Page 103 of The Story Between Us

He knew what she meant. He’d always known.

You’ve never let yourself feel it, Emma’s voice said. Or his memory of her voice. Or his own voice, wearing her words like borrowed clothes. You’ve never risked it. You spent your whole life taking care of me and then grieving me, and you never once let yourself want something that was just yours.

The sunrise was breaking over the tree line now. Gold light spilling across the water, catching the mist, turning everything to fire.

“I’m wanting things now,” he said quietly. “That’s the problem.”

That’s not a problem. That’s the point.

And of course he knew what, or who, she was referring to. “Okay, so the problem is Livvie is leaving. When the book is done, she goes back to New York. Back to her career, her life, her world that doesn’t include—” He stopped. Swallowed. “This.”

So tell her.

“Tell her what?”

What Aldric would tell the woman. If you knew what that was.

He laughed—a short, rough sound. “I don’t know what that is. That’s why I’m out here talking to a ghost at five in the morning.”

I’m not a ghost. I’m you, trying to figure out what you already know.

The words landed heavily, like a physical blow to the solar plexus.

“I can’t find your notebook. The one with all the notes.”

Then stop looking. You don’t need my notes, Nate. You never did.

“That’s not⁠—”

You have everything you need. You just have to be brave enough to see it.

The mist was thinning now, the sun burning it away. The lake was transforming from mystery to ordinary—just water, just trees, just a man in a kayak talking to himself.

He picked up the paddle. Turned the bow toward shore.

“I miss you,” he said.

The empty space beside him didn’t answer. But the ache in his chest felt different than it had three days ago. Less like drowning. More like remembering.

He paddled back.

Emma’s room smelled like vanilla and lavender.

The scent was fading—every time he opened the door, a little more of her escaped into the hallway, into the rest of the house, into the world that kept moving even though she’d stopped. But it was still there. Still her.

He crossed the threshold.

The morning light was golden through the east-facing window, catching dust motes, making everything glow. The bed made with the quilt their grandmother had sewn, the stitches uneven in places, perfect in its imperfection. Her desk, still covered with the evidence of her creativity, her personality imprinted on every surface.

The notebook wasn’t here.

He checked anyway. The desk drawers, running his hands along the contents. The bookshelf, pulling out volumes to look behind them. The closet, where boxes sat on the top shelf like promises he hadn’t kept.

He pulled one down. Photo albums. Old journals from high school. A stack of birthday cards she’d never thrown away, every single one he’d ever given her.

Not the notebook.

He sat on her bed. The quilt was soft beneath him, and he could almost feel her—the weight of her beside him, the way she’d lean against his shoulder when she was tired, the sound of her voice saying What’s wrong?, the way she always knew when something was wrong.