“Okay,” Lila said, her eyes like saucers. “Start at the beginning. And don’t try to make it make sense. Just tell me what happened.”
So I did, in a long rambling monologue frequently interrupted by gulps of wine. “Now my parents are gone, Braden is gone, and I have a job offer on the other side of the world and absolutely no idea what to do.”
“What do you want?” Lila asked, pouring more wine.
“I don’t know,” I admitted, and the words fell like a stone. “A week ago, I wanted the conservation center and Braden. I wanted to stay in Dove Key and build something here. Now it feels like I was playing pretend. Australia is real, prestigious, and safe, and maybe I should just take it. Maybe that’s what I’m supposed to do.”
Lila didn’t say anything for a long moment. She drank her wine and studied me with the clarity that comes fromknowing someone for a long time. When she finally spoke, her voice was measured. “Can I ask you something?”
“Yeah. That’s why I asked you over, hon.”
“Are you considering the Australia job because you actually want it, or because Braden’s rejection made you feel like you have to? There’s a difference.”
I opened my mouth to answer, then closed it again. Because the truth was complicated. Both reasons existed simultaneously—legitimate parts of a more complex whole that I wasn’t equipped to parse.
“Both,” I said eventually. “I’ve worked toward something like this my entire career. But I also think maybe I’m considering it because it feels like permission to leave. And if I leave, I don’t have to face the fact that I screwed everything up.”
“You didn’t screw everything up. You were overwhelmed and hesitated when you should have been clear. That’s not the same thing.”
“Close enough,” I said bitterly.
“Actually, no.” Lila leaned forward slightly, her tone shifting into something more serious. Her hazel eyes were steady on mine. “Can I say something that might sound harsh?”
I nodded. It couldn’t feel much worse at this point.
“You keep letting men make the big decisions in your life. Your parents steered you away from Braden twelve years ago, and you let them. You’ve always let your dad have the final word. Your career at Scripps was their dream before it was yours. And now you’re thinking about going to Australia because Braden rejected you, letting that rejection decide your future like your parents’ voices did before.”
My stomach squirmed uncomfortably. “Ouch. But not unfair, I admit.”
“It’s not about fair,” Lila said with a small smile. “Tessa, you’re brilliant, accomplished, and you’ve built an incredible career. But are you living your life? Or are you letting other people draw the map while you just follow the lines?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. Deep inside, in the part of me that always knew the truth, I recognized she was right. It was a truth I’d been running from for years, and hearing it out loud made me want to both fight her and fall apart.
“You’re searching for your place in the world. The question isn’t whether you should go to Australia or stay in Dove Key,” Lila continued. “The question is—which one feels like home to you? Which one makes you feel like you’re choosingyourlife instead of reacting to someone else’s actions?”
The quiet that followed was different. Deeper. It wasn’t the crushing silence of my parents’ departure or the devastating hollowness of Braden’s goodbye. It was the silence of standing at a crossroads and realizing the answer I was looking for couldn’t come from anyone else. It had to come from inside me, from the part that knew what I truly wanted beneath all the noise, expectation, and fear.
I thought about my apartment in La Jolla. A place I occupied but never truly lived in. I thought about Braden’s cottage with the nautical chart on the wall and the photos of his family. The feeling of being home I’d experienced sitting on his sofa, drinking his beer, and listening to him talk about the science behind his brewing with the same passion I had for coral reefs.
I thought about the conservation center blueprints now rolled tightly in my bedroom closet and the possibility of staying in Dove Key to build something that mattered. I thought about running away to Australia where nobodyknew me and nobody was disappointed in me. Nobody was waiting for me to come back.
“I don’t know,” I said finally, and the admission hung between us like a confession. “I actually don’t know.”
Lila reached over and squeezed my hand. She didn’t try to tell me the answer. She didn’t offer platitudes or encouragement toward one choice or the other. She just sat with me in the not-knowing, which turned out to be exactly what I needed. Some things couldn’t be solved. Some things just had to be sat with until the answer became clear.
We drank wine, I cried some tears, and she comforted me. When Lila left around midnight, I was alone again, but the silence wasn’t quite so suffocating. The space wasn’t quite so bland.
I glanced at my laptop on the dining table. The unopened email from Dr. Albright sat there like a choice I hadn’t made yet. The absence of contact from Braden sat there like a wound that was still bleeding.
“Which one makes you feel like you’re choosing your life instead of reacting to someone else’s actions?”
I didn’t have the answer yet. But for the first time since this had all fallen apart, I was ready to look for one on my own terms.
Chapter Twenty-Two
BRADEN
The bonfire had been burningfor an hour before I arrived. I could see the glow from where I stood screened by brush—orange flames dancing above the dunes at the resort’s edge, silhouetting my siblings. They’d gathered on the packed sand where the family had hosted these bonfires for as long as I could remember.
