by Claire Raye
“Is it like a sequel or something?” he asks, surprising me.
I reach for my beer, taking a sip before lowering the bottle. I can feel him watching me, waiting for my answer and as much as I don’t want to create anymore hostility, I need to get this out. So taking a deep breath, I tell him everything. All the details about the second book, the book tour, the interviews, a possible Netflix series, everything.
When I’m finally done, Matt sits silently beside me, his face unreadable as he watches me.
“Well, just say it,” I say, waving a hand at him.
“Does Nora know how you feel?” Matt asks, again surprising me.
I nod. “She does, we’ve fought about since it first came up.”
“And?” he continues.
I exhale, scrubbing a hand down my face as I say, “I mean it wouldn’t exactly be our story. I mean the first story wasn’t entirely true.”
“But,” he prompts and even though he isn’t saying much, I know this is his way of letting me know it’s okay to talk, that he’s listening.
“But it wouldn’t matter. People would still think it’s true and they’d still ask us a million questions about it, judging us for what we’ve done.”
Matt meets my gaze as the last words fall from my mouth. “So ask her not to do it.”
I let out a humorless laugh. “You think I haven’t done that?” I say. “But it’s kinda shitty given I’m the one who told her to write what she loves.”
The irony of that statement isn’t lost on me and as we once again sit in silence, my brain turning over all the things that stand in the way of me and Nora being together, a tiny part of me wonders if maybe it really won’t work out. If maybe it’s all too much, too soon and something we haven’t learnt how to deal with because we haven’t really learnt how to deal with anything as a couple.
“So what will you do?” Matt eventually asks.
I let out a hard breath. “I have no fucking idea.”
Chapter Thirty-Six: Nora
One year later…
I told myself I was done. That I wouldn’t return to this beach where we met, but here I am, standing in the exact place, the night air cool and the beach as deserted as it was fourteen years ago. A lot can change in one year. Decisions I made changed my life, some for better, some for worse, but none are a regret.
I still haven’t written the second book. Something about it feels far more personal than it ever felt before, almost like I never thought we’d find each other and writing book one was my closure. It was my end, but not the end for every single person who read my book. I’m grateful for the exposure and what it’s done for my career and I would never begrudge anyone who longs for that second book.
But it was the wedge that pushed itself between Elliot and me, and not only that, it also killed any semblance of creativity or love that I had for that story. It didn’t matter the number of times we discussed it, we were always at an impasse with me feeling like he didn’t support my career and him feeling like I didn’t support our relationship.
I cried.
We cried.
We separated.
I make my way over to the lifeguard tower, stopping at the side of it as I pull the letter out of the back pocket of my jeans. They’re cuffed at the bottom, but the sand still manages to move its way up my legs and I laugh a little, shaking my feet. It’s something I can’t seem to get used to no matter how many trips I take here.
Fourteen years.
But I love this beach and everything it represents. I hold it close and cherish what it gave me. I look to it when I want to remember what love feels like. When life turns bitter, this is where I want to be, but it’s also the place I want to be when everything is good. Something about it feels like home.
When we lost our mom, Alice searched the world for her, for something that made her feel close to what she lost. She lived all over, moving when she grew restless and couldn’t find the solace she sought. I desperately tried to stay, stuck in one place, worried about loss and the risk of losing something more. It took me forever to realize my search for Elliot was my replacement for the search for what I lost.
My mother.
Alice found peace among the grief long before I did and she knew she found it in James. My mother’s death haunted all of us for years and to know that all it took was falling in love to help it fade away is an anomaly I never believed in. I watched it work for Alice, and while what I thought I was doing was falling in love, it honestly was always just a distraction. My search had always been the biggest distraction.
“Can I help you with something?” A tanned, lean lifeguard asks, and I smile as I look up at him. He reminds me of Elliot. The Elliot I met at the party when we were young and had no idea what our lives would become.
He watches me tuck the small piece of paper into one of the slats on the lifeguard tower, his eyes narrowing a little as he takes in my movements.
“No, I’m okay,” I say, but then I stop, my smile widening a little, my heart fluttering a bit. “Did you see anyone else here today? This evening? A guy about my age with…” I don’t finish my thought, shaking my head at my own obsessive need to question. It’s what I did for so long that it still comes as second nature.
“There’s been a ton of people here today. It’s a beach,” the lifeguard says, a joking but also annoyed quality to his tone. “It’s pretty dead now though. They’re setting up for a wedding down at the far end, so that always draws people over there. They’re nosy.” He shrugs casually and begins to walk away.
The conversation ends there and as part of me wonders if he’ll read what’s written on the paper after I leave. It’s the same note Elliot used to leave for me, but instead of his name, it’s my name, my phone number and my address, although this time the address is different.
We all need a change in our lives.
True love doesn't happen right away. It's an ever-growing process, something I learned after far too many ups and downs. It develops after you've suffered together, cried together, laughed together and spent time apart. Once you’ve realized what you always wanted, what you never knew you had, true love is born and makes your life complete.
I always thought Elliot and I would find each other and suddenly our lives would be perfect. We spent so much time searching that there couldn’t possibly be anything that would keep us apart. But I was wrong. It wasn’t so simple. We had lives and families and friends and jobs, and there were people who thought they had an opinion on what our lives should be, and there were even more people who wanted to follow us too closely after reading my book. Being under a microscope is never good for any relationship.
I signed the contract with my publisher to write three more books in addition to a second book about Elliot and me. Luckily for me there was never anything in the contract stating a timeline for when I had to deliver the conclusion to mine and Elliot’s story. Over the last year, I wrote the three books, they’ll all be published over the next few years and despite them dangling a large amount of money in front of me and another contract, I declined.
Write what you love.
It’s ingrained in me, and as much as I love the stability of working for a publisher and having that steady income, it’s not what I want. I’m not writing what I love any longer because I’m pitching ideas and they either take them or leave them. Too many have been left and I’ve longed for the independence I found when I first wrote mine and Elliot’s story.
So I packed up and found myself back in the one place I felt I needed to be.
The beach where I fell in love with Elliot.
I watch from a distance as the crew sets up the chairs, preparing for the wedding and I feel my heart clench in my chest. It tightens painfully and I swallow back the tears I feel form. I’m here because I need a moment to myself, to gather my thoughts, but as I stand here I’m hit with the realization that this place won’t be the end of my thirst. There’s so much more waiting for me.
“I knew I’d find you here,” Alice’s voice says, cutting through my thoughts and bringing me back to the present. “You okay?”
She shuffles through the sand, tossing a towel onto it as she tugs my wrist, pulling me down so I’m sitting next to her.
“Are you okay?” she asks again, looking over at me.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m good,” I tell her, trying to let her know I’m lying. I am struggling. Letting go of this place and everything it represented to me for all these years, is far harder than I thought. I’ve done it so many times, but this time it’s for real.
I don’t need to hold onto my memories of this beach or the memories of Elliot or the memory of us.
“You look like you were crying,” Alice jabs, hitting me with a side eye because she knows I’m lying.
“Obviously I was,” I respond, sniffing a little as I suck back the new tears that have begun to form with my admission.
“Why are you crying?” Alice now asks, sympathy in her words, her hand resting on my back. “This is going to be great. The end of an era, although I’m totally going to miss taking random trips around the country with you.”
“As cliché as it sounds, I wouldn’t change a single thing that’s happened. I did everything I did with love and I have to have faith in the fact that my decisions shaped my life.”
Alice laughs a little, tossing an elbow into my side, mocking my cheesiness with a roll of her eyes. I get how stupid I sound, but every word is true.
“Without any of this shit do you think we’d have the relationship we have?” I now ask her, knowing my relationship with Elliot wasn’t the only thing I found.
“Fuck no. You were impossible to deal with,” she quips back, and even though I know she’s joking, it’s hard not to let her words affect me.
“Probably true, but you weren’t all that easy either.”
“We’d lost our mother and our dad had no idea how to deal with it, how to raise two teenage girls, how to cope with grief and death. I’d say we came out pretty good.”
“It just took us a while to get here,” I add, resting my head against her shoulder.
She nods, and we sit together listening to the waves lap at the shore. The sound is far more soothing than I expected it to be.
“Look,” Alice says, pointing where the wedding is being set up. The arbor where the ceremony will take place, lights up in the darkness.
“It’s going to be beautiful,” I respond, taking in a long slow breath.
“It will be.”
We stay for a little while longer, not talking, neither of us needing to fill the silence. Both of us are finding comfort in the quiet stillness of the night and the recognition of our closeness now. Without Alice I’m not sure where I’d be. She’s been the guiding force in every decision I’ve made over the last year and for that I’m forever grateful.
“You ready?” she asks now, linking her arm through mine.
“Absolutely.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Elliot
My bare feet sink into the sand, the coolness of it soothing and at once, both familiar and foreign. Almost instantly, my mind goes back to that night fourteen years ago, on this very beach. The night that changed my life forever.
My memories are so fucking vivid, almost as though it happened yesterday. Seeing her at the party, a party I never intended on going to but am forever grateful I did, regardless of how everything played out afterward. The stupid fucking pick-up line I used on her, and the way she laughed at me and just went with it anyway. Taking her down to the beach, this beach, and realizing just how much I wanted her as we talked and laughed.
The easy silence that surrounded us both, as though we were both so comfortable with each other already. And then the sounds we made when we really connected and couldn’t hold back any longer.
I close my eyes, my mind going back to that dark night beside my tower, all the things she made me feel, all the things she made me want. And then how it felt to find her gone the next morning. The crushing pain that came with losing someone I instinctively knew was the other half of me. The pain that didn’t disappear with each passing year that I looked for her.
And then the joy of finding her again, of being with her again. Only to have it all come crashing down once more. Harder this time, I think, because we knew how to find each other, we just didn’t know how to make it work.
It was supposed to be easy, being together, especially after we’d looked for each other for so long. We’d already done the hard part, for thirteen years, we’d both suffered through losing what we knew was something powerful and beautiful. The rest should’ve been easy. We deserved that.
But life is never easy, and our story is a perfect example of that. Not just the thirteen years apart, but the expectations and judgement from all the people who knew us. And all the people who didn’t.
The world thinks they know our story just because they read Nora’s book. But I’ve lived our story and while there are elements of the truth in everything she wrote, it’s not the whole truth, it never will be.
Only we know that truth.
She never did write the second part in the end and I will be forever grateful, despite the heartache it caused us. Because as much as I know it’s her first story that brought us back together again, I didn’t want to share what that reconnection then looked like with the rest of the world. What we had was private, no matter how much she tried to fictionalize it.
Taking a deep breath, I open my eyes, my hands sliding into my pockets as my eyes focus on the dusky skyline. I glance down the beach and smile before turning back to the horizon in front of me.
Waiting.
My heart pounds in my chest at everything that’s come before this moment. All of the good times and all of the bad times. All of them have brought us to this. This time and this place. This beach and this moment.
“You ready?”
My smile widens at the question, even though it’s not directed at me, as I wait for them to turn and see me.
As soon as they do, Nora gasps while Alice lets out a squeal before covering Nora’s eyes. “You aren’t supposed to see her.”
I burst out laughing as I step closer. “Then why are you covering her eyes, Alice? Because I can still see her, you know?”
Nora laughs as she pulls Alice’s hand away from her eyes. Turning, she pulls her sister into her arms and gives her a warm hug. “Give us a minute?” I hear her ask.
Alice nods in response as she pulls back, smiling affectionately at her sister. She walks toward me, that smile now directed at me as she squeezes my arm once. “Don’t take too long,” she says with a smirk.
“We won’t. Can you let Matt know I’ll be there in a sec?”
Alice tips her head once before she walks off, leaving the two of us alone.
Here. On this beach.
Smiling, I walk toward Nora, my arms slipping around her waist as I pull her to me. “Couldn’t resist, huh?”
She smiles, almost shyly as her arms wrap around my neck and she looks up at me. “You either?”
Grinning, I lean down to brush my lips against hers. “I missed you,” I whisper against her mouth.
Nora half laughs, half sighs. “You saw me this morning,” she murmurs, brushing her mouth against mine again.
“I know, but that was ages ago,” I say, knowing that every minute apart feels like a lifetime to me.
Nora’s smile widens, even as she presses up on her toes to kiss me again, deeper this time. I surrender myself to her, getting lost in this kiss, this moment, this woman. This woman I’ve spent nearly half of my life searching for.
“You wanna recreate that night again,” I whisper against her lips, remembering the other thing that happened that night.
Nora giggles. “I wish,” she breathes out. “But people are waiting for us.”
I sigh, knowing she’s right. “After then?”
Her fingers slide into my hair, holding me close. “I could be talked into th
at.”
Now it’s me grinning against her mouth, my tongue tracing her bottom lip, teasing her. She lets out a soft groan, her fingers tightening. “Elliot…”
I force myself to pull back, my breathing a little ragged. “Did you leave it?” I ask, tilting my head in the direction of my old tower.
Nora smiles. “Why don’t you go find out.”
Smiling, I grab her hand and together we walk over to the side of the tower, only feet away from where all of this started. I can see the small slip of paper, tucked between the slates and I reach for it, pulling it out and opening it.
Written on the paper is Nora’s name, phone number and address, the exact information I used to leave all those years before. I wish she’d found them back then, maybe everything would have been different. But then again, maybe we wouldn’t be where we are right now either.
Because that address isn’t just her address, it’s mine too. It’s the place we share together, our home.
After everything that happened with our reunion, all the crap with her publisher and their desperation for the second half of our story, things had been tough. I’d gone back to Chicago and left Nora in New York, both of us desperately wanting to be together, but not knowing how to make it work.
We both had friends and family who supported us and we both had friends and family who didn’t. We had separate lives and different jobs and everything was pulling us in the opposite direction, when all we wanted was to be pulled together.
It had been tough and for a brief moment, I’d wondered if we’d make it. But in the end, we had. Nora had given up the idea of the second book, because in the end she too realized it wasn’t what she wanted to write about.
And I’d given up Chicago and my old life, because I realized that my new life with her was way more important.
Then we bought an apartment in Soho together. I’d quit my job and moved to New York to be with her. I could’ve transferred but in the end, I decided to make a total change. Nora had said no to writing the second book. She’d written three others and then turned down another contract so she could follow her dreams and write what she loved.