my thoughts without even trying.
Kicking my feet up on the coffee table, I muttered to myself and glanced over both shoulders, as if one of the framed pictures on the wall might come alive to spy on me.
Slowly, heart in my throat, I exited the blank document and reopened my manuscript—the one rejected by the same publishing firm that once hailed me as a wunderkind.
Sometimes I wondered if using my real name would’ve changed anything. Or if, had I been accepted, I’d still be sitting here in the ruins of my own life. Neither answer was satisfying.
My chest ached as I scrolled, devouring each word. So, maybe it wasn’t flashy. Maybe I should’ve known better than to submit it when I knew exactly what the trends were. Perhaps being called a prodigy had gone to my head. It was silly, I supposed, to believe I was owed something for my unhappiness.
I thought I’d walked in lockstep and climbed the corporate ladder just far enough to finally allow myself to breathe. But the second I reached for something more, it all disintegrated.
Candice could call it self-sabotage, spiraling, or perfectionism—but the truth glared as bright as the words on my screen: when I reached for the stars, I plummeted.
Achieving dreams seemed only meant for people like Teddy and Georgie—the types born floating sixty thousand feet off the ground, their aspirations always an arm’s reach away.
From down below, clinging to the cold, rickety rungs I’d spent years scaling just to get a glimpse, it all seemed so easy for them.
Here, wallowing in the ashes I’d made for myself, all I could think was that I was tired.
I snapped my laptop shut and ran my palm across its cool surface. I hadn’t felt this adrift since I was eighteen. Nothing was quite as unsettling as standing on shifting sand—a feeling I’d spent my whole life trying to outrun.
Sometimes it felt like Margot Wade and misery were a package deal.
When the door to the office slammed shut, I had no time to scramble from the couch and execute my best interpretation of a hermit. My mom slipped inside, apron in hand, and kicked her clogs off. She hadn’t noticed me yet. I could probably still escape to my bedroom—
“Good, you’re up,” she muttered, tossing her things on the dining table.
Shrugging, I reopened my laptop. “I’m writing,” I lied.
“Writing’,” she echoed and folded herself onto the oversized leather armchair. “What about?”
I stared at the blank page and swallowed the lump in my throat. When was the last time she’d asked anything about my life? She probably didn’t even know I’d been writing, and she definitely didn’t care about the cause of my surprise appearance in Bluebell Cove. There was no point in pretending.
“What do you need?” I asked, snapping my laptop shut and setting it on the table.
She sighed and tugged at the pen in her hair until it fell around her slumped shoulders in silky locks of silver and dark brown.
The collar of her decades-old uniform sported a fresh coffee stain that would be gone the next morning—taking pride in the diner was one of the few things she could manage when Andrew left. Some things never changed.
When she leaned forward, I nearly jumped at the warmth of her hands as she squeezed mine. Her palms were drier than I last remembered. A little more rough, too.
It was odd, knowing in my mind that it should be familiar, but feeling more like I was being held by a stranger.
“Your father told me that he saw you,” she murmured, unable to meet my eyes.
My nod seemed unnatural.
“I’m… sorry it was a surprise,” she said. “Are you alright?”
Suddenly cognizant, I wrenched my hands away and shifted back onto the couch. “That’s the first time you’ve asked me that,” I snapped.
“What’re you talkin’ about?”
I sucked in a shuddering breath and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Never mind. Never mind, okay?”
A normal mother might’ve pried. Maybe willingly endured the wrath of her daughter just for the chance to understand what was going on in her head.
Instead, though, she simply clasped her hands together in defeat. “You should get dinner with him.”
My mouth fell open. “Who? Because you can’t possibly be referring to the man that left eleven years ago.”
“Darlin’.” She sighed and paused, peering up at me through drooping eyelids. Had they always looked like that? “He’s still your father, and he’d love to see you,” she finished.
Her words hung there, mixing with the faint smell of burgers and the hum of the old fridge.
I barked out a laugh that was half-howl, half-gasp. “That’s rich. Was he in a coma for a decade? Did he have a terrible accident and only just remember who he is?”
“Please—”
“No,” I cut her off, shooting up from the couch and nearly wobbling over and onto the coffee table.
Blood rushing in my ears, I was already fuming by the time I said, “He had more than enough chances. And honestly, so did you.” My voice cracked on the last words, so I spun on my heel and began storming toward my bedroom.
“Margaret Rosemary Wade!” My mother shouted, a sound that was so foreign it stopped me in my tracks and drained the color from her face. “What was that supposed to mean?” she hissed, low and trembling and thin.
Glancing at the ceiling, another mirthless laugh spilled from my lips. “It means you might as well have left that day too.”
I didn’t wait for her response, or to see if it had any effect. My feet pound a pair of shoes at the door, and I blindly grabbed a coat hanging there before flying down the stairs and into the alley. The screen door shut with a squeal behind me, and I nearly crumpled onto the wall.
A cool evening breeze whipped straight through my pants. That’s when I registered that I wore a mismatched pajama set, my mother’s clogs, and the puffy, baby blue parka that she must’ve stolen from my closet when I left.
I cursed myself, momentarily debated venturing back inside, then decided on the frigid chaos of my own stubbornness.
Hugging my arms to my chest, I skulked from the shadows and toward the beach. Hopefully there wouldn’t be anyone that recognized me at this time of night.
The clogs, a half-size too small, scraped against the sand-covered cobblestone as I wandered down Harbor Street.
I shivered and grimaced as another icy gust whipped against my skin.
A few of the Main Street shops poured amber light onto the street—many adjusted their hours for the tourist season—so I aimlessly wandered across the road like a gnat to a lamp.
Georgie’s Pottery Shop across the street glowed with warmth. I lifted my foot to hustle over for shelter, then frowned and put it back down. Past the row of trees, and her striped awning, and the display of ferns on her windowsill, two figures moved in tandem.
A tiny smile lifted my lips as I watched Georgie and Rhett dance.
Apparently gone to the world, adrift in whatever melody played beyond the whistling breeze and shifting branches.
He looked stiff and unrhythmic next to her, but she didn’t seem to care, throwing her head back and twirling until the flowers on her dress blurred with motion.
Something hot trailed down my cheek. Swiping it with my finger, I peered down my nose at the shining tear like an alien had taken over my body. When did I start crying?
My phone buzzed in the pocket of my pajama pants, shaking me from whatever strange feeling gripped my stomach. I squinted as it came to life and nearly blinded me in the shadows of the sidewalk.
A towering wave of nausea promptly washed over me.
Serena Zayas: I’M ENGAGED! Coming home tomorrow to scout venues! xoxo
Because, apparently, the only thing I could count on these days was being thrown for a loop.