Page 118 of The Story Between Us

The mural was beautiful. The Storybook Corner was perfect. Emma’s dream had come true.

And Nate had just pushed away the only person who could have helped him enjoy it.

The lake house appeared through the trees. Empty. Silent.

The dogs pushed through the door ahead of him. Her mug was still on the counter from yesterday. Her sweater was draped over the couch arm. The faint smell of her shampoo lingered in rooms she’d made warmer just by being in them.

Nate sat at his desk. Opened the laptop. The cursor blinked on the confession scene—Aldric’s words about wanting things, about being terrified of happiness because happiness meant having something to lose.

He’d written those words because he’d been feeling them.

He only had the happy ending left, the final scene, where Aldric and Kaela claim the kingdom and walk into the sunset.

He swallowed. He could go back. Apologize. Try to fix what he’d broken.

He wouldn’t.

Ian Rivers wrote happy endings for a living. That was the job—give readers hope, give them the story they wanted. Two broken people finding each other. Healing. Choosing each other despite everything.

He’d had that. For two weeks, he’d had exactly that.

And he’d just killed it.

The cursor blinked.

The house was silent.

He’d finally managed to write himself out of his own story.

Sixteen

Maybe he was right.

The thought circled Livvie’s brain as she sat on the edge of her bed, Emma’s notebook in her lap, listening to the silence where Nate’s voice had been. He was gone—back to his house, back to his grief, back to the walls she’d thought they’d dismantled together.

She’d heard the door slam. Heard his footsteps on the gravel path. Heard nothing since.

Maybe she did this—inserted herself where she didn’t belong, took things that weren’t hers to take, convinced herself that helping was the same as loving when really it was just…need. Her need. To be needed.

She looked down at the notebook. Emma’s handwriting on the cover—a swirling, artistic E.R. that she’d probably doodled a hundred times. Inside were story ideas, character sketches, plot fragments. The ending of the Thornwood Chronicles.

What had she done?

A soft knock on the door.

“Livvie?” Aunt Lila’s voice, gentle. “Can I come in?”

Livvie’s face burned. Of course Lila had heard. The walls in this cottage were thin, and Nate hadn’t exactly been quiet. Her aunt had probably heard every word—every accusation, every sob Livvie had failed to swallow.

“I’m fine,” she said. Her voice cracked on the word.

The door opened anyway.

Lila stood in the doorway, her painting smock on, a smudge of blue on her cheek. Her eyes took in Livvie—the tear-streaked face, the notebook clutched like a life raft, the rigid posture of someone trying very hard not to fall apart.

“Come downstairs,” she said. Not a question. “I’m making tea.”

The kitchen was warm with morning light, the coral-pink cabinets and turquoise walls aggressively cheerful against Livvie’s gray mood. She sat at the pine table while Lila moved around the space—filling the kettle, pulling mugs from the shelf, measuring loose tea into a pot painted with sunflowers.