I smile at the memory, though it still stings a little. “You stood there and told me I was wasting my potential. I think that hurt worse than Dad’s lecture.”
“I know.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.”
“Yeah, you did. You believed it. And that’s fine. But you were wrong.”
“I know that now.”
The sound of rain fills the silence again, like we’re not allowed to justbe quietaround here. Yet I don’t know how to live without it. One reason I could never leave this area is that stupid rain is as much a part of me as it is the atmosphere, the soil… if I don’t have wind making the house settle and rain turning my driveway into a lake, who even am I? Someone who wears rubber boots for fashion?
“I didn’t get it back then,” Nick says, cutting into my thoughts. “How you could be happy working with your hands. I thought happiness had to come from control. White collar success.”
“Yeah, well. Look where that got you.”
He laughs, the heavy kind, the way he used to back in high school. “Yeah.”
I walk to the counter, picking up the mug he abandoned earlier and rinsing it in the sink. That pot is finally finished. “You really thought dating someone like Edie would fix all that?”
He flinches at her name, but nods. “She was familiar. The kind of person people like to see standing next to you. She made me look grounded.”
“But?”
He leans on the counter beside me, staring into the sink. “But you were right. I didn’t see her. Not really. I saw what shecouldbe. What she could makeme.” He doesn’t say anything as I finish up the coffee. “You saw her before I did.”
“Yeah,” I admit. “And I hated you for it.”
“I know.” He pauses, then says, quietly, “You love her.”
“I do.”
He nods, eyes dropping. “Does she love you?”
“She does.”
Something in him breaks a little. Not in a dramatic way, but a soft, quiet crumbling of the ego. “Then I’m glad it’s you,” he admits. “At least it’s someone who won’t hurt her.”
We stand there, the weight of it all settling between us like the rain has finally collected on the roof and is about to cave it in.
After a while, he says, “You think Mom and Dad will ever forgive me?”
“They already have,” I say. “They just want you to stop acting crazy. You don’t have to prove anything anymore, Nick. Not to them, not to me.”
He nods, eyes on the window again. The rain has slowed to a drizzle, faint ripples forming on the surface of the river beyond.
“You’re never leaving this place, huh?” he asks. “You and Edie.”
“Yeah. Me and Edie. We’re staying for as long as this place is standing.”
“Good.” He beams. “This place needs you.”
“Maybe it needs you too,” I offer. “You ever think about moving back?”
“Maybe,” he says. “After the new year. Take a break from the capital. Do something that actually matters for once. Do you know that there are evenmorefamily law cases in Coos County than before? I could make a killing.”
“Uh… not sure that’s something to celebrate, dude.”
“Right. It actually doesn’t pay well compared to other types of law. But I could stay here and find something that strikes a balance between pay and being interesting.”
“You’d hate it,” I tease. “There aren’t enough people here who like being impressed.”
