Page 36 of Left of Forever

“Best lattes in town, right?” he says.

“Uh, first one here, actually, but I’m sure you’re right,” says Ellis, holding his black coffee up in salute. I swallow a laugh at him trying to match the other man’s booming friendliness.

The woman smiles softly and snorts. They’re both upsettingly good-looking. Tall, dark-haired, and sun-kissed. The man is about Ellis’s height at six foot three or four, but the woman has to be around six foot herself.

“Deacon, let them enjoy their breakfasts,” she says patiently to her guy, herding him down the steps toward the beach with a quick swat on his rear. Envy zips through me at that little pat. I miss casual affection so much.

We end up watching the couple drift onto one of the sand volleyball courts and pass a ball back and forth for a few minutes.When she peels off her cover-up, I see she’s sporting the telltale bump of a pregnant belly. I feel Ellis tense where his arm brushes against mine.

“Is it hard, still?” he asks. “To see?”

“To see someone pregnant? No—not anymore, at least,” I say honestly. “It’s… It was always harder seeing the actual kids for me, anyway,” I admit. “But none of it is anymore. Is it hard for you?”

I can feel him warring with himself over his answer. “No,” he eventually croaks. “But I think I—I think I feel bad that it doesn’t feel bad. If that makes sense.”

I nod silently. It does make sense now. After the fact and after so many years. He was more than happy with one kid. I was the one who wanted more. Who asked for more from him when I probably should have been grateful for what we had.

We finish our breakfast bagels and watch them play volleyball for a little while longer. More accurately, we watchhimleap and fall around the sand. She, however, gets visibly more agitated each time he sprints and dives for balls that should’ve been hers. She eventually snaps at him, chucking the ball at his head in exasperation. Their opponents wait politely while he crawls over to her on his hands and knees. He grasps at her hips and pecks kisses to her belly, clearly begging for forgiveness while she tries to resist. She reluctantly gives in, it seems, smiling and playfully tugging at his curly hair. He climbs to his feet and peppers more kisses to her face until she’s giggling and shoving him away.

“He’s gotta just let her play.” I laugh. “She’s obviously capable.”

“He’s just protective,” says Ellis. “He doesn’t want her to get hurt.”

I don’t look at him when I say, “She could get hurt crossing the street. You can’t predict that sort of thing.”

He hums. “They’re young.”

A laugh gusts out of me. “I don’t think they’re that much younger than we are, Ellis.” And yet I’d wager they’re still somewhere near the beginning of their story, and here we sit, five years past the end of ours.

“Have you thought more about letting me read them?” he asks, clearing his throat.

I frown, trying to pick up whatever conversation thread he’s got weaving through his mind. “The… My journal?”

He nods, but quickly adds, “Or just talk to me about whatever you’re writing?”

I attempt a saucy eyebrow lift. “Nosy much?”

His big arms stretch across the top of the bench, the hair on his forearm tickling the back of my neck. “Very,” he says lightly, letting his head roll my way with a shrug. “I think it’d be fun. You letting me read them. Like passing notes back and forth in middle school.” And now his voice is lower, teasing.Flirting.“I’d like to hear about them either way. I forget how much other life there was, I think. All the adult stuff makes you forget.”

My notes in middle school would’ve been absurd. Would’ve revealed a mortifying level of unrequited pining, back then.Wren Salem Byrd Wren Salem Byrd Wren Salem Byrd, I’d scribble whenever the impulse would strike. Like the emotion itself was too much for my body to contain and had to be funneled out onto a page.

“I’ll think about it. Letting you read them, I mean.”

At his hopeful smile, I suddenly can’t bear to sit still, and I jolt up from the bench. “Let’s walk,” I announce and start marching down onto the beach. I feel him hesitate behind me a moment before the air shifts and I know he’s gotten up. I know he senses my skittishness and is suppressing the impulse to soothe it away.

God, all thisknowingbetween us is embarrassing and grating. It’s disconcerting how much Iknow, and how little I still understand.

“I started writing, thinking it would help me sort of reveal the ugly truth of things, and instead, I keep remembering a lot of good,” I admit. I keep my eyes on my sandals as I kick them off at the foot of the stairs. Watch his giant, pale feet do the same. I’m tempted to rib him about putting some sunscreen on them, but his agreeable hum stops me instead.

“I did that for the first year or two,” he says conversationally. “I’d try to think about some of the pettier shit I didn’t like and I’d end up missing you instead.”

My delight is so outsized by this, by this little kernel of something unknown, that I’m afraid of what my face is doing. I take a bounding step ahead so I can turn and look at him while I walk backward. “What petty shit?” I ask. When his expression turns nervous, I add solemnly, “Speak now or forever hold your peace.”

He takes three more steps while he considers his reply, adjusting his pace to mine and watching his feet as he goes.

The sand is so much warmer here. Softer and dryer, too. A mile of burnished gold. It feels gentle on my feet but gives more easily than the stuff back home. Spunes’s sand is wet, coarse, and packed cold and hard into the earth. Easier to get traction on, though.

“The mystery showers. The mystery showers used to drive me crazy,” he finally says.