"None of this is fair." I turn to walk away, then pause. "But for what it's worth? I meant it when I said you deserve to be happy."
I leave her standing there by the lake.
I don't look back because if I do, I'll break.
CHAPTER 41
I FUCKED UP
NORA
I've been backin LA for less than forty-eight hours and I already know I don't belong here anymore.
The realization hits me standing in the middle of my temporary rental—a shoebox studio in Silver Lake that costs more per month than most people's mortgages.
I couldn't bring myself to go back to the house I once shared with Wes. Couldn't stomach the idea of sleeping in a bed we shared, walking through rooms that still smell like his cologne, pretending that version of my life ever made sense.
So I'm here instead.
Surrounded by IKEA furniture and white walls and the relentless hum of a city that never shuts up. Even at night, even in the soft hours when everything is supposed to slow down, Los Angeles buzzes with sirens in the distance, cars rushing past on wet pavement.
It's bizarre, this feeling returning to a place that once felt like home only to realize you were a stranger in your own life. Existing in a parallel reality that wasn't real but more illusion than anything else.
I've been moving through the motions since I landed.
Unpacked my suitcase, responded to emails, scheduledmeetings with my agent and publisher. Did all the things that are supposed to signal I'm here, I'm back, I'm committed to the life I built.
But I'm not.
Every conversation feels hollow. Every smile feels forced. Every plan for the future feels like I'm reading lines from a script someone else wrote for a character I no longer want to play.
I miss Eden.
I miss the way the air smells.
But most of all, I miss Nate.
I'm standing at my window, coffee going cold in my hand, staring at a city I used to think I loved, when there’s a knock at my door.
More of a pounding than a knock but I'm not expecting anyone. Camilla doesn't even know where I'm staying yet. My agent wouldn't show up unannounced.
I set down my coffee and cross to the door, peer through the peephole. Ollie is standing in my hallway looking rumpled and anxious and like he's been awake for forty-eight hours straight.
I panic and open the door.
"Ollie? What are you doing here? Is everything okay? Is it Mia? The baby?"
He doesn't answer.
Just pushes past me into the apartment carrying a parcel that looks like it's been through a war—worn edges, faded label, corners held together with what looks like sheer force of will.
"Ollie, what?—"
"I fucked up." The words tumble out of him. "I fucked up so bad, Nora, and I can't—I've been carrying this for years and I thought I was doing the right thing but I wasn't and now you're back here in this fucking city when you should be in Eden and he's there waiting and you don't even know, you have no idea?—"
"Ollie." I grab his shoulders. "Slow down. What's going on? What are you talking about?"
He sets the parcel down on the coffee table with tremblinghands before turning to face me with eyes that are too bright, too guilty, too desperate.
