I knew he’d set it up this way so I could sleep.
“Since when do we need to make things fair? You’ve been doing everything yourself long enough, Ellie.”
I couldn’t even allow myself to acknowledge how soft that made me feel.
“You sure you have everything you need?” I asked him. We’d put a sheet and blanket down and I’d dug up some extra pillows. He had water and chargers for the monitors. I’d opened the balcony door for the breeze. It was a soft night. Outside and in.
I couldn’t think of anything else to offer him, but I was still lingering.
“Yes,” Sam said. “I promise I’m good.”
I pressed my lips together. “Okay. Well, thank you.”
“Stop saying that.”
I smiled. I half wondered if he would hug me again, but he'd already sat down on the couch.
I liked seeing him there.
“Go to bed, Ellie,” Sam said softly.
I nodded, then headed down the hallway. “Goodnight, Sam” I whispered into the dark.
CHAPTER 29
No Goodbyes
SAM
FOURTEEN MONTHS AGO
James stayed three nights. He ordered dinner on his own, ate quietly, and wrote things in a little notebook. Ulli and I spent every moment together at the restaurant, keeping watch over him while pretending to do things like playing cards, both of us stiffening when Mirabelle brought him his food. When the couple who’d been staying here left, she kept the solar lights off down at the road, the gate locked.
I barely slept each night, passing out only when I saw the flashlight go off in his tent.
By the third night, I was starting to think they were mistaken. That James was just some weird tourist. When he left the next morning, I told them that.
They’d both looked at me with solemn expressions. “You need to leave, my friend,” Ulli said.
“What?”
He smiled, but his expression was indescribably sad. “Surf season’s almost over, anyway.”
It wasn’t.
“Ulli, you honestly think he’s coming back? Mirabelle?”
“You should listen to Ulli,” Mirabelle said. “And believe what we say.”
There was a sharpness to her tone I hadn’t heard before.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I do believe you.”
“Thengo, Sammy.” Her eyes were glassy with tears.
“Come on,” Ulli said. “Mirabelle’s going to cry, then I will too and it’ll get ugly around here.”
Mirabelle didn’t even react to that with her normal smack on his arm. That’s how I knew how serious it was.
