When she finally stood on two sturdy legs, she froze—staring first at the shop, then the narrow street, and finally the coastline just down the hill.
"This is..."
"Home," I finished softly.
Wickford, Rhode Isalnd. A sleepy coastal town that had somehow resisted being swallowed whole by modern life. The place she had grown up, where she’d laughed and danced and dreamed before everything changed.
She turned to me, her eyes wide, shining under the street lamps. "How did you—?"
I shrugged like it was nothing. As if it hadn’t traced her steps back through time to find the place she had loved most.
For a moment, she looked as if she might cry. Instead, she let out a shaky laugh and threw herself into motion, tugging my hand. "Come on," she said. "I want to see if it’s still the same."
We wandered past crooked houses with salt-stained siding, the old library she used to sneak into after dark, and the crumbling stone wall she once scraped her knees climbing over. She pointed out everything, her voice thick with memory andlaughter. The town wasn’t frozen in time. Modernity had crept in, akin to ivy on a house, but enough was left that it still revealed the ghosts of her childhood. Although, the small cottage she’d been born in was now gone, replaced with a park. But we found what she searched for, all the same.
An unmarked tombstone hiding in a copse of trees.
Her grandmother wanted to be laid to rest beside the cottage she’d raised her daughter and grand-daughter in. But with no name to call her own, Astoria explained—tears welling in her eyes—that they had decided to leave it blank.
My chest tightened as she knelt in front of the moss covered stone. Astoria brushed her fingers over the worn, uneven letters.Loved and Never Forgotten.
I stayed a step behind, letting her have this moment. She deserved as much.More than that, honestly.The wind stirred the trees overhead—a soft, sighing sound, as the earth itself mourned alongside her.
"I used to come here," she said finally, her voice barely louder than the rustle of the leaves. "After she passed. I’d sneak out of the house and just… talk to her. Tell her about my day, or something funny I saw, or something stupid I’d done."
She gave a watery laugh, dashing at her eyes with the sleeve of my sweater. "I don’t know if she ever heard me," Astoria added, voice thick. "But it made me feel less alone."
I crouched down beside her, the cold earth seeping into my knees. "You weren’t alone," I said softly. "You never were."
She turned her head, and the look she gave me made it hard to breathe, as though she could see straight through the centuries and right into me. I reached out, hesitant, and brushed a stray lock of hair from her face. Her skin was cool from the evening air, and my fingers lingered just a second too long against her cheek. Maybe she knew it, maybe she wanted me to, because she didn’t pull away. If anything, she leaned in, just slightly.
The silence between us shifted, molten and heavy, just waiting to tip over and consume us.
"You always do that.”
"Do what?"
She smiled, small and broken and beautiful. "Say the one thing I needed to hear, even when I didn’t know I needed it."
I swallowed, the ache in my chest almost unbearable. "I pay attention." Without thinking I tilted my head and brushed my mouth over her temple. A touch, barely there.
She let out a tiny sound, a hitch of breath, and when I pulled back, she was looking at me with the heavens in her eyes, as if I was the only thing left in her world.
I suppose I was.
"Come on," I said, my voice rough. "Before I do something we'll regret."
My hand found hers anyway, fingers lacing through hers naturally, and I couldn’t help but think they were made to fit. She squeezed once, grounding me. We left the little grave behind, the trees parting to let us through, the past trailing at our heels.
Finally, we looped back toMilly’s. I ordered us two cones, mine mint chip, hers strawberry (like she used to get as a girl) and we sat down on the curb outside, side by side. She was still in her leggings and my oversized sweater, and I was still laughably overdressed. But I didn’t care.
For a while, we just ate. The night air was crisp around us, the ocean breathing quietly against the shore.
"This," she said, licking a drip of ice cream from her cone, "was my favorite place. Milly’s. Back then, she only sold two flavors: vanilla and honey cream."
"Good taste," I said, bumping her shoulder lightly.
She smiled at me, small and a little shy.
