Until September

Stranded in Havenport

Nothing ever prepares you for the sound of your own bones rattling on a twelve-hour drive north. Not the lull of podcasts, not the slow bleed of city radio into static as you cross the border out of Massachusetts, not even the panic that sometimes simmers in your chest when you remember that yes, you really are running, and you’re doing it alone.

By the time I rolled into Havenport, I was two iced coffees, one gas station honey bun, and four nicotine lozenges past salvation. My spine felt like wet rope. The late afternoon sun had already begun its swan dive behind the evergreens and pastel beach houses, painting the Atlantic in bruised shades of purple and gunmetal. I pulled into the shell drive, killed the engine, and just let the silence have me.

There she was, my grandmother’s house: a squat, salt-scoured bungalow perched on the rim of the water like it might jump in. The porch leaned hard to port, the trim was curling back from the clapboards in strips like orange rinds, and every window wore a patina of sea salt so thick it might as well have been frosted glass. Grandma called it her "mermaid shanty." I called it a barely-standing monument to deferred maintenance.

I kicked the driver’s side door open, the hinges screaming in sympathy, and shouldered my duffel out. The rest could wait—suitcase, shoes, dignity—so long as I made it inside before the mosquitoes discovered I was fresh meat. The porch steps were every bit as treacherous as I remembered, boards bowed and slick underfoot, the handrail a suggestion at best.

The key to the front door was an old, burnished thing, the brass worn smooth by decades of anxious hands. I fumbled it twice, almost dropping it into the wild tangle of beach rose and thistle that had long since staged a coup over the walk. I got the door open on the third try and stepped into the cloud of hush that was the Reyes family curse. Generations of women whispering about each other in kitchens, preserving things—fruit, grudges, secrets—against the rot of time.

The house still smelled like my grandmother. Or more accurately, like her layered with mildew, lemon oil, and a backnote of frying lard. Every wall wore faded floral wallpaper, each room crammed with furniture that looked as though it might bite if you sat on it wrong. A thousand tiny knick-knacks—ceramic cats, shot glasses from every casino north of New Jersey, a glass paperweight shaped like a sand dollar—cluttered every flat surface. Above the mantel was the queen herself, abuela in her seventies, glaring through a haze of cigarette smoke at anyone who dared take her seat.

I dropped my duffel at the threshold and let my fingers skim the surface of the old upright piano. It was just as out of tune as the rest of us. Next to it, a shelf sagged under the weight of photo albums: glossy Polaroids of summers spent shelling clams, black-and-whites of my mom in a paisley bikini, and one disastrous Christmas where everyone dressed as elves and I, age six, broke my ankle trying to leap off the sofa. The memory stung, and not just in my foot.

I moved through the kitchen, opening windows in a futile attempt to let the ocean air erase everything stale. The sea outside was loud, louder than the traffic of Boston had ever been, and the rhythm of it worked under my skin like a pulse.

That was when my phone buzzed, vibrating against the chipped Formica like an insect in its death throes. I ignored the first two dings. The third was a text from my boss, terse as ever: "Need Q3 projections by Monday. Hope you’re settled." The fourth, a missed call from Michael, which I deleted without listening.

I let myself sag against the kitchen counter. Out here, every surface felt as though it might give way—cabinets sticky with humidity, floorboards flexing under my weight, even the paint peeling back in curls. I reached into a cupboard for a glass, found a half-clean mug with a faded lobster on it, and poured myself tap water that tasted of rust and old coins.

The back deck was just as I remembered, only sadder. The whitewashed Adirondack chairs sat in a huddle, crusted with gull droppings. The railing, once painted a cheery coral pink, was chipped down to the raw wood. I took my mug outside and braced my elbows against the splintered rail, breathing in salt, diesel from a distant lobster boat, and the faint stink of low tide.

That was when I saw it: the dock, or what was left of it. Half the planks had gone soft and buckled; the posts nearest the water leaned at angles that would have made my structural engineer ex-fiancé lose his mind. Someone had tied a length of frayed rope across the entrance as a warning, but one good storm and it would be swimming with the crabs.

I exhaled, slow and deliberate, and looked up at the sky, which was starting to bruise at the edges. This was supposed to be the "healing summer." It figured the place itself would be as busted as I was.

A car door slammed from the street. My heart, traitor that it was, kicked up a notch. Nobody should know I was here. Then again, Havenport was the kind of town where secrets evaporated faster than rain on a blacktop.

I heard her before I saw her: the wet, percussive slap of sandals against pavement, the cheery hum of a tune that sounded suspiciously like "La Bamba." Marina Delgado, havenport’s answer to Martha Stewart, arrived at the bottom of the steps with a mesh tote in one hand and a box wrapped in waxed butcher paper in the other.

"Juliette! Mija, you made good time," she called up, her vowels stretching like taffy.

I tried to muster a smile. "Speed limits are just a suggestion north of the border."

She beamed at me, her whole face a sunburst of warmth. She wore a turquoise cardigan over a dress splattered with some kind of lemon print, and her hair—silver-streaked, always immaculate—bobbed with every step. She climbed the porch without fear, bypassing the deathtrap stair with the air of someone who’d done it a thousand times.

She held out the mesh bag like an offering. "Your abuela’s famous carrot cake, and some good bread from my nephew’s bakery. You look tired, mija."

"Is that code for ‘I look like shit’?"

She laughed, deep and unembarrassed. "You always did know how to cut to the bone. Let me in before the gulls get ideas."

Inside, she swept the living room with a critical gaze, nodding at the places I’d already started to clean. "House misses her," she said, softly enough it didn’t feel like a reprimand.

"She’s only been gone three months," I replied, not trusting myself to say more.

Marina busied herself at the kitchen counter, slicing bread and arranging it on a plate with the precision of a surgeon. She filled two mugs with coffee from a thermos she’d brought, ignoring my offer of tap water. We stood in the kitchen, chewing in companionable silence, until the need for words grew too big to ignore.

"Have you seen the dock?" I asked, half hoping she’d missed it.

Marina clicked her tongue, a habit I’d inherited from her and, through her, my grandmother. "It’s a lawsuit waiting to happen," she pronounced. "You plan to swim, or just stare at the ocean like a sad movie star?"

"Neither. I’m here to pack the place up and get it ready to sell. I’ll be gone by Labor Day."

Marina’s lips pressed together, her expression sharpening. "Your abuela would haunt you if you tried to let this place rot."

"She’s haunting me already," I said, forcing a laugh. "She left me a three-page letter about not throwing out her collection of vintage ashtrays."

Marina patted my arm, soft but insistent. "Let me make a call. River Beckett is the best carpenter in town. He’ll have it fixed in two shakes."

The name conjured vague recollections of a sunburned kid with knobby knees and a penchant for trouble. "No need. I just need to keep people from falling in. I’ll block it off and call it a day."

Marina’s brows knotted, and she swiped her phone off the counter. "You’ll let him take a look. River does good work, and it keeps him out of the bars."

"I don’t need a project. I just want to—" I stopped. What did I want? To wallow? To hide? The answer shifted every hour.

Marina finished dialing and cradled the phone to her shoulder. "He’ll be here tomorrow. You be nice, okay? Last thing River needs is another woman in this town biting his head off."

"That’s an oddly specific warning."

She winked at me, then pivoted back to the topic of bread as if the matter of my agency had already been resolved. And maybe, in Havenport, it had.

When she left, dusk had already overtaken the shoreline. I stood on the deck again, mug in hand, feeling the first threads of fog roll in from the water. Down below, the dock groaned in the tidal chop. I stared at it until my eyes blurred, trying to remember if my grandmother had ever walked it alone, or if she always waited for someone to steady her arm.

The phone buzzed again, another email from Boston, but I didn’t bother reading it. For now, it was just me, the salt in the air, and the slow, insistent decay of things left too long untended.

Sleep was a luxury, and I couldn't afford it. Even with the windows open, the house creaked and sighed, exhaling the ghosts of every summer party and snowbound winter argument. By dawn, I’d catalogued every spiderweb in the living room and made a mental list of all the junk I’d need to offload at the local Salvation Army. The only thing heavier than the air was my head, leaden with the ache of unshed tears and last night’s bread.

By seven, the sun had already burned off most of the fog, leaving a smudged watercolor sky and a slick of dew on the back deck. I sat out there in a folding chair with legs that didn’t quite match, clutching a mug of Marina’s black coffee. The ocean was almost obscenely calm, the kind of glassy stillness that made you suspicious. It wasn’t right. I didn’t trust it.

I was halfway through a daydream about pouring gasoline on the whole place and just starting over when the growl of a diesel engine cut through the stillness. A truck—not one of those polite city hybrids, but an honest-to-God, mud-spattered behemoth—rolled into the drive and braked, slow and deliberate. I braced myself, as if the fender might actually bite.

The driver’s door swung open and out stepped River Beckett, grown up and filled out in all the ways time can be generous. His hair was darker than I remembered, sun-lightened at the tips and in permanent rebellion against the concept of a comb. He wore a faded gray t-shirt that clung to shoulders engineered for the sole purpose of carrying things that didn’t want to be moved, and his jeans bore the scuffs and paint smears of a man who believed in hard labor. His boots hit gravel and he stretched, arms high overhead, before giving the porch a once-over with those sea-glass eyes. For a second, it looked like he might wink, but maybe that was just the light.

He hefted a battered metal toolbox in one hand and strode up like he owned the place, stopping only when he reached the foot of the steps. "Morning," he called, voice rich with Maine, like the vowels had soaked too long in salt water.

I lifted my mug in a salute. "You always make house calls this early, or is it just for special occasions?"

He set the box down with a clank, sizing me up without a hint of apology. "Marina said it was urgent. Figured you might try to fix it yourself if I didn’t get here before breakfast."

"She’s not wrong. I’ve got a crowbar and zero patience for OSHA compliance."

He grinned, one corner of his mouth hitching up higher than the other. "You always were a handful, Reyes."

The old nickname tickled something under my ribs, but I let it die on the vine. "Don’t get sentimental on me, Beckett. I’m only here till Labor Day. After that, this dock is someone else’s problem."

He didn’t answer, just pulled a notebook from his back pocket and clicked open a pen, a move so practical and unhurried it bordered on performance art. "Show me the damage."

I set my mug down and led him around the side of the house, the grass thick and damp against my ankles. The dock came into view, looking even more tragic by the cold light of morning. River whistled low, walking the perimeter and crouching to examine the boards.

He pressed a palm to the first support post, then leaned back and rocked it gently. It wobbled, weeping saltwater from a deep split. "You walk on this lately?"

"Not unless I have a death wish."

He nodded, running a thumb along the fracture. "Needs more than patchwork, Juliette."

I crossed my arms, resisting the urge to shiver as a breeze rolled in from the ocean, tangling my hair in my face. "I just need it to not kill anyone for the next two months. After that, the buyer can turn it into firewood for all I care."

River pivoted, his eyes narrowing in a way that felt less judgmental and more like he was waiting for me to say something real. "Shortcuts cost more in the long run," he said, matter-of-fact. "The tide’ll take what’s left inside a season."

"Let it," I shot back, sharper than intended. "I’m not here to gentrify the shore. I just need a quick fix."

He crouched again, this time pulling a screwdriver and probe from the kit. Every move was deliberate, quiet, almost meditative. He worked his way down the dock, kneeling and testing, knuckles tracing the grain, pausing now and then to jot a note. I watched him, annoyed at how efficient he was, how immune to small talk.

"Didn’t peg you for the silent type," I said, following him out onto the safer part of the dock.

"Never had much to say worth hearing," he replied, not looking up. "Besides, you always did enough talking for both of us."

I snorted, trying to pretend that didn’t sting. "You must be a hit at parties."

He grinned over his shoulder, eyes crinkling at the edges. "Only when there’s cake."

He straightened, dusting sawdust from his hands, and pulled a card from his wallet. "I’ll write up an estimate. Minimum safe will take a week, tops. But if you want it to last, I’ll need three."

I took the card, trying not to notice how rough his fingers were, how they lingered against mine half a second longer than they should. The card was soft at the edges, the ink smudged from use. "You giving me the hard sell, Beckett?"

He tilted his head, as if considering. "You can find cheaper. Won’t be better."

His confidence was infuriating, or maybe just unfamiliar. Boston was full of men who overpromised and underdelivered. River didn’t promise much at all, but he seemed so certain about what he could do. It was unsettling.

"I’ll think about it," I said, turning the card over in my hands.

He shouldered the toolbox and started back toward the house, pausing at the base of the steps. "I’ll need to pull permits if I’m rebuilding. You okay with that?"

"Do whatever you have to. Just send the bill to me, not my grandmother."

He gave a short nod, as if that settled everything. "Coffee any good, or you just using the mug for effect?"

I caught myself smiling, in spite of the morning and the hour and the ache of being seen. "It’s from Marina. I think she buys it by the drum."

"She’s got taste," he said, then turned and made his way back to the truck.

I watched him go, feeling the morning snap back into focus around me. The breeze was colder now, the sky whiter. I rolled his business card between my fingers, letting the imprint of his touch burn itself into my palm.

I went back to my chair on the porch and watched the water for a long time, listening to the hammers and curses of a man intent on fixing things the right way, even when nobody was watching. Every now and then, I’d catch myself glancing at the dock, half-hoping it would just vanish in a swell and take my problems with it.

But it didn’t. It stayed. And so did River Beckett, his silhouette moving steady across the wood, never once losing his footing.

The next three days were a lesson in the art of drowning slowly.

I went room by room, shoveling through the detritus of a life too full to fit in any one house, much less the boxes I’d scrounged from the grocery store. There were rules, at first: kitchen on day one, bedrooms the next, finally the basement, with its horror-movie lightbulb and spider colonies. But rules were never my strong suit, and soon I was bouncing from closet to closet, chasing ghosts on a whim.

Most things were easy to let go. Old sweaters, moth-eaten and thick with rosewater; stacks of Reader’s Digest, some older than I was; the sort of knickknacks that only made sense in context, and out of context looked like evidence in a minor crime. I filled trash bags with a ruthless efficiency that felt almost holy.

Then there were the things that stuck.

First: the recipe book. A battered binder, its covers floral and soft from decades of handling, pages swollen with splatters of oil and frosting and the faintest hint of cigarette. My grandmother’s handwriting—looping, impatient, sometimes in Spanish, sometimes English, always at war with the margins—ran wild across every page. I flipped through, trailing my finger over notes like "add more nutmeg for Juliette" and "NEVER forget the extra butter." She’d pressed sprigs of herbs between the leaves like the world’s messiest botanist. I closed it carefully, the smell of vanilla and ink rushing up to meet me.

Second: the shell jar. A glass canister, heavy as sin, packed to the lid with the smooth white pebbles and iridescent bits of sea snail we’d scavenged every summer since I could remember. I uncapped it, and the scent—sun, brine, something like childhood—almost toppled me. I tipped the jar onto the kitchen table, letting the shells spill out like teeth. Among them was the tiny spiral I’d lost at age eight, the one I’d wept over for a week. She’d kept it all this time, unremarked, as though she knew I’d come back for it eventually.

Third: the photographs. Not the ones displayed in frames, but the messy, honest ones crammed in shoeboxes and envelopes. Summers on the sand, hair wild and teeth gappy, skin brown as bark. My mother in cutoff shorts, laughing through a sunburn. My grandmother, every age at once—stern, then soft, then wild-eyed with a cigarette poised between her lips. There were gaps in the timeline, of course. Whole years where I barely visited, swallowed by the machinery of Boston, by work and then by Michael, who seemed to take up more and more of the frame until the frames themselves felt too tight.

By day four, the lines between "keep," "donate," and "trash" had begun to blur. The recipe book and shells lived on the kitchen table, a shrine to lost appetite. The photographs scattered across the floor, rearranged every time I passed through, as if I could will the chronology into something more flattering.

I was knee-deep in a cardboard box of VHS tapes—every Disney movie ever released, plus a few unlabeled ones I was afraid to play—when the knock came at the door. I flinched, caught in the act of nostalgia. My hair was a rat’s nest, and I was wearing a t-shirt that read "World’s Okayest Daughter," but self-consciousness was a luxury for people with intact emotional boundaries.

I opened the door to find Marina, carrying a cardboard tray with two cups and a bakery bag. Her eyes flicked over the mess with approval, not judgment.

"You making progress or just making memories?" she asked, breezing past me into the kitchen.

"Little of both," I said, trying not to sound as tired as I felt.

She unpacked the coffee, setting one in front of me. "Half-caf with oat milk, just how you like."

"Are you stalking me?"

"Everyone stalks everyone in Havenport," she replied, unwrapping a croissant for herself. "We just call it 'neighborly.'"

We sat at the kitchen table, shell jar between us, as I sipped the coffee and let the warmth fill the cracks.

"I saw River’s truck this morning," Marina said, tearing her croissant into tiny pieces. "He’s ahead of schedule."

I shrugged, like it didn’t matter. "He could have told me that himself."

"He’s not much for talking," she said, and then, with the surgical precision of a woman who’d spent decades prying secrets out of reluctant teenagers: "You two always had a way of circling each other."

I set my cup down, hard enough to splash coffee onto my hand. "I’m not here for high school reunion vibes, Marina. I came to finish what Abuela started, and then I’m gone."

She smirked, unbothered. "If you say so. But you should come to the Solstice Festival on Saturday. The whole town will be there. Music, food, dancing under the stars—"

I groaned. "Absolutely not. I barely survived my own graduation party. I don’t need to relive it with people who remember me falling into the punch bowl."

Marina pursed her lips, a glint of mischief in her eyes. "That was homecoming, actually. And you climbed out smiling, which is what everyone remembers."

I wanted to argue, but the memory—sticky, sweet, ridiculous—made me smile despite myself.

She polished off the croissant and stood, gathering crumbs into a neat pile. "Think about it. You might even enjoy yourself. And there’ll be Boston people there this year. Big fancy donors from the university. One of them looked like your ex, but maybe I need new glasses."

That stopped me. "Michael?"

She shrugged, faux-innocent. "Could be. You know how they all look the same."

A hot, bitter something rose up inside me, tangled up with embarrassment and a kind of shame I thought I’d packed away with my city clothes. "I’d rather swallow a seashell," I said, but my hands were trembling.

Marina touched my shoulder on her way out, quick and gentle. "Just come. For your abuela. For me."

When she left, the house felt emptier than before. I wandered the rooms, drifting from artifact to artifact, but the old anger didn’t settle. I imagined Michael striding through the festival, all expensive teeth and tailored shirts, laughing at how small Havenport was. I imagined him finding me, here, hair a mess, hands full of other people’s broken things. The humiliation twisted inside me, dark and urgent.

I tossed a handful of shells from the jar, then immediately felt bad and gathered them up, brushing them off like injured birds. Why did everything have to be so goddamn symbolic?

By sunset, the sorting had devolved into aimless pacing. I kept seeing River out of the corner of my eye, working the dock with a kind of patient violence. The way he moved—deliberate, grounded, the opposite of every man I’d dated in Boston. He wasn’t handsome in the city way, but something about him made the house feel less haunted. Like maybe it was possible to fix things, even if you had to tear them down to the nails first.

I caught myself staring, more than once, and hated how obvious it was. I buried myself in a pile of old linens, willing my brain to empty out. But the image persisted: River in the golden hour, sleeves rolled, face streaked with sweat and sawdust, eyes squinting into the sun. I wondered what he’d say if he caught me looking. I wondered if he’d laugh, or just stand there, letting the silence fill up the space between us.

By midnight, I’d given up all pretense of being productive. I sat on the porch with a glass of red wine I found in the basement, watching the moon pull the tide in and out like a restless dream.

The phone sat on the table beside me, face down. I picked it up, thumbed through old messages—Boston numbers, half-friends, work emergencies—then scrolled to Marina’s contact. My fingers hovered over the screen for a long time, like maybe the right answer would show up if I waited long enough.

I typed: "Fine. I’ll go to your festival. But if there’s karaoke, I’m burning the town down."

I hit send, dropped the phone, and let the silence settle over me. Far out on the water, I could see the silhouette of the dock, perfectly straight now, unmoving against the tide.

I wondered if River was still out there, or if I was the only one left awake in Havenport, clinging to the old stories because the new ones seemed too risky, too raw.

I told myself I was doing it to face my past. But even I didn’t believe that. Not entirely.

The Fake-Date Pact 

If there was poetry in the world, it wasn’t in the crash of the Atlantic or the sky’s relentless blue. It was in the low, brutal whine of a power drill, the sound of wood surrendering to a sharper will. River Beckett was already out on the dock when I stumbled down from the porch, the sun not even pretending to be gentle. He worked in a gray tee and cargo shorts, sawdust flocked along his forearms and caught in the snarl of his hair. His shadow swung long and lazy over the battered planks, and his face, in profile, might have belonged to a man who could stare down hurricanes without blinking.

He didn’t notice me, or pretended not to. I watched, cradling two paper mugs in my arms, as he knelt to pry up a splintered board, the movement economic, almost graceful. The air was thick with the tang of salt and new lumber, and underneath, the faintest whiff of sweat.

I cleared my throat. “How many docks have you performed emergency surgery on this week?”

He looked up, blue-green eyes cool and amused. “Just the one. But I’m charging double if you keep stalking me.”

I held out a coffee in truce. “From Marina. She claims it’s the only thing strong enough to wake the dead.”

He took it, fingers grazing mine in a way that was probably accidental but felt deliberate. “Dead might have more fun,” he said, sipping and making a face. “She spikes this with battery acid?”

“Only on weekends. Want help?”

He sized me up, then shrugged. “You can hold the replacement boards, if you don’t mind getting splinters. Or you could just keep me company and throw shade.”

“I’m a multitasker,” I said, perching on the edge of the dock. The skirt of my dress rode up, but I didn’t care. My knees were already scabbed from yesterday’s box marathon.

River nodded at the stack of lumber. “You moved fast. Most people spend a week crying before they touch the closets.”

“Most people aren’t on the clock,” I said, and almost regretted it. But he just grunted, attention back on the dock.

We worked in tandem, which is to say he did the work and I handed him tools. At some point he set the coffee beside me and gestured for a fresh screw, the old one rusted to hell.

“Hand me a three-incher?” he said, extending a palm.

I blinked. “That’s what she said.”

He snorted, head bowed, the tips of his ears flushing. “You’re not right,” he muttered, but I caught the edge of a grin.

“Maybe that’s why I’m single,” I said, and the words stuck in my teeth. I tried to chew them down, but they multiplied.

He set the new board, leaning his weight into it, and looked at me sidelong. “You mind if I ask what happened?”

“Not at all,” I lied, then lied again. “He was boring.”

River’s laugh was a soft, surprised thing. “You don’t strike me as easily bored.”

“Not easily, no.” I spun the coffee lid in my fingers. “Turns out he wasn’t just boring. He was creative enough to upgrade me before the ring was even cold.”

River kept his face turned away, but his shoulders went rigid, like he’d absorbed the hit on my behalf. “That’s rough,” he said.

I shrugged, trying for nonchalance and landing somewhere around petulant. “It’s fine. I’m fine. If you say ‘his loss’ I might drown you, though.”

He angled his head, considering. “Wasn’t gonna say that. Odds are he’s just a dumbass.”

“Agreed.” I wanted to leave it there, but the silence was too good an audience. “He’s engaged. To his ‘work friend.’ The wedding’s next month. My sister thinks I should burn something down, but arson seems a little retro.”

River’s mouth tightened, then released. “You still love him?”

The question surprised me, but I didn’t flinch. “I think I just hate losing. Especially to someone with a Pinterest wedding board.”

He barked a laugh, too loud for the morning, but it didn’t bother me. He finished drilling, wiped his brow with the back of his hand, and tossed the dead screw into the water.

“My ex got married last summer,” he said, after a beat. “Told me over text. Guess it’s the season.”

“Jesus. You okay?”

He shrugged. “I get weekends and Christmas with the dog. It’s a good arrangement.” His smile was thin but not bitter.

I studied him, the knotted veins in his forearms, the way the scar along his wrist caught the sun. He didn’t look fragile, but something in his voice said otherwise.

We fell quiet, lulled by the drone of boats in the harbor and the occasional call of a gull. River bent to check his work, testing the new board with a slow rock of his heel. When he looked up, his eyes snagged on mine and didn’t let go.

“There’s the festival Saturday,” he said, casual as a dropped nail. “You going?”

“Marina’s been on me about it. Says I need to ‘see the town through abuela’s eyes,’ which sounds like an acid trip.”

He smiled, this time all teeth. “It’s mostly fried food and awkward dancing. But it gets loud.”

“Not much of a dancer,” I admitted.

He set the drill aside and sat next to me, his knees drawn up, arms folded over them. “Me neither. Maybe we can be bad at it together.”

It was a joke, but it landed somewhere in my ribs and just stayed there. I could feel the sun soaking into my scalp, could feel the pulse of the ocean under the wood. The world narrowed, for a moment, to the scent of his skin and the salt in the air.

He looked away first. “If you want to make someone jealous,” he said, voice dropping low, “bringing a date’s a good move.”

“You volunteering, Beckett?”

He shrugged, pretending to study a spot of resin on his palm. “Better than showing up alone and getting cornered by the town gossip. You know, just for show.”

“Fake it ‘til you make it?” I tried to keep my voice light, but my mouth had gone dry.

“Something like that.”

I watched him, the set of his jaw, the way he flicked sawdust from his knee with more force than necessary. “Wouldn’t want to give people the wrong idea.”

He finally turned to face me, and for a second, something unguarded flashed in his expression. “We could give them any idea you want.”

The phrase hung there, suspended between flirtation and dare. I stared down at the water, trying not to grin like a middle-schooler.

“You’re full of surprises, River.”

He leaned back on his hands, the sun painting gold across his cheekbones. “Not really. I just like a good story.”

I thought about the festival—the paper lanterns, the bad pop music, the handful of old friends who’d love to dissect my misery. I thought about walking in with River, about the looks, the raised eyebrows, the way it might feel to pretend for one night that I wasn’t a punchline.

“What’s in it for you?” I asked.

He smirked. “I get to avoid the matchmaking committee. Also, you’re better company than Eli Carter’s latest Tinder date.”

“I set a low bar.”

He nudged my shoulder, gentle, careful. “You’re not boring, Juliette.”

For reasons I couldn’t name, that meant more than it should have.

I drained the last of my coffee, grimaced, and stood, brushing off the seat of my dress. “All right. I’ll go. But you have to promise not to let me sing karaoke.”

He grinned up at me. “No promises. Depends how much you drink.”

I laughed, surprised by the sound of it, and offered him a hand up. He took it, his palm rough and warm against mine. For a moment, neither of us let go.

He squeezed, just once. “Deal?”

“Deal,” I said, and for the first time in weeks, I believed it.

We walked back up the beach together, the tide coming in strong behind us, erasing every footprint.

If summer had a smell, it was burnt sugar and brackish air, electric with expectation. By the time we hit the town square, the festival was in full, garish bloom: festoon lights sagged between the lampposts, children shrieked from the tilt-a-whirl, and the sticky-fingered future of Havenport roamed free-range, chasing each other in packs through the haybale maze.

River and I parked two blocks away, the streets bottlenecked with tourists and returnees. I wore a sleeveless dress and too much sunscreen, my hair wrangled into something like order. River had on a clean button-down, unbuttoned just enough to suggest he owned a mirror, and his jeans were only slightly frayed. As we joined the flow of bodies, he hooked my arm through his, an afterthought or a performance, I couldn’t tell. His grip was warm and steady, and the warmth ran all the way to my chest.

We made our way toward the center green, where the pop-up tents clustered like mushrooms after rain. I was hyper-aware of every gaze—old classmates, sunburned strangers, Marina orchestrating some elaborate bake-sale heist. She caught sight of us and beamed, winking so theatrically I could see the crow’s feet crinkle from across the square.

“Showtime,” I whispered.

River grinned, leaned in close. “Just smile and wave. Like royalty.”

We hit the first photo op at the carousel: River’s arm slung around my waist, me perched on the edge of a painted horse. I gritted my teeth for the flash, but the contact was surprisingly nice, his hand heavy and protective at the small of my back. A couple of teenagers gawked, but we held the pose, ridiculous as it was, until they lost interest.

Next up, the Ferris wheel, looming against the peach-blue dusk like an ancient artifact. We bought tickets, River insisting on paying, and stood in line with the rest of the chumps. He kept his hand at my elbow, and when I shot him a look, he just shrugged.

“Part of the illusion,” he said, but there was a dare in his voice.

The wheel moved slow, every stop and start a minor drama. Our gondola creaked as it climbed, the world shrinking to a swirl of lights and faces below. River nudged my knee with his, and I startled, almost knocking the shared bag of kettle corn from my lap.

“You nervous?” he asked, gaze straight ahead.

“Of Ferris wheels, or public humiliation?”

He laughed, the sound absorbed by the wind. “You’re good at this. Maybe too good.”

I took a handful of popcorn and tossed one at his mouth. He caught it, smirked. “I’m a quick study,” I said.

We hung suspended at the top, the ocean a slick of silver to the east, the lights of town fractured and small below. I let the silence settle, let the hush of altitude do what it was meant to.

River cleared his throat. “So, what do we do if someone asks how we met?”

“Obviously we say we met cute at the seafood counter,” I deadpanned. “You were indecisive about scallops, I rescued you from a price-check hell spiral. It was love at first barcode.”

He grinned, showing a rare full smile. “That’s disturbingly plausible.”

“You strike me as a guy who owns more than one type of mustard,” I added.

“Four,” he admitted. “Three if you don’t count honey mustard, which is basically a crime.”

We went around twice, the breeze rising on the second pass, making my skin prickle. River’s knee pressed lightly against mine, and he didn’t move it, not even when our car jerked to a stop for loading. When we finally got off, he offered me a hand, and for the life of me I didn’t know if it was for the act or because he wanted to.

We wove back into the crowd, stopping for fried clams at a booth run by a woman who had known me since braces and adolescent misery. She gave River a once-over and winked. “You always did like the quiet ones,” she said, handing over our food.

“Only if they can cook,” I shot back. River squeezed lemon over the clams and handed me the first one, his fingers steady, eyes on mine.

We ate on a bench under the string lights, the noise of the festival just distant enough to feel like background music. I found myself picking at the crispy bits of batter and offering them to him, and he took them, no comment, as though we’d always eaten this way.

“See anyone you want to avoid?” he asked, low.

“Besides everyone?” I tried to laugh, but the real answer was sitting like a pit in my stomach.

He nudged me. “We can bail whenever you want.”

“It’s not that,” I said, but trailed off, unable to finish. The truth was, I didn’t want to go, didn’t want the night to end with just a pat on the shoulder and a see-you-later. I wanted—what? Something real, even if it was just pretend.

We wandered through the midway, stopping for a round of ring toss. River missed on purpose, and I heckled him for it, until he lined up the last shot and landed it dead center. “Beginner’s luck,” he said, handing me the sad blue teddy bear he won.

I hugged it, just to be a brat. “You know, people are going to start talking.”

He arched a brow. “Isn’t that the point?”

From the next booth over, a familiar voice: “Well, well. Look who’s making the rounds.”

It was Eli, grinning like a kid who’d found the last can of beer at a dry party. He wore an ancient Red Sox tee and a ballcap with the brim curved into submission.

“Didn’t take you for a festival guy, Eli,” I said.

He tipped his hat. “I’m here for the spectacle, Reyes. And I gotta say, you two are putting on a hell of a show.”

I felt River’s hand tighten at my elbow, just a fraction. “Don’t let the boss catch you slacking,” he said, voice easy but eyes sharp.

Eli’s grin widened. “Relax, man. It’s good to see you smiling. It’s been a while.”

He glanced at me, then back at River. “You bring out the best in him, Juliette. I approve.”

It was a joke, but the words made my cheeks heat, and for a second I hated how transparent I was. River seemed to sense it, because he gave Eli a playful shove. “Keep it up and I’ll sign you up for the pie-eating contest.”

“I’m in,” Eli said, dead serious, before wandering off in search of trouble.

We watched him go, then wandered to the edge of the square where the food trucks huddled. River bought me a soft-serve, the swirl already dripping in the humidity. I licked it, savoring the cold against my tongue, and he watched with an expression I couldn’t read.

The sky faded from cobalt to ink, the lights brighter and the noise a low, happy roar. We stood in the shadows, just outside the circle of festival, and for once I didn’t feel the need to fill the silence.

River spoke first. “You ever think about leaving Boston?”

“Constantly,” I said, too honest. “But it’s the devil you know, right?”

He nodded, eyes fixed on something in the middle distance. “I almost left after my dad died. Got as far as Rhode Island. But the coast pulled me back.”

“Is that a metaphor, or do you mean literally?”

He smirked. “Both. Guess I’m a cliché.”

“You don’t seem the type.”

He shrugged. “Maybe I just hide it better.”

We watched the Ferris wheel in silence, the lights spinning slow and endless. I turned the teddy bear in my lap, picking at the seam, and thought about how easy it was to pretend, how the role fit like a hand-me-down coat, a little too big but warm anyway.

“You want to get out of here?” he asked, gentle.

I did, but not to leave. “Let’s just walk,” I said.

We wandered along the edge of the festival, past the duck pond and the old bandstand, the music thinning out with every step. River reached out and took my hand, not for the show, not for the audience—there was no one left to see us. His palm was calloused, thumb tracing the inside of my wrist. I didn’t pull away.

For a long stretch, we just walked, saying nothing, our steps falling in sync. I felt the warmth of his body, the easy way he moved, and wondered how it was possible to feel so comfortable with someone I barely knew. Or maybe I knew him, in the way that people who survive things recognize each other.

When we circled back toward the square, River stopped and turned to face me, his expression unreadable in the half-light. “You sure you want to keep faking?”

I hesitated, the question landing heavier than it should. “Doesn’t feel fake anymore.”

He smiled, slow and soft, and reached up to brush a strand of hair from my face. “Good,” he said.

He didn’t kiss me—not yet. But I felt the promise of it, hovering just at the edge of things.

We stood together as the festival wound down, the lights flickering and the air cooling. I leaned into him, the blue bear crushed between us, and for the first time since Boston, I didn’t feel like I was running from anything. I was just here. And maybe, just maybe, that was enough.

Night didn’t fall so much as creep in, soft and spectral, replacing festival music with the hush of wind and tide. I left River at the edge of the parking lot, under the afterglow of sodium vapor lamps, where we exchanged a look that was too much and not enough. He offered to walk me back, but I told him I needed air, needed to be alone. He read my face, nodded, said nothing. I wanted to thank him for that.

The beach was nearly empty, just a couple of diehards staggering home and the moon hanging low, bruised purple and gold. I kicked off my sandals, the sand shockingly cold against my bare feet, and walked the tide line, each step erasing the one before it. The only sounds were the distant creak of the Ferris wheel winding down, the shush of the ocean, and my own ragged breathing.

I let my mind go slack, drifted back to the festival. River’s laugh at the ring toss booth, the stubborn warmth of his palm on my wrist, the gentle way he had teased me about my so-called royal wave. The way his eyes softened when he thought I wasn’t looking. It was supposed to be fake—just a way to save face, get through a night without being the Sad Girl Who Got Dumped. But somewhere between the carousel and the Ferris wheel, the rules had gotten muddled.

I found a patch of smooth stones, sat down, and picked at the frayed hem of my dress. Out here, under the constellations, the world shrank to the width of the beach and the length of my own pulse. There was no work, no Boston, no Michael. Just me, salt-sticky and off-balance, and the dark line where ocean met sky.

My phone vibrated, a thin whine in the quiet. I fished it from my bag. Lila. I almost let it go to voicemail, but guilt was a muscle I’d never stopped flexing.

“Hey,” I said, voice rougher than I meant it to be.

“Jules? You sound like shit. Are you at a bar?”

I snorted. “Classy as ever, Lila.”

She didn’t laugh. “You need to come home. Mom’s asking, and your boss just called here. Something about missing Monday check-in.”

“I’m not skipping work. I’m remote, remember? Tell her to chill.”

“She’s worried. So am I,” Lila said, and beneath the bark there was a note of real concern. “You disappear after Michael’s engagement and then resurface in Maine? What’s the plan, Juliette?”

I watched a sandpiper hop along the foam, quick and nervous. “I’m packing up Abuela’s house. That’s it. Two more weeks, tops.”

There was a pause. “Are you alone?”

“Why do you care?”

She sighed. “Because you can’t keep running from things. You need to move on.”

The word tasted like metal. “I am moved on.”

“Sure. That’s why you’re hiding out in a tourist town, drinking yourself stupid.”

I gripped the phone harder. “You know what, Lila? Maybe let me process things my way. I don’t need a motivational TED Talk right now.”

She was quiet for a long beat. “Fine. Just… remember you have a life here. Don’t get stuck, okay?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

After she hung up, I stared at the screen until the glow faded. I wanted to throw the phone into the surf, watch it disappear under a wave, but the practical part of me held back. Instead, I scrolled through photos from the night—the fake-couple shots, River’s hand at my waist, the two of us in profile against the Ferris wheel’s orbiting lights. We looked happy. Real, even.

I told myself it was a trick of the lens, that I knew better, but the warmth it sparked in my gut was a new kind of ache.

I walked farther down the beach, the festival noise finally gone, replaced by the regular sweep of the lighthouse beam across the bay. Each time the light found me, I felt exposed and a little safer, as if something out there still kept vigil. I sat on a driftwood log, knees to my chest, hugging myself against the night breeze. My hair blew wild in my face, and I left it there, a veil between me and the world.

I tried to list the things I was supposed to want: a career trajectory, respect from my family, a man who didn’t bail when things got hard. The list felt brittle, paper-thin. What I really wanted was softer, harder to pin down—a sense of home, maybe, or just someone who would sit with me in the dark and not ask me to perform.

I let the quiet soak in, and thought about River. About the way he looked at me without expectation. About the almost-kiss at the top of the Ferris wheel, the way our breath had mingled, warm and uncertain. I replayed it, frame by frame, until the wanting outstripped the memory and left me raw.

The tide crept up, foaming around my ankles. I traced circles in the wet sand with my toe, drawing and erasing the same line over and over.

I made a promise to myself, one I knew I’d probably break: This is just for now. Just until the summer ends. Don’t get attached.

But my hand crept to my lips, thumb lingering where River’s mouth might have been, and the hollow in my chest hummed with something dangerous and bright.

The lighthouse swept over me again, cutting a path through the dark, and I watched it fade, hoping that if I sat here long enough, I’d learn to want the things I already had.

I stayed until my skin prickled with cold and my pulse slowed to match the rhythm of the sea, then walked home barefoot, leaving a trail for anyone who cared to follow.

 Blurring the Lines  

If there’s a science to romance, it probably involves the precise placement of brie, the angle of a sunhat, and the manipulation of public expectation. I had never considered myself much of a scientist, but River’s methodical approach to faking intimacy was starting to make me believe in Newtonian law. For every action—my foot brushing his calf, his hand on my shoulder, the way our laughter overlapped—there was a reaction, equal and opposite, somewhere deep in the animal part of my brain.

We set up the picnic in the late afternoon, at the edge of a sandbar that only existed when the tide was generous. The air was already honey-thick with heat, the shoreline raked with long stripes of shadow. River insisted we do it “by the book,” and produced an actual red-and-white-checked quilt from the back of his truck, along with two battered wine tumblers, a wicker basket that must have predated the automobile, and a mesh cooler humming with ice packs and the faint whiff of seaweed.

“Going all out, aren’t you?” I said, arranging myself cross-legged at the center of the quilt, pretending my dress wasn’t already sticking to my thighs.

He shrugged, plunking down beside me with a six-pack of some local microbrew. “If we’re going to be an item, even for show, we might as well do it better than anyone else. That’s how you win.”

“Is this a competition?” I twisted open the first bottle and watched as the foam arced up, then ran sticky down my palm.

River caught the runoff with his finger, licked it, then grinned at me. “Everything’s a competition.”

He started unloading the basket, setting out crusty bread, hunks of cheese, a pint of strawberries so red they looked radioactive. There was a cluster of blueberries, a jar of local honey, and an entire tub of cold lobster salad, the kind that cost a fortune at the market and made your hands smell like home for days.

He poured us each a glass of white, the kind that tasted like lemons and left your teeth tingling, and then we just sat. The ocean was less than thirty yards away, a narrow band of wet sand between us and the horizon, and the only sound was the slap of small waves and, now and then, a gull shrieking to remind us it was technically in charge.

I’d thought I would be bored, or awkward. Instead, it felt like occupying a role I’d been secretly auditioning for my entire life. We kept up a banter, half real and half script, trading insults and inside jokes as if we’d been doing it for years. He had a dry wit that came out mostly when he was staring at the sea, and every time I tried to get him to say something sincere, he’d duck away, making a dumb joke about the wine or the tide.

“You always bring your fake girlfriends to the beach?” I asked, after he snapped a photo of the spread with his phone, careful to angle it so our hands were almost touching.

He considered. “It’s a new protocol. You’re the beta test.”

“I feel special.” I lifted my glass in a sarcastic toast. “To successful product launches.”

He clinked, the glass ringing in the thick air. “To low returns and good reviews.”

We ate in a kind of lazy, unhurried silence, except for when he’d nudge me with an elbow or swipe a berry from my plate. At some point I caught him looking at me, really looking, the way people do when they’re trying to memorize something without being obvious.

“What?” I said, licking honey off my thumb.

He looked away, but not before I saw the color in his cheeks. “You’ve got, uh… a smudge.”

I wiped at my mouth. “Is that your line?”

He grinned. “No. But it’s working.”

He reached over, thumb grazing my cheekbone, and I expected the gesture to be clinical, but it lingered—just a beat too long, like he was tracing the memory of my skin into his own.

We kept eating. The sun fell lower, flattening out the color of the water until it looked less like an ocean and more like liquid metal. I poured another glass, and when my hand shook, I blamed it on the heat.

“Hold out your hand,” River said, and before I could question it, I did.

He placed a single strawberry in my palm, then pressed his own hand over mine, closing my fingers around the fruit. His palm was rough, sun-warmed, and the pressure sent a spike of sensation up my arm, sharp and electric.

“Just taste it,” he said, voice soft.

I rolled my eyes, but bit into the berry. It exploded, tart and sugar at once, and the juice ran down my wrist. He laughed, took my hand, and licked the juice away with a deliberation that left me dizzy.

“Points for commitment,” I managed, barely.

He squeezed my fingers, then released them, as if suddenly aware of how intimate the moment had become. The performance was so seamless I wasn’t sure either of us remembered we were pretending.

Two women in running shorts passed on the sand, slowing as they took us in: the quilt, the wine, the lazy sprawl of our bodies. One of them smiled, the other whispered something behind her palm. River saw it, leaned over, and planted a kiss at the corner of my mouth—just a brush, soft as a secret.

“They’re gone,” I said, when the runners moved out of earshot.

“I know,” he replied, still close.

For a second I thought he might kiss me again, but instead he flopped onto his back, arms stretched above his head. The pose looked careless, but his eyes stayed locked on mine, waiting.

I lay beside him, shoulder to shoulder, the sky a widening river of orange. I could hear my pulse, loud in my ears, or maybe it was the wine.

“Do you ever miss it?” I asked, surprising both of us. “The pretending?”

He was quiet, picking at the threads of the quilt. “Sometimes it’s easier than the real thing.”

“What’s the real thing, Beckett?” I turned toward him, hoping he couldn’t see how much I wanted an answer.

He rolled onto his side, propped up on his elbow. “I don’t know yet. But I think I’ll recognize it if it ever happens.”

I laughed, but there wasn’t much humor in it. “You’re a liar.”

He smiled, but his eyes were serious. “Maybe. Or maybe I just know how to read a script.”

The sun dropped lower, the light turning honeyed and soft. I closed my eyes, felt the warmth on my face, the aftertaste of fruit on my tongue. River’s hand found mine again, his thumb tracing small, absent-minded circles on my skin. The circles got slower, then stopped altogether, but he didn’t let go.

Another pair of locals passed—a man in a faded Red Sox cap, a woman with a corgi on a leash. They looked at us, nodded, kept going. River’s grip tightened, and I squeezed back without thinking.

“You’re really good at this,” I said, staring up at the sky.

“At what?”

“At making it seem real.”

He was silent for a moment, then, “Maybe I’m not making it up.”

I felt his gaze, heavy and unblinking, and the urge to look at him was so strong I caved, turning my head until we were nose to nose.

“You should be careful,” I said, my voice barely more than a whisper. “People might start to believe you.”

He smiled, and it wasn’t cocky or self-assured. It was almost… shy.

“That’s the idea,” he said, and leaned in.

This time, when his mouth touched mine, it was slower, more deliberate. Not for the runners or the dog-walkers or the invisible audience, but for us. The kiss was salt and sun and something else—possibility, maybe, or the taste of a future I hadn’t believed in for years. When we broke apart, the air was full of static, the whole world pitched forward on its axis.

“Wow,” I said, my voice shaking.

He let out a slow breath, like he’d been holding it for hours. “Yeah.”

We lay there, side by side, until the sky went purple and the tide crept up, nipping at the edge of the quilt. River gathered the leftovers, packed everything away with a competence that felt too tender for the act, and when I stumbled in the sand, he caught me by the waist, steadying me.

“Are we still pretending?” I asked, brushing sand from my knees.

He glanced down at our hands, still linked. “I’m not sure.”

The walk back was quiet, but not the awkward kind. He carried the basket, I shouldered the blanket, and when we reached the porch, he paused.

“You want me to stay?” he asked, voice gentle.

I hesitated, fear and longing waging a cold war in my chest. “I think I do,” I said.

He smiled, and it was the softest, most devastating thing I’d ever seen.

“Good,” he said, and followed me inside, leaving the world and all its expectations behind.

If the town had a pulse, it was strongest at the marina—boats slapping the pilings, the hush of old men nursing beers on their decks, the sharp tang of diesel and tide. River’s truck was already waiting, dented fender glinting like a badge of honor, when I skidded up the hill with my hair still wet from the shower. He was perched on the tailgate, working through a packet of sunflower seeds and watching the water like it owed him money.

“You’re late,” he called, not looking up.

I checked my phone, saw that I was right on time, and flipped him off for good measure. “You’re early.”

He hopped down, wiped salt from his hands on the seat of his jeans. “Never hurts to prep,” he said, and handed me a hoodie that smelled faintly of him—cedar and whatever cologne men in Maine are issued at birth. “Ocean’s colder after dark.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

He smirked, but I caught the flicker of something else. Nervousness, maybe. Or excitement.

The “Serenity” was an artifact, barely twenty-two feet of faded fiberglass and mismatched lines, her name hand-painted in a tremulous scrawl that suggested more hope than craftsmanship. She bobbed at the slip, a stubborn little vessel surrounded by yachts that looked like Apple store showrooms. River leapt aboard with an easy confidence, then extended a hand. I hesitated—just for effect—before letting him steady me. His palm was callused, warm, and when he held me a second longer than strictly necessary, I didn’t call him on it.

He untied the mooring lines and tossed me a battered life jacket. “Regulations,” he said, but didn’t put one on himself. I zipped it anyway, refusing to be the punchline of some local fisherman’s obituary.

The dock slipped away, the “Serenity” easing out into the harbor under River’s sure hands. The air tasted of brine and anticipation, the sky already tilting toward twilight. I sat at the bow, legs dangling over the side, while River set the outboard humming. Havenport receded behind us, its bars and ice cream shops melting into a watercolor of low lights and muffled music.

We didn’t talk at first. The silence was companionable, filled by the slap of water against the hull and the low drone of the engine. I let my eyes wander—past the lobster boats, the scattered buoys, the shags hunched on channel markers like disgraced priests. River steered with his knees, pulling lines and checking the wind with practiced flicks of his wrist. It was strangely beautiful, the way he made the work look easy.

When we cleared the breakwater, he throttled down. The boat drifted, the engine a memory, and the world shrank to the sound of our breathing and the slow roll of swell.

I turned, watched him watch me. The air between us was charged—electric, but uncertain.

“I don’t usually do this,” he said.

“Sail?”

He shook his head. “Bring anyone out here. Not since—” He cut himself off, jaw tensing.

“Since her.” I said it for him, not as a question.

He nodded. “Her name was Em. We were kids. Thought we’d live forever.” His voice was so soft I barely caught it over the slosh of water. “She loved the ocean. Hated wearing sunscreen, though. Used to say it made her smell like pudding.”

I smiled, imagined a girl with tangled hair and stubborn skin. “I get that. Never liked the feel of it, either.”

“She got sick.” He spoke the words plainly, as if reading from a manual. “Two years of hospitals. Then hospice.” He looked down at his hands, turning them over like he might find the answer in his own palms. “Sometimes I think the only place I remember her is out here.”

I didn’t know what to say. The urge to touch him, to close the distance, was sudden and overwhelming. But I stayed still, let him have the space.

He fiddled with the tiller, lips pressed in a line. “Didn’t mean to kill the mood.”

“You didn’t,” I said, and meant it.

He glanced up, a quick flash of blue-green eyes. “Why’d you come here, Juliette? Really.”

I licked my lips, tasted old fear and the ghost of his story. “I thought I was running. Turns out I was just tired of losing.”

“Losing what?”

“Control. Face. The script.” I picked at the frayed edge of the life jacket, unable to look at him. “I had this idea of what life was supposed to be. And every time I got close, it slipped away. So I started sabotaging before it could leave me.”

“That’s why you’re selling the house?”

I shook my head. “No. I’m selling the house because I’m scared if I stay, I’ll never go back.”

“To what?”

I thought of the cubicle, the endless deadlines, the taste of city air after a rain. “To anything that feels like ambition.”

He let that sit. The world rocked gently under us, the shore reduced to a fringe of pale light. Overhead, the stars started their slow emergence, shy at first, then bolder.

River reached into the cooler, pulled two beers, and handed me one. I opened it, foam frothing over my thumb, and this time he didn’t bother to tease me.

“My dad taught me to sail here,” he said, voice low. “He used to say, ‘Keep your eyes on the horizon, and you’ll never get sick.’”

“Did it work?”

“Sometimes.” He looked at me, really looked. “But sometimes, you have to lean into the roll.”

I wasn’t sure if he was still talking about boats. I finished the beer in a few swallows, my throat tight.

“You know what I’m afraid of?” I said.

He leaned back against the gunwale, boots braced wide. “Tell me.”

“That we’re just pretending. And when summer ends, I’ll go back to Boston and remember this as some kind of fever dream. That it never happened.”

He was quiet a long time. Then, “I think about that, too.”

I set my empty bottle beside me, then crawled forward on the deck, feeling the wood scrape my knees through the denim. I stopped a foot from him. The air was cold and damp, but I was shaking from the inside.

“We said ‘no strings,’” I whispered.

He nodded, reached out, brushed a strand of hair from my cheek. “Maybe some strings are worth keeping.”

The boat rocked, and I lost my balance, landing against his chest. He caught me, arms strong and certain, and held me there. His lips were at my ear, the salt of his skin so close it made me dizzy.

“I haven’t kissed anyone since her,” he said, voice thick.

“I haven’t wanted to,” I confessed.

He moved slow, deliberate, like every second was a question I could answer or refuse. When his mouth found mine, it was gentle—almost reverent—but underneath, I felt the heat he’d been holding back. The kiss deepened, urgent, desperate, and I pulled him closer, needing to feel him real and solid against me.

We stayed like that, bodies pressed together, breath fogging in the night. When we finally pulled apart, the world was silent except for the lap of water and the sound of our hearts.

River held my face in his hands, thumb stroking my cheekbone. “You’re not a fever dream,” he said.

I laughed, tears blurring the stars. “You don’t know that. I could be a hallucination.”

He grinned, kissed my nose. “Best one I’ve ever had.”

We lay on the deck, side by side, looking up at the cosmos. He told me about his dad’s boat, the time it nearly sank in a storm, how Em once cut her hand open on a lobster trap and refused to get stitches. I told him about Abuela’s carrot cake, my mother’s silent wars, the day I got promoted and realized I’d rather be anywhere else.

There was no more pretending. Only the slow, honest drift of two people unmoored, finding their way by whatever stars they could trust.

When the wind picked up, River wrapped his arm around me and pulled me close. We watched the lights of Havenport pulse on the horizon, distant and forgiving, and I wondered how I’d ever thought I was alone.

Somewhere, a gull screamed, defiant and ugly. River laughed, and I laughed, too. The boat rocked, and we leaned into it, together.

We didn’t talk about what came next. For now, it was enough to float in the dark, anchored by the weight of each other and the quiet certainty that some things, once set adrift, never really come home.

If I ever wrote a memoir, I’d dedicate an entire chapter to Marina Delgado’s General Store. Not for the inventory—though the jars of blueberry honey and dried salt cod could arm a small army—but for the way the air inside was always ten degrees warmer than out, and every surface radiated with her relentless, maternal goodwill.

The bell over the door was rigged to announce arrivals in a way that was equal parts “welcome home” and “brace yourself.” The second I walked in, trailing yesterday’s sunburn and the faint musk of river water, Marina looked up from a stack of cardboard flats and nailed me with her gaze.

“Well, if it isn’t Miss Summer Fling herself,” she said, voice booming over the canned Dean Martin croon.

I made a show of inspecting a display of Maine-shaped maple candies. “You’ve been reading my diary again.”

“I don’t need to. It’s written all over your face,” she shot back, dusting her hands on her cardigan and coming around the counter. “You have that look.”

“What look?”

She cocked her head, eyes narrowing with delight. “Like someone who’s been swept off her feet and isn’t sure if she wants to thank the lifeguard or press charges.”

I almost laughed. Instead, I shook my head, because she wasn’t wrong.

Marina’s store was a museum of all the things the rest of the world had forgotten how to care about. Crocheted potholders in neon colors, racks of those plastic wind spinners that never spun in the right direction, tiny wooden buoys hand-painted by someone with a trembling hand and no sense of shame. She’d once described her merchandise as “therapy for the homesick.” I’d never been homesick in my life until now.

She followed me into the back, where she was arranging blueberry preserves into a neat pyramid. I pretended to help, mostly to keep my hands busy.

“So,” she said, not bothering to look up, “River Beckett’s been fixing your dock.”

“Among other things,” I said, then instantly regretted it.

She grinned, teeth white against the plum of her lipstick. “I knew it.”

“Marina—”

“Don’t ‘Marina’ me,” she said, still stacking. “You think I haven’t seen that boy moon over you since you were both knee-high and covered in bug spray?”

“That was middle school.”

“And yet here we are.” She wiped her hands and regarded me with an expression I’d only ever seen on saints and FBI profilers. “He’s a good man, that one. Not many like him left.”

I busied myself with a jar of honey, watched the afternoon sun slide through the dusty window and light up the amber. “It’s not like that.”

Marina snorted. “It’s always like that, with the ones who count.”

I wanted to argue, but my mouth was full of splinters and sugar. Instead I set the honey back and wandered toward the register, where she kept the best impulse buys—fudge, lottery tickets, tiny bottles of Fireball for “emergencies.”

That’s when my phone buzzed, hard and insistent against my thigh.

I checked the screen. Boss’s name, subject line in bold: “Exciting Next Steps.” The first two lines visible: “We’re thrilled to offer you—” and “Start date: ASAP.” Below that, a string of unread notifications, none of which looked like good news.

I felt the gravity of it—an entire career, a city, a future—crammed into one tiny rectangle of glass.

“You okay, mija?” Marina’s voice, softer now, snapped me back.

“Just—work stuff,” I said, shoving the phone deep in my bag, like distance could diffuse it.

She nodded, then studied me for a long second. “You have a good heart, Juliette. I hope you let yourself use it.”

I tried to smile, but the words stuck. “Don’t go getting sentimental on me.”

She reached over, patted my cheek. “Someone has to.”

We talked about the festival—who was bringing what, how the fire marshal had already threatened to shut down the bonfire, whether the town council would let Marina spike the punch this year. I let her words wash over me, grateful for the chance to breathe something other than my own anxiety.

When I finally escaped, arms loaded with groceries I didn’t remember buying, the sunlight outside felt harsher, more demanding. I squinted up at the sky, let the heat bake the tension out of my shoulders, and wondered how many more days I could pretend the world wasn’t about to change.

River was waiting on the porch when I got back, hair still damp from his own shower, t-shirt clinging in all the ways that should be illegal. He watched as I unloaded the bags, his mouth twitching in that almost-smile that could flip to serious in a heartbeat.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“Perfect,” I lied. “Got you more of those blueberry bars you pretend you don’t like.”

He took the bag, leaned in close, his lips grazing my temple. “Liar.”

I let him, because it was easier than explaining the truth.

That night, after the groceries were put away and the sun had dissolved into a blanket of fog, I lay in bed with the phone on my chest, the job offer burning through the case like a fuse. My thumb hovered over the reply button, but I didn’t touch it. Not yet.

Outside, the ocean called in its endless, indifferent language. Inside, River’s breathing from the next room matched the rhythm of the waves.

Maybe, I thought, some choices didn’t have to be made tonight. Maybe it was enough to have this—this house, this summer, this impossible, beautiful mess. For a while longer, I could keep my secret, hold it tight, and pretend the world would let me stay.

I turned off the phone, tucked it under the pillow, and listened to the gravity of honey in the dark, sweet and slow, binding me to the here and now.

Cracks in the Facade

The Maritime Hall was always a little too warm and smelled vaguely of clam chowder, no matter what time of year or whose turn it was to mop the floors. I’d last seen its ceiling from beneath the punch bowl after my spectacular homecoming swan dive, but tonight, the place had new ambitions. There were streamers—blue and gold and haphazardly twisted like someone had given up halfway through and started drinking. Clusters of helium balloons hovered in the corners like captive thoughts. The whole place shimmered under so many strings of white lights that the fire marshal would have a coronary. It was the sort of scene that made you want to believe in happy endings, even if you’d spent your whole adult life proofing copy for divorce lawyers and pharmaceutical reps.

River offered me his arm at the top of the steps. His bicep was hard under my palm, which I pretended not to notice. He wore a blue button-down that still had faint creases from the packaging, sleeves rolled high enough to show a working man’s forearms—tanned, scarred, freckled with paint and old sun. He’d even trimmed the beard. I had gone for a sundress, the kind with a swirl of poppies and just enough cinch to make it seem like I was trying, but not enough to look desperate. I’d left my hair down and regretted it the second we stepped inside.

“Ready?” he asked, and I couldn’t tell if he meant the room or the night or the lie we were about to live for the next three hours.

“Do I have a choice?” I shot back. He grinned, then escorted me into the crucible.

The floorboards bowed and sang under the weight of thirty couples and enough single people to keep the local rumor mill at a rolling boil. Havenport’s Maritime Hall dance had always been a sort of secular mass, a place to measure your worth in partners and paper plates piled with fried things. Half the town was already spinning in loose circles, the band up on the makeshift stage pounding out sea shanties and folk-pop covers with the earnestness of men who’d never once seen a real ocean storm.

River and I swept through the entryway, immediately intercepted by a knot of grandmas dressed like escaped flamingos and a contingent of high schoolers pretending not to notice each other. I caught the eyes—narrow, assessing, hopeful. Nobody wanted to admit they’d come to see the spectacle, but there’s a reason people watch demolition derbies and not insurance seminars.

Marina flagged us down near the drinks table, her hair done up with two fake daisies and a netting of gold tulle that I suspect she’d pilfered from the produce section. She hugged me, hard enough to flatten a lung.

“You look radiant,” she said, squeezing my hand. “And you—” she said, turning to River with a conspiratorial wink, “clean up better than expected.”

River dipped his chin, all bashful charm. “She made me do it.”

Marina made a show of clucking her tongue, then nudged us toward the dance floor. “Go on, mija. Show them you remember how to have fun.”

The first few steps were awkward. River wasn’t a natural dancer, but he moved with the steady, unhurried cadence of someone who could build a house from driftwood and never once lose a finger. He slid a hand to my lower back, palm radiating heat even through the fabric, and led me into a lazy two-step. It took a minute to fall into sync. The dress twirled, my hair clung to my neck, and I could feel the pulse of every eye on us.

We orbited the room twice before either of us spoke.

“This is going to make the rounds by morning,” he said quietly, lips brushing my ear. “Hope you’re ready to go viral.”

I tried not to laugh, but his beard tickled, and I failed. “You’re enjoying this.”

“Maybe a little.”

We spun, sidestepped an elderly couple doing what looked like a hybrid of tango and mortal combat, and then slowed near the windows where the air was less oppressive. Outside, the ocean was black, but the lights inside caught us both in sharp relief, trapping us in a moment that was supposed to be pretend.

“On a scale of one to ten,” I asked, “how much are you regretting this?”

He considered, then grinned. “Depends. How long before we get caught?”

I looked at him, really looked. There was a gentleness in the way he held me, like I was something worth not breaking. The urge to make a joke died in my throat.

“Maybe we want to get caught,” I said, surprising both of us.

He twirled me, spun me back into his chest, and the pretense of distance was lost. For a moment, we were just two people who’d never been disappointed, never had to start over. My hand found his, and the way our fingers fit together was too perfect to be choreography.

That’s when Eli Carter appeared, his grin stretched thin as fishing wire, eyes flicking between River and me with the calculation of a man counting cards and already losing. He wore a plaid shirt and an attitude that could strip paint off a battleship.

“Look at you two,” Eli said, voice pitched just loud enough to cut through the music. “Didn’t realize I was late to a wedding.”

River’s hand tightened at my waist. “You want to cut in, or just heckle from the sidelines?”

Eli made a show of weighing his options, then stepped closer, arms crossed over his chest like a dare. “Nah, you’re doing fine. Never thought I’d see the day you let someone lead.”

I felt River’s body tense—just a flicker, but I noticed. I pulled his hand higher, so it rested over my ribs, and leaned into the warmth of him.

“Some connections don’t need time,” I said, matching Eli’s smile watt for watt. “Sometimes you just know.”

Eli’s gaze sharpened. “Yeah? What’s her middle name, then?”

River didn’t hesitate. “Isabel.”

I shot him a look. He winked.

Eli grunted, then turned the guns on me. “You really trust him not to fuck this up, Jules?”

The old nickname. I hadn’t heard it in years, and it made something inside me curl.

“I trust him more than most,” I said, letting the words hang.

Eli looked at River, something unspoken passing between them—history, rivalry, a decade of inside jokes and shared beers and secrets never quite confessed.

“You two make a cute pair,” Eli said, the sarcasm gone soft around the edges. “Just watch out. Havenport’s got a short attention span and a long memory.”

He walked off, melting back into the crowd. The tension lingered, a sour note in the aftertaste of the dance.

River exhaled. “Sorry about that.”

I shrugged, unwilling to let the moment sour. “Not your fault. I’ve had worse interrogations.”

He guided us off the floor, into a corner where the music faded into background chatter. He poured us both punch—spiked, but only just—and handed me a plastic cup. Our hands brushed, and the jolt of contact was almost embarrassing.

“Thanks for not letting him get to you,” he said, eyes down.

“Thanks for remembering my middle name,” I shot back.

He grinned, sheepish. “You always hated it.”

“Still do.”

He studied me, the lines of his face drawn tight with a seriousness I hadn’t seen before. “You’re good at this.”

“At what?”

He shrugged. “Pretending.”

The words should have stung, but they didn’t. Instead, I found myself wanting to close the gap, to press my mouth to his just to see if it would feel as good as the fake kiss at the beach.

Instead, I drank the punch, the sugar making my teeth ache.

“Maybe I’m not pretending,” I said, the admission so quiet it could have been a secret.

He looked up, and something unguarded flickered in his eyes. “Me neither.”

We stood in the dim margin of the hall, the rest of the world spinning out in wider and wider circles. I reached for his hand, and he let me. Our fingers twined, and in that moment, I forgot why I’d ever thought pretending was the safest way to live.

The rest of the night was a blur of laughter and music and the sensation of being seen, really seen, for the first time in years. We danced again, and again, and with every spin I felt the pretense crack, giving way to something new and terrifying and true.

When the lights came up and the floor cleared, we were still holding hands. River walked me home, neither of us speaking, the silence filled with everything we hadn’t dared say.

At the porch, he hesitated. The air was thick with fog, the kind that blurred edges and made the world smaller. He reached up, tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, then kissed me on the temple—soft, intentional, the way you’d mark a moment for memory.

“Good night, Isabel,” he murmured.

I wanted to say something clever, but all I managed was, “Night, Beckett.”

He walked away, and I watched until the fog swallowed him whole.

Inside, the house was quiet. I curled up on the couch, the echo of his lips still burning on my skin, and wondered when pretending had ever started to feel like this.

The invitation came by way of a text, River’s name popping up on my screen just after dusk. “Bonfire tonight. Same place as always. Bring beer or stories.” He didn’t say it was mandatory, but the period at the end made it clear: attendance was expected. I considered ignoring it, maybe spending the night face-down in the guest room, but I’d never been good at quitting things when I should. So I found a pair of sandals, grabbed an old sweatshirt, and headed down to the beach.

The evening was built out of contradictions: the sky still bled peach at the horizon, but the air had the metallic snap of September already stalking the edges. A row of pickups and battered sedans lined the sandy turnoff. I followed the thump of music and the unmistakable snap of cheap fireworks, picking my way over dune grass and bottle caps, until the bonfire came into view.

They’d ringed the pit with half-buried lobster pots and dented aluminum lawn chairs. The flames were three feet high and hungry, spitting sparks that caught in the breeze and winked out over the sand. Twenty or so bodies huddled around the heat, nursing beers, shrieking at each other over the wind. Someone had brought a Bluetooth speaker and was subjecting everyone to a playlist that alternated between classic rock and reggaeton.

I spotted River at the far end of the fire, sitting with his back against a driftwood log, talking to Eli. There was a six-pack between them and the easy sprawl of men who’d known each other long enough to survive a few spectacular fallings-out. River looked up as I approached, his eyes reflecting the orange of the flames, and gave a quick jerk of the chin that said, “You’re here. That’s enough.”

Eli peeled away, calling dibs on the horseshoe pit, and left us alone. I sank onto the log beside River, close enough that our knees touched. I half-expected him to start with some joke or a nudge, but instead he offered me a beer, already open, condensation pooling on the rim.

“Didn’t think you’d show,” he said.

“I’m hard to get rid of,” I replied, and took a sip. The beer was cold and sour, which suited my mood.

He nodded, as if that made perfect sense, and leaned back, bracing his palms in the sand. We sat like that, not speaking, for a solid five minutes. The fire chewed through a new piece of driftwood and someone broke into a wild, off-key chorus of “Sweet Caroline.” I watched the flames jump and tried to match my breathing to the rhythm of the tide.

Eventually, River shifted. “My grandfather used to bring me out here on summer nights. Said you could see the best meteor showers if you waited until the fire died and the sky got dark enough.”

I glanced up. The stars were still faint, but the promise of them hovered just past the haze. “Did you ever see any?”

“Once,” he said. “I was seven. Stayed up all night, fell asleep in the back of his truck, woke up to pancakes at the diner. The shower was over, but I pretended I’d seen a hundred.”

I smiled. “That’s cheating.”

He shrugged. “Not if nobody else knows.”

We watched the crowd. Marina held court at the far edge, refilling cups and scolding teens who tried to sneak off with bottles. A pair of girls in sundresses and thick mascara danced barefoot, howling whenever a song came on they recognized. There was a comfort in the chaos, the way it repeated itself year after year, faces aging but the script unchanged.

River nudged my thigh with his. “You ever do this in Boston?”

I barked a laugh. “Not unless you count rooftop parties where nobody talks and everyone’s on their phone.”

“Sounds miserable.”

I almost said “It was,” but instead sipped the beer and let the silence answer for me.

“Tell me something true,” River said, his voice low.

I thought for a second, then: “When I was nine, I stole a box of empanadas from my abuela’s freezer and blamed it on the mailman.”

He laughed, the sound carried off by the wind. “What happened?”

“She made me deliver apology cookies. I didn’t confess until after she died.”

River turned, eyes kind, mouth soft. “She would have forgiven you.”

“I know. But it felt better to wait.”

He held my gaze, the fire painting shadows on his face. “Your turn,” I said, trying to deflect.

He scratched at his beard, thinking. “When I was twelve, I took a skiff out past the breakwater. Got stuck when the motor flooded. Could’ve radioed for help, but I was so scared of my dad being disappointed, I rowed back in and said nothing.”

“That’s brave,” I said.

He shook his head. “It’s stupid.”

“Same thing,” I said, and let the warmth of the fire fill the space between us.

We told stories like that for an hour, trading confessions, letting the past drift in and out of focus. I felt lighter than I had in weeks, maybe months. The edge of everything was still there, but it dulled, like sea glass worn smooth by water.

Then River cleared his throat. “Eli’s going to partner with me on the new woodshop. He thinks we can take the old hardware store, turn it into something that does custom work—furniture, kitchen stuff, maybe even boats.”

“Sounds ambitious,” I said.

He smiled, a little sad. “I need ambitious. I need something that sticks.”

He looked at me, and I felt the weight of it. The possibility, the hope, the slow recognition that we were both looking for the same thing—something that made the mess worth it.

The wind picked up, fanning the flames higher. Embers floated between us, gold on black, and for a second, I almost believed it could last.

Then I remembered the email, the job waiting in Boston, the life I’d spent a decade building. The promotion I hadn’t told anyone about, not even River. The old panic slipped in, cold and efficient, and I could feel myself pulling away even as I sat right next to him.

He noticed. Of course he did.

“You okay?” he asked, voice gentler than before.

“Yeah,” I lied.

“You’re not. You’ve been somewhere else all night.”

I poked at the sand with my toe, digging a crescent. “Just tired. There’s a lot to do.”

“You said you were staying until Labor Day.”

“I am.”

“Then what?”

I wanted to say, “I don’t know,” but we both knew that was a lie.

He leaned in, close enough that I could smell the salt and beer on his breath. “Talk to me, Juliette. Don’t shut down.”

The words hit harder than I expected. I flinched. “You’re reading too much into this,” I said, sharper than I meant.

He sat back, wounded. “Sorry.”

The fire snapped, sending up a geyser of sparks. I watched them fade, one by one.

“This was supposed to be fun,” I said. “No strings. You said so yourself.”

He didn’t answer right away. When he did, his voice was flat. “Guess I forgot the script.”

I tried to look at him, but the guilt was too big. “River—”

He stood, brushing sand from his hands. “Don’t worry. I’ll walk you back.”

I wanted to stop him, to say anything that would erase the last ten minutes. But I was too angry at myself, too scared, and instead I finished the beer and stared into the fire.

We walked up the path in silence. At the turnoff for my house, he stopped, hands shoved deep in his pockets.

“Goodnight, Reyes,” he said, not meeting my eyes.

“Night,” I replied.

I watched him go, shoulders hunched, the space between us suddenly infinite.

Inside, the house felt smaller than ever. I curled up in the dark, listened to the wind rattle the windows, and tried to convince myself it didn’t matter.

But the truth was, the fire had left me cold, and I couldn’t remember when pretending had ever been this hard.

I couldn’t remember the walk back. The night had turned brittle, every sound echoing twice as loud—the shush of sand under my sandals, the far-off cackle of gulls that couldn’t be bothered to sleep. By the time I climbed the porch steps, my whole body was trembling, not from cold but from the kind of sadness that never quite finds a way out. I turned off the lights, locked the door, and stood in the dark of the living room, listening for a heartbeat that wasn’t there.

The couch was too soft and the bed too big, so I paced the house, trailing my fingers over wallpaper seams and picture frames. Each room felt emptier than before, the absence of my grandmother grown monstrous now that River had ghosted himself out of my orbit. I tried to sleep, but the sheets clung like plastic wrap and every time I closed my eyes, I saw his face—first laughing, then wounded, then gone.

At 3 a.m., I gave up. I pulled on the first pair of shorts I found and climbed the ladder to the attic.

The air up there was syrup-thick with dust and heat, the insulation stained in places where rain had gotten in. My flashlight painted everything in a harsh blue, turning the boxes and battered suitcases into squat, spectral animals. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. Maybe a picture of us, one of those rare artifacts where people actually look happy, or maybe just something that would hurt enough to make all the other pain fade.

I found the chest by accident—a cedar box shoved behind a stack of old comforters. The latch stuck, but I pried it open with a chipped nail file, the lid creaking like a bad omen. Inside: a tangle of scarves, yellowed letters tied with twine, and at the very bottom, a leather-bound journal, the cover worn to velvet and the corners softened by years of hands far smaller than mine.

The name on the inside was written in looping, impatient script: Dolores M. Reyes. My grandmother.

I sat cross-legged on the plywood floor and started to read.

The entries were in Spanglish, the language shifting depending on the gravity of the subject. She wrote about leaving Spain, about loving my grandfather, about the wars that happened inside her head. The handwriting was a thicket of slant and ink, each word fighting for space on the line.

One entry stopped me:

“The safe harbor is tempting when storms threaten, but I’ve never regretted sailing into unknown waters when my heart was at the helm. If you read this, mija, remember: even a lighthouse envies the ships that dare to leave.”

I had never known her to be sentimental. She’d always been a force of nature, practical to the point of cruelty. Reading the words, I felt like I’d stumbled on a version of her meant for someone else—someone who believed in more than survival.

My eyes burned. I wiped them, but the tears kept coming. They splattered on the pages, smudging the words and leaving my own record in the family archive.

I sat there for hours, reading entries that spanned decades: fights with my mother, the fear that she was a bad parent, the ache of outliving the man she’d followed across an ocean. There was even a line about me, age thirteen, “making faces at the old cat and never once breaking a promise.” I tried to remember who that girl was, what she’d wanted, but it all felt so remote.

When the sky turned violet through the attic window, I closed the journal and pressed it to my chest. The weight of it was different now—less like an anchor, more like a compass. I thought about Boston, about the job, about what it would mean to go back. I thought about River, the way his arms had felt, the way his voice had made the world small enough to matter.

I wiped my eyes on the hem of my shirt and climbed down, blinking in the newborn daylight. The kitchen smelled of old coffee and lemon oil, and for the first time all summer, I felt hungry.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I texted Marina: “No coffee today. Need some time. Tell River I’m fine.”

Her reply was instant: “Of course. Take care of yourself, Juliette.”

I set the phone on the table and stared at the light slanting across the floor. The ocean called from outside, the waves insistent, eternal. I could leave, or stay, or build something new out of all the broken parts. For the first time, none of the options scared me.

I found the journal again, ran my fingers over the faded letters. I whispered the words to myself, once, twice, until they felt like mine.

Then I poured myself a cup of coffee, sat at the table, and waited for the day to begin.

 The Truth Comes Out  

The storm started as a rumor, a ripple on the horizon that made the air taste electric. I watched it come in, standing at the end of the half-finished dock, hands laced around a banister that still smelled like new pine and splintered with every shift of weight. The planks below me trembled as if they could sense their own unfinished business, all loose ends and naked nails. The water below was restless, chopped into dark, ugly diamonds by the wind. Every time the dock creaked, it sounded like a threat.

I knew he would find me. There’s a kind of inevitability in small towns, like gravity, or gossip, or the way the ocean always comes back for what it’s owed.

River’s boots announced him before his voice did, heels thudding on wet wood, the tread catching where the edge dipped low over the water. He was soaked through already, dark hair plastered to his temples, t-shirt stuck to his chest in a way that made it hard not to look. There was sawdust in the creases of his hands, a splatter of dried glue on his arm. He didn’t stop until we were almost shoulder to shoulder, both of us bracing against the wind like we might blow away if we didn’t anchor ourselves to something solid.

“You’re gonna catch hypothermia,” he said, voice low and shot through with something I didn’t want to name.

I shrugged, watching the clouds roll in. “We’re all dying of something, Beckett.”

He leaned in, close enough I could smell the salt and the ghost of whatever he’d had for lunch. His jaw was tight, the muscle working like he was biting down on a scream. “You gonna tell me what’s going on, or do I have to guess?”

I fixed my gaze on the horizon, where the line between sky and water had dissolved into bruise. “Don’t you have a board to sand, or something?”

He didn’t move, not even a breath. “You been avoiding me since the bonfire. Since before, actually.”

“I’ve been busy,” I said, but it sounded hollow.

He snorted, the sound equal parts humor and accusation. “That’s not it. I know you, Juliette. You get busy when you want to disappear.”

The wind picked up, sharp enough to sting my cheeks, and the rain started in earnest. I squeezed the railing, willing it to absorb some of the panic. “Why does it matter?”

He didn’t answer right away. When he did, his words came out hard and clean, like someone chiseling stone. “It matters if you meant any of it. Because I did.”

I could have lied, could have laughed, could have made a joke. But there was no air left for that, only the pressure of everything I’d kept bottled since the first night on the porch.

“You want the truth?” I asked, voice barely audible over the shudder of water against wood. “The real truth?”

He nodded, and for the first time in months, I saw fear in his eyes. Real, gut-level fear, like he was waiting for a verdict he already suspected.

I inhaled, let the rain fill my lungs, let the confession burn on the way out. “I got a job offer. In Boston. Promotion. More money than I’ll ever make up here.”

He was silent, face a blank mask. I kept going, because if I stopped I’d never say the rest.

“I wasn’t going to stay. Not for the house, not for you, not for anybody. This was—” My throat closed up. I wanted to say “supposed to be easy,” but it came out as a kind of whimper. “This was never meant to be real.”

The words hung between us, ugly and sharp as fishhooks.

River’s face went still, all the warmth sucked out by the wind. He looked away, jaw set, hands flexing at his sides. For a minute, I thought he’d walk, just turn and leave me to the elements, but he stayed. He always stayed, even when it hurt.

“So everything was just for show?” he said, and there was no anger in it, just the kind of sadness that could drown a man. “Even when we—” He stopped himself, but the implication was enough.

I shook my head, trying to find the words, any words. “No, I— It got out of hand, I didn’t mean—”

He cut me off. “Don’t. Don’t say you didn’t mean it.” His voice cracked, a fault line opening in the middle. “Because you did. You meant every fucking word.”

I tried to step toward him, but he stepped back, hands raised as if warding off a blow. The wind lashed rain across our faces, and I couldn’t tell what was water and what was sweat, or if I was even crying at all.

“Why didn’t you just tell me?” he said, and it was almost a plea.

I stared at my hands, the knuckles white where I’d gripped the rail so hard I’d left dents. “I thought it would be easier. For both of us.”

He laughed then, a bitter, broken sound. “Easier for who? Because it sure as shit isn’t easier for me.”

We stood in the downpour, neither of us moving, until the chill went bone deep and the dock began to sway underfoot. River looked at me, really looked, and for a split second I saw all the things I’d wanted to pretend away: the hope, the fear, the stubborn belief that maybe this time could be different.

He blinked, once, then set his jaw. “Go to Boston, Juliette. Be as busy as you want. But don’t come back here thinking it’ll be waiting for you.”

The words hit harder than I expected. I flinched, but he was already moving, already walking away down the length of the dock, shoulders hunched against the storm. The rain blurred him into shadow, then nothing.

I stayed where I was, the wind whipping my hair into my eyes, the taste of salt and regret sharp on my tongue. I stood there until the storm swallowed everything, even the sound of his footsteps, and the only thing left was the groan of the dock and the ache in my chest.

I let go of the railing and watched the horizon, waiting for the sky to break, knowing it never would.

I didn’t bother with an umbrella. The rain had already made a monument of me—soaked to the marrow, hair slicked to my scalp, shirt clinging to every regret. My sandals squelched down Main Street, each step leaving a darker print than the last. I tried to take the long way, but in a town this size, every detour just brought you back to the same three intersections and the same handful of lights reflected in puddles.

By the time I pushed open the general store door, my teeth were chattering in Morse code. Marina looked up from her register with a mixture of surprise and something sharper, a mother’s radar for bad news. The store was a riot of warmth, pine shelves stacked with glass jars and tea towels, the scent of cinnamon braided into every air molecule by the wall of homemade candles near the counter. For a second, it felt like I might dry out by osmosis.

“Mija,” she said, voice low and grave, “sit.” She pointed to the stool behind the bread display, already in motion toward the back room.

I sat, grateful for the perch and the way it tucked me out of sight from the front window. My hands shook so hard I almost knocked over a stack of honey jars. I wiped my face on the sleeve of my rain jacket, but it was as wet as my skin, so I let the tears do what they wanted.

Marina returned with a towel and a mug of something that steamed with herbal vengeance. She wrapped the towel around my shoulders, then pressed the mug into my hands, steadying them with her own.

“Drink,” she commanded. “And tell me.”

The mug was hot enough to burn. I sipped, the lemon and mint hitting the back of my throat and clawing their way down. For a while, I just sat there, letting the heat seep in, listening to the rain tap Morse code on the old tin roof. Marina waited, arms folded, face patient and immovable.

“It’s over,” I said finally, the words cutting something loose in my chest. “He’s done.”

Marina didn’t blink. “What did you do?”

I almost laughed. “Why do you assume it’s my fault?”

“Because you have that look,” she said, one eyebrow arched. “Like you ran from something good and then realized too late it was the only thing you wanted.”

I stared at her, unsure if I was angry or just raw. “I told him about Boston. The job. That I was leaving.”

Marina’s lips pressed into a flat line. “And?”

I traced the rim of the mug, watching steam rise. “I told him it was all pretend. That none of it was real.” My voice broke on the word, splintering like a dropped glass.

“He believed you,” Marina said, not a question.

I nodded. “Why wouldn’t he?”

She let the silence hang, heavy as wet wool. When she spoke again, her voice was gentler, but there was an edge to it. “You know about River’s wife?”

I blinked, caught off guard. “What?”

Marina sat next to me, close enough I could feel the heat radiate from her arms. “Three years ago. She got sick, and it was fast. One week he was planning a trip to Acadia, the next he was picking out a casket. He was never the same after.”

I tried to picture it—River in mourning, River adrift—but the image didn’t fit. He was always so solid, so sure.

“He built walls around his heart,” Marina said, hands wrapped tight around her own mug. “Good walls. High ones. You’re the first person he’s let in since.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, the confession landing like a brick. “I didn’t know.”

“No, you didn’t,” she said. “But maybe you guessed. You’re not stupid, Juliette. Just scared.”

My hands trembled so badly I had to set the mug down. “It’s too late. I said things I can’t take back.”

Marina put her hand over mine, skin warm and steady. “You think Havenport forgives people for nothing? It’s a town built on second chances. And River—he needs a reason to believe in them.”

I shook my head, but the world felt unsteady, tilting toward possibility.

“What if I can’t?” I asked, voice small.

Marina squeezed my hand, then let go. “Then you start over. Here, or there, or wherever you need to. But if you stay, you do it for you. Not for a boy, not for a job.”

She stood, wiped her hands on her apron, and poured another mug of tea. I drank it in silence, the weight in my chest shifting from panic to something more uncertain, more alive.

When I finished, Marina handed me a fresh towel and walked me to the door. The rain had eased, clouds parted just enough to let the sodium lamps turn the street to gold. I looked back at her, hoping for another word, but she only nodded.

“Take your time, mija,” she said. “But not forever.”

The bell jingled behind me as I stepped into the street, and for the first time in hours, I realized I was still shivering—but it felt different. Like maybe I was waking up, or thawing out, or just coming back to myself.

I walked home slow, the wind at my back, and let myself imagine staying. Not because I was out of options, but because I wanted to see what happened if I stopped running. Maybe, for the first time, I could be enough.

The sky was clearing overhead, one stubborn star flickering through a gap in the clouds. I watched it all the way to my porch, then let myself in, towel still damp around my shoulders and hope—however small—burning under my skin.

The trick to hammering a nail is to pretend the board did something to deserve it. I let the first ten, twenty, thirty blows rip, each one a little harder than the last, until the shaft bent sideways and gouged a rut in the fresh pine. I yanked the nail free, tossed it into the pile, grabbed another. My hands shook, but not from cold—the day had been all humidity and heat, and even now, at the edge of evening, the air was heavy enough to make every breath a chore.

The sky to the west was shot through with orange, the water below glinting with that same sickly gold. It felt like a bruise, the kind that would go purple by morning. I watched the sun drop, tried to work faster than the dark.

This was supposed to be therapy. Build a thing, fix a thing, and in the process, fix yourself. That was the theory. In practice, the more boards I laid, the more broken I felt. I could hear the fight with Juliette looping in my head, not the words, just the tone—the bite and the hurt and the way she couldn’t even look at me at the end. I replayed it compulsively, hoping I’d catch something new in her voice that would explain everything, or at least let me hate her.

I couldn’t. That was the worst of it.

I’d just set a new plank when I heard footsteps behind me, heavy and familiar. Eli didn’t bother with a greeting. He flopped down on a stack of two-by-fours, arms crossed, gaze pointedly on the horizon.

“You know you’re gonna split that if you keep swinging like a serial killer,” he said, after a minute.

I set the hammer down, wiped sweat from my forehead, and ignored him. Eli was immune to silence, anyway; he let it build, then sliced through it with a whistle.

“Heard you two had a nuclear-grade blowout.”

I didn’t answer.

He watched me line up the next nail. “You want to talk about it, or should I just stand here and look pretty?”

I grunted. “You’ve never looked pretty a day in your life.”

He laughed, but the sound was thin. “She’s not like the others, man. She actually gives a shit.”

“She’s leaving,” I snapped, the words coming out rawer than I meant.

Eli held up his hands, a truce. “All I’m saying is, maybe you should tell her how you feel. Before it’s too late.”

I jammed the nail in, started pounding, letting the noise cover the rest of what he said.

Eli waited until I finished the row, then picked up a loose screw and rolled it between his fingers. “You remember sophomore year, that girl from the bakery?”

I did. She’d kissed me once behind the gym, then told everyone I was a freak.

“Point?” I asked.

He flicked the screw into the water. “Point is, you always run when shit gets scary. But you never stop wanting.”

I wiped my hands on my jeans, stared out at the water. “Doesn’t matter. She’s got her fancy job. Boston, or bust.”

Eli shook his head, smiling like he pitied me. “Yeah, well, some things are worth the risk.”

I watched the ripples where the screw hit, the way the circles expanded and overlapped, never really fading.

Eli stood, dusted off his pants, and started back up the dock. He paused at the end, looking over his shoulder. “You should fight for her, River. Or at least for yourself.”

I waited until he was gone, the only sound the slap of water under the boards and the distant hiss of cars on Route 1. I set the last plank, hammered it down, and sat at the end of the dock, legs dangling over the side.

The sun was gone, but I could still see its memory in the clouds, a smear of color refusing to give in. I watched until the sky went flat and blank, then picked up my hammer and went back to work, pounding nails until my arms went numb.

It was easier to build something new than try to fix what was already broken.

When I looked up again, the world was dark, and I was alone, surrounded by nothing but the promise of unfinished things.

The Real Deal  

If you live long enough in a coastal town, you learn that nothing is ever really finished—neither the sea nor the people who build too close to its edge. The dock looked complete in the half-light, the boards flush and new, but I could smell the varnish like a fresh wound and see the seams where the water would eventually worm its way in.

I watched him from the street, barely visible through a palisade of fog that gnawed at the waterline and crept up the shore like second thoughts. River stood at the end of the dock, shoulders squared, hands gripping the rail he’d sanded smoother than any apology. There was a storm in him, or maybe just a hangover from all the things we’d left unsaid.

I shivered in my hoodie, the air sharp with brine and some rotting thing I couldn’t name, and clutched the leather-bound journal to my ribs. My grandmother’s handwriting pressed into my palm, the letters bruised blue from years of pressure.

He didn’t turn when I stepped onto the boards. The fog muffled everything except the thud of my sneakers and the arrhythmic pulse in my ears. I stopped just behind him, where the scent of sawdust and sweat still lingered.

“Morning,” I said, voice small as a coin in a wishing well.

He kept his eyes on the water. “Didn’t expect to see you.”

A gull wailed overhead, swooping low enough that I had to duck or risk a talon in the scalp. “I could say the same,” I said, but the retort landed flat. The words were still sticky with all the pride I’d spent years cultivating, now dissolving in the salt air.

He traced a finger along the banister, testing for imperfections, or maybe just needing something to do with his hands. “Thought you’d be halfway to Boston by now.”

I fumbled for a reply, found nothing. Instead I pressed the journal forward, an awkward peace offering. He looked down, then at me, his gaze flat and unreadable.

I opened the cover. The first page was a riot of Spanglish, my grandmother’s looping scrawl crammed into every available space. The entry I’d spent all night rereading burned at the edge of my memory: “The safe harbor is tempting when storms threaten, but I’ve never regretted sailing into unknown waters when my heart was at the helm.”

I read it aloud, the words warping with the cold. “She was braver than I thought.”

River’s mouth twisted, but he didn’t speak.

I turned a page, read another line: “If you read this, mija, remember: even a lighthouse envies the ships that dare to leave.” I tried to laugh, but it curdled. “Guess I’m not the only one who inherited her knack for running.”

He shook his head, hair damp and curling at his nape. “You’re not running,” he said. “Not anymore.”

Silence clawed at the gap between us. I closed the journal, hugging it to my chest, the leather soft and warm against my skin.

“I’m not leaving,” I said, and the words came out steady, surprising even me.

He looked at me then, really looked, as if the fog had finally lifted. “What about your job? Your life in Boston?”

I let out a breath, watched it cloud and vanish. “I can work from here. The boss is pissed, but she’ll get over it. Besides, there’s Wi-Fi in Havenport, last I checked.”

A flicker of something passed over his face—relief, skepticism, a whole tangle of feelings too tangled to name.

“You’re really staying,” he said, like he didn’t trust the air to carry the truth.

I nodded, the motion small but final. “I found the journal last night. Read the whole thing. She spent her whole life trying to prove she could survive anywhere, but she was happiest right here. I think I just needed to see it in her own words.”

He leaned on the rail, the wood groaning beneath him. “I spent half my life trying to build something that wouldn’t fall apart. Doesn’t matter if it’s a dock or a relationship—things break anyway. Sometimes the best you can do is make the pieces fit for as long as you can.”

I could see the effort it took for him to say it, the way his jaw set against every syllable.

I set the journal on the bench, careful not to let the morning dew claim it. The fog had thinned, enough that the horizon bled into a pale blue. The air tasted cleaner now, less like loss.

“I can’t promise anything,” I said. “But I want to try.”

He stood there for a long time, hands in his pockets, the silence filling and refilling the space between us. When he finally turned, his eyes were brighter, the anger washed out, replaced by something softer. He reached for my hand, and I let him.

“You hungry?” he asked, voice barely more than a rumble.

“Starving,” I said, and it was true.

We walked back down the dock, side by side. The boards groaned under our weight, but they held.

Sometimes, that’s all you can ask for.

We didn’t talk much on the walk back. I let River lead, his steps slow but certain, the two of us trailing threads of last night’s argument behind us like seaweed clinging to a tide. The fog was thinning, combed into ribbons by the wind, but it left dew on every surface—benches, railings, the brittle grass edging the path. My sneakers squelched on the damp earth. I clutched the journal, thumb worrying at the leather like I might rub it blank.

He held the door for me at the house. The kitchen was stale with the ghosts of coffee and onion, but it was warmer than outside. I set the journal on the table, careful not to let the binding touch a spill from the night before. River filled the kettle, poured two mugs, and rummaged in the fridge until he found a half-eaten block of cheddar. We ate in silence, cheese sliced in thick, greedy hunks, coffee scalding our tongues. The quiet between us wasn’t peace, exactly, but it was better than before—less like a held breath, more like the hush after a slammed door.

When he finished, River rinsed his cup and leaned against the counter, arms crossed. His shirt was flecked with sawdust that wouldn’t brush away, no matter how hard he tried. He watched me, eyes half-lidded, patient as a storm on the horizon.

“You staying in Havenport for real?” he asked, the words heavy.

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

He drummed his fingers on the Formica. “My lease is up in three weeks. Place is a dump anyway. I was gonna move in with Eli, but that’s just a different kind of hell.” He shrugged, like he hadn’t just thrown his life into the same question as mine.

It took me a second to catch up. “You want to live here?”

He gave me a look, more amused than shy. “If you’re asking, yeah.”

Something fluttered in my throat—a bird, a fear, maybe a memory of every time I’d ever wanted to run. I tried to pin it with a joke, but the punchline wouldn’t come.

He wiped his hands on a towel, turned the coffee mug in his palm. “I’ve been here before, Juliette. Loving someone who leaves. It doesn’t get easier.”

I looked down, stared at the flecks of blue and gold paint dotting the table. “I know.”

He stepped closer, close enough that I could smell the sweat and metal and citrus of his soap. “What if you get bored?” he asked, voice low. “What if you wake up and want Boston again?”

I reached for the journal, flipped to a random page. My grandmother’s script stared back, insistent. “The sea never lets you forget who you are, even when you beg it to.” I let the book fall open, the spine creaking. “If I want to run, I’ll run. But I don’t think I do, not anymore.”

He was quiet a long time. His hand rested on the table, not quite touching mine. “I’m scared too,” he said. “But I’ve never felt about anyone the way I feel about you.”

I could have joked, could have shot back with some snark about codependency, but my throat was too tight. I stared at his knuckles, at the pale white scar running across the back of his hand, the way his fingers curled just so.

“I love you,” I said, because if I didn’t say it now, I never would.

He exhaled, the sound shaky but relieved. “I think I have since that first day on the dock.”

We stood there, the morning sun peeling through the windows, warming the room in stripes. He reached for me, and this time I didn’t flinch. Our hands met, palm to palm, a puzzle that finally fit.

He kissed me, slow at first, then deeper, the taste of coffee and salt and something sweeter. His arms wrapped around my waist, anchoring me. I let the journal drop, let the pages flutter, let the future be whatever it wanted.

We pulled apart, but only just.

“What if it doesn’t work?” he asked, and I saw the kid he used to be—the one who never trusted anything to last.

“Then we build something else,” I said, and meant it.

We finished breakfast in the warmth of our new, maybe-temporary, maybe-forever truce. The rest of the world could wait until tomorrow.

For now, we had a dock, a journal, and a summer that wasn’t over yet.

Home in Havenport 

Somewhere around 5 a.m., a hermit crab in my sink made a go for the leftover macaroni and cheese. I watched its progress through a veil of hair and self-pity, knees curled up on the countertop, the sunrise knifing through the window in stripes. The house was empty except for my boxes—sixteen if you counted the one full of tax returns and the other marked "BAD IDEAS" in Sharpie—and whatever ghosts or crustaceans came pre-installed with the property.

The place felt strange, not new exactly, but like a shirt that still smelled of someone else’s detergent. My grandmother’s touch was everywhere. The ancient cross-stitch above the oven: Home Is Where You Hang Your Bra. The windowsill lined with her sea glass hoard, arranged in color gradients only a truly obsessive mind could appreciate. The battered rolling pin she used to chase off Jehovah’s Witnesses, now stuck in a flour jar for safekeeping. I’d told myself I was ready to move in for good, that the past two weeks of “test run” were about proving a point, but the boxes still sat sealed and judgmental. Like they knew I was one unsigned email away from retreating to Boston and blaming the whole thing on a clerical error.

I unwrapped a mug from its nest of packing paper, the logo bright as a dare: #GirlBoss. My mother’s idea of a joke. I rinsed it out and filled it with the dregs of yesterday’s coffee, staring down the kitchen like I might win a staring contest with the linoleum. The sun pushed higher, burnishing the glass shards in the window until the room glowed green and blue. If you ignored the smell of dead crab and the distant rumble of an outboard, it was almost beautiful.

That’s when the door banged open, and River entered like the tide—unstoppable, and always a little too early. He was holding a brown paper bag, grease blossoming through the bottom, and the air around him smelled of rain and rising yeast.

“Morning,” he said, voice rough with sleep.

I watched as he tracked sand across the mat, boots leaving perfect, evidence-grade prints. “Is it?” I countered, but couldn’t quite summon the bite.

He grinned. “Brought you something.” He set the bag on the counter, careful not to crowd the mug or the parade of sea glass soldiers. “Marina got the first batch out by 4:30. Her words, not mine: ‘I’ll be damned if my bread doesn’t win you over before the Chamber of Commerce gets its claws in.’”

“Nothing like competitive carbs to start the day.” I picked at the bag. Inside, a loaf still warm, wrapped in parchment and trailing steam. River tore off a chunk with his hands and handed it over, no knife, no plate, just salt and flour and a smear of actual butter. I ate it because it was there, and because some animal part of me recognized that a man who baked at dawn could not possibly mean me harm.

We stood in companionable silence, chewing, while the crab worked up the courage to try again. When the bread was gone, River wiped his hands on his jeans and scanned the boxes, eyes narrowing at the one labeled "Kitchen: Trauma."

“You want help?” he asked, gesturing with his chin.

“Only if you’re looking for a tetanus booster.” I pulled another mug from the stack, this one chipped and painted with a lobster in a cowboy hat, and poured him the rest of the coffee.

He drank it black, like a person with no time for drama, and studied the horizon through the back window. “You get much sleep?”

“Define sleep.” I pushed the mug away, knuckles white on the Formica.

He watched me, long enough that I started to sweat under my hoodie. “You nervous?” he asked, finally.

I snorted. “What gave it away? The hair, or the existential spiral?”

He set his cup down and moved to the sink, rinsed it out, set it upside down next to mine. “Neither. You only talk this much when you’re about to do something important.”

I glared at him, but the effect was ruined by the fact that I’d cried at least once since 2 a.m. and my eyes were swollen like peeled grapes. “You got a psych degree you never mentioned?”

He shrugged, grinning. “Just good at reading the tide.”

We drifted into the living room, which was less a room and more a clearing in a box forest. My grandmother’s quilts hung over every available surface, patterns clashing in a way that felt almost defiant. River sat on the arm of the sofa, picking at a loose thread.

“I like the yellow one,” he said, nodding at the quilt nearest my elbow.

I flopped down beside it, pulling my knees up under my chin. “She made that the summer my parents split. Said every stitch was a swear word she couldn’t say out loud.”

He laughed, the sound low and genuine. “That explains a lot.”

I stared at the boxes, the unwrapped knickknacks, the stack of unopened mail with my name printed in a font meant to inspire terror. “I have to sign today,” I said, after a long moment.

He didn’t ask what. Maybe he already knew.

The contract was in my bag, folded and dog-eared, its header threatening in corporate blue. "Welcome to the Greater Havenport Visitor’s Bureau!"—exclamation mark compulsory, benefits optional. It was less money than I’d made in Boston, fewer perks, and the title was "Marketing Manager" instead of "Director," but the job came with an office overlooking the pier and a guarantee of being home by six most nights. Marina had called it "the perfect fit for a woman with a good brain and better bones." My own mother’s only comment was, "It’s honest work, at least."

I thumbed the paper, feeling the ghost of a panic attack behind my eyes. “If I sign this, it’s real. I’m not just the summer help. I’m here, for good.”

River leaned forward, forearms on knees, gaze unblinking. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

I twisted the contract, watched the light play off the window, the glint of blue-green glass on the sill. “Sometimes wanting and choosing aren’t the same thing,” I said, softer than I meant.

He reached out, a hand settling gentle on my shoulder. It wasn’t a grab, more like an anchor. “You belong here,” he said, and that was it.

The words hit like a rogue wave. Not because they were dramatic, but because they sounded like truth—like a thing that had always been true, even when I’d tried to drown it out with city noise and corner-office ambition.

I closed my eyes, tried to remember the last time anyone had said I belonged anywhere.

There was a pause, just long enough to make me realize he was waiting for permission to let go.

I signed the contract on the coffee table, the pen heavy in my hand, and slid it into the envelope without reading it again. It felt like jumping off a cliff, or maybe more like wading into a tide that never quite let you out the same way you came in.

I pulled River in for a kiss, short and sharp, tasting salt and yeast and the static between us. His beard scratched my cheek, and his hands found the small of my back, warm and solid. It was better than any pep talk. It was better than most things.

When we broke apart, I smoothed the yellow quilt and straightened a throw pillow, instinctively. Old habits. I could feel his eyes on me, amused and proud and maybe a little in love.

Without thinking, I grabbed my phone from the table, thumb hovering over the old email icon. The boss’s name blinked at me, one last missive from a life that no longer fit. I deleted it, the motion clean and final, then set the phone face-down, like a lid on the past.

River laughed, shaking his head. “You’re really doing it.”

“Guess so,” I said. “Want to help me unpack the rest? Or just critique my taste in throw pillows?”

He stood, stretching, and the sun caught in his hair, picking out the salt just above his ears. “I could live with either,” he said.

We spent the next hour dismantling the box fort, River assigning each object a story or a new home. My grandmother’s driftwood mermaid found pride of place above the mantle. My collection of sarcastic mugs claimed an entire shelf. The kitchen filled with the smell of bread and possibility.

It was nothing like I’d imagined. It was better.

By mid-morning, the crab had vanished, the boxes had lost their menace, and the house felt less like a relic and more like a place someone could want to come home to. I caught my reflection in the window, hair wild, cheeks flushed, and for once I didn’t flinch.

River rinsed his hands at the sink, then tossed me a dish towel. “You good?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “I think I am.”

The wind shifted, and the sea glass on the sill caught the light, scattering it across the walls in bright, forgiving shards.

I watched the colors, let them dance, and thought maybe, just maybe, I belonged here after all.

The sun burned lower, melting the edge of the water until everything was gold and nothing cast a true shadow. We walked down to the harbor, River’s hand at my back, the calluses catching on the fabric of my shirt. The wind had teeth but the day held on, refusing to let the chill settle in.

The dock planks flexed under our weight, boards old as myth and stained with a century of salt and sun. At the end of the row, tied up and waiting, was the reason for River’s lopsided grin: a boat, thirty feet if it was an inch, painted the blue of a bruise. Its hull gleamed wetly, as if the wood had just been born. Brass cleats, polished to a blinding mirror. The name on the prow—Segundo Chance—looked hand-lettered, the kind of script you did slow and with a little hope that you wouldn’t screw it up at the end.

“Your work?” I asked, pretending I didn’t already know.

He ducked his head, embarrassment and pride fighting for space on his face. “You said you liked the name,” he said. “I figured it was fitting.”

I ran my fingers along the gunwale. The varnish was glassy, not a single bubble or flaw. “It’s perfect,” I said, and meant it.

He offered a hand, the gentleman-rogue in full effect, and helped me step from dock to deck. The boat rocked gently, its own heartbeat beneath my feet. River moved around the small cockpit, showing off every detail—coaming rail, varnished to a mirror; reclaimed teak deck, inlaid with stripes of lighter wood; a wheel salvaged from an antique shop in Rockport. He opened the hatch to the cabin, ducked his head in, and pulled out a pair of cushions. My favorite color, a blue somewhere between navy and regret.

“Made those myself,” he said, dropping them onto the seats.

I sat, letting the boat cradle me. The breeze brought the scent of kelp and creosote, and I let it fill my lungs. River settled beside me, knees pressed together, the muscles in his forearm shifting as he fiddled with the tiller. He pointed out each brass fitting, the new-but-old lantern, the cupholders made from lobster pot rings. Every feature had a backstory. A joke, a memory, a tiny act of rescue.

He talked more than usual, words tripping out faster than he could sand them down. His hands shook a little as he coiled the lines, tobacco-stained fingers betraying a nervousness he couldn’t hide behind jokes. When he knotted the main, the end frayed, he started over three times before getting it right.

“You okay?” I asked, watching him from the corner of my eye.

He glanced up, lips pressed tight, then shrugged. “It’s stupid, but—” He trailed off, looking out at the open water.

“What?”

He set the rope down, the motion slow and deliberate. “I still get scared sometimes,” he said, voice so low I had to lean in to catch it. “That this—” He gestured at the boat, the sky, the both of us. “That it’ll just… disappear. Like everything else.”

I watched his fingers, the tension holding them apart. I put my hand over his, skin warm and a little rough, and squeezed.

“It’s not going anywhere,” I said, more certain than I’d been about anything in months.

He relaxed, not all at once, but enough that the boat seemed to rock easier. He looked at me, really looked, and something unguarded flickered in his eyes. He leaned back against the transom, pulling me with him, and for a while we just sat, the water knocking softly at the hull, the air growing thick with the promise of night.

We talked about the first trip. Heron Cove—just a sandbar with a stand of birches, visible from my grandmother’s back porch. He promised the engine would get us there, or if not, the current would. He mapped the route with his finger on my palm, tracing the way the coastline bent, the shoals to avoid, the place where the water turned from green to black.

“We’ll bring a picnic,” he said, already plotting the menu. “Something messy. Bread and cheese and that weird salami you like.”

I grinned, not bothering to deny it. “You know it’ll be cold as hell.”

“I’ll bring blankets,” he said, the old River creeping back. “You bring the stories.”

He looked out over the water, the reflection of the dock lights scattered like confetti on the waves. “You ever think about what comes next?” he asked.

“All the time,” I said, but not in the way he meant. “You?”

He hesitated, then nodded. “I don’t want to be like my dad. Always waiting for the other shoe, never enjoying what’s in front of him.” He flexed his hand, the rope burns visible. “Sometimes I think if I just hold on tight enough, maybe it’ll last.”

“It will,” I said. “Or at least, it’ll be worth it.”

We sat in silence, the kind that didn’t need fixing. The boat drifted, tugged gently by the tide, and the world felt balanced in a way I hadn’t known was possible.

He kissed me then, slow and careful, the kind of kiss that said he’d thought about it for a long time and didn’t want to get it wrong. His beard tickled, his hands steady now. I kissed him back, hungry for it, and for a minute the only thing that existed was the boat and the water and the promise of more.

When we finally broke apart, the moon had risen, fat and orange, painting the water with a dirty glow.

“You ready?” he asked, as if we were about to jump, or run, or start something that couldn’t be stopped.

“Yeah,” I said, and meant it.

He untied the boat, and we drifted out together, the lights of the town shrinking behind us, the horizon wide open and waiting.

The new dock wasn’t just a dock. It was a party, a parade, a temporary kingdom of light and laughter. Every inch of railing was hung with strings of paper lanterns—orange, blue, yellow—some the shape of stars, others borrowed from last year’s Chinese New Year stash in Marina’s basement. Local artists had come out of hiding to hang their driftwood sculptures from the crossbeams, wild knots of wood and shell and wire. Sea glass mobiles swayed above the benches, catching the sunset and spitting it back in tiny flickers that danced across the faces of everyone who’d ever doubted that Havenport could do anything right the first time.

The whole town turned out, or close enough. Marina presided at the far end of the dock, standing guard over a table groaning with boiled lobster, chowder, and enough blueberry pie to lay out every emergency room nurse in the state. The mayor, a man with eyebrows that had their own zip code, hovered near the punch, bellowing at anyone who dared double-dip. River stood near the head of the dock, in a button-down that looked suspiciously like the one I’d seen him hide in the closet last week, sleeves rolled to the elbows. Eli hovered nearby, popping hors d’oeuvres like a teenage boy with an unlimited metabolism.

The ribbon—red, bold, almost aggressive—stretched across the entrance to the dock. Someone had pinned a bow the size of a newborn to the center, and the scissors waiting on the pedestal looked like props from a mob movie.

“Showtime,” River murmured, sidling up beside me.

“You ready?” I whispered, knowing he hated being on display.

He shrugged, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Only if you hold my hand.”

I did. His palm was clammy, and he squeezed a little too tight, but I let him. For the next ten minutes, the mayor did a stand-up routine disguised as an opening speech, referencing the “cursed” history of the old dock and congratulating River for “building something so sturdy even my mother-in-law can’t sink it.” Every joke landed, and the crowd cackled, Marina loudest of all.

Eli was the first to toast, rapping a glass with his knuckle and raising his voice over the wind.

“Here’s to River Beckett,” he bellowed, “who’s proven that the only thing stronger than his glue is his stubbornness. And to Juliette Reyes, who gave him a reason to finally finish a job on schedule.” There was an eruption of laughter—knowing, good-natured, a little rowdy. “May the dock last longer than your high school relationships, buddy. That’s all I’m saying.”

River shook his head, but he was grinning. “Thanks, Eli. For the record, your carpentry skills still need work.”

There was more laughter, and then it was Marina’s turn. She didn’t need a glass or a microphone; her voice carried over the water with a grace that reminded me of old movies and better days.

“I’ve seen a lot of docks in this town,” she began, “but I’ve never seen one built with as much heart. Your abuela would be proud, mija. She’d say you turned saltwater into something sweet.” She wiped her eyes, but the tears didn’t slow her down. “Here’s to new beginnings, and to family—whatever shape it takes.”

That one got me. I squeezed River’s hand harder, swallowing the knot in my throat.

The mayor handed us the scissors, and River guided my fingers around the handles, his own hands steadying mine. “You sure you want to do this?” he whispered, breath hot against my ear.

I nodded, heart in my teeth. “I want to do it with you.”

We cut the ribbon, the fabric resisting for a split second before yielding with a satisfying snick. The crowd erupted. Someone popped a bottle of cheap prosecco. Kids shrieked and bolted down the dock, testing the bounce of every plank.

The band—two guitars, a washboard, and a clarinet that sounded like it had survived prohibition—kicked into a slow, sweet tune. River turned me in a lazy circle, pulling me into the center of the dock.

“We’re really doing this?” I asked.

“Only if you want to,” he said.

“I do,” I said, and tried not to blush at the accidental echo of wedding vows.

He stepped in, hands at my waist, and I let him lead. We swayed, awkward at first, then easier, the rhythm of the music and the water making sense of our bodies. The dock was solid beneath our feet, but the rest of the world felt like it was rolling on a gentle swell. We danced, and the stars—real, not paper—came out overhead, scattered thick as sugar.

Others joined us: Marina with the postman, Eli with the mayor’s wife (scandalous, but not really), a knot of kids jumping and spinning until the boards shook. The band picked up the tempo, and the air filled with the smell of pie, sea, and perfume that lingered on skin even after the bottle was empty.

River leaned in, his lips brushing my ear. “I never thought I’d have this,” he said, the words more for him than me.

“Have what?”

“A reason to stay.”

I wrapped my arms tighter around his neck, holding on not because I was afraid, but because I wanted to. “You don’t have to be scared, you know,” I said. “This place isn’t perfect, but it’s real.”

He smiled, and the tension that had haunted him all summer faded into something soft and permanent.

As the music slowed, I looked out over the water. The lanterns floated in the reflection, doubled and tripled until it looked like the dock stretched all the way to the horizon. My grandmother’s house was just visible in the distance, its windows lit against the night.

For the first time in my life, I wasn’t counting down the days to escape. I was counting up the days I’d get to keep.

I held River’s hand, and together we danced into the dark, the laughter and light trailing behind us, a new story written on the water.

When the party ended, and the last lantern was snuffed out, the dock held firm, solid underfoot, ready for whatever came next.