Page 82 of The Story Between Us

“He needs to see it,” she said slowly. “Nate. He needs to see that his words matter. That people care about the stories—not just Emma’s stories, but his. That there are readers out there who need what only he can give them.”

“How do you show someone that?”

Livvie didn’t know. Not yet. But looking at Nate’s light burning in the darkness, yeah, she was going to figure it out.

Nate looked up and three hours had disappeared.

The chapter was finished. The fire was ash. The candle had burned down to a pool of wax, the smell of cedar and clove faded to something faintly burnt. And the couch where Livvie had been reading was empty—blanket folded, her warmth long gone.

She’d said good night. He remembered that now, her soft voice. Don’t stay up too late.

Oops. It was past midnight.

He saved the document. Leaned back. The chair creaked, his spine protesting hours of stillness. The laptop screen glowed in the dark room—the only light, he realized. At some point, the sun had set and he hadn’t noticed. At some point, she’d left and he’d barely looked up.

He should have looked up.

He’d logged a solid ten thousand words. Two full chapters. At this pace—a chapter every day or two—he’d have the book finished in a week. The realization should have lifted the boulder in his chest. Instead, the weight burned deeper, tangled up with something he didn’t want to examine.

A week. Maybe less.

And then she’d go back to New York.

A quietness had settled over the house in a way he hated a little. No soft sounds from the kitchen. No pages turning, no red pen scratching, no humming he’d pretended to find annoying. Just the dogs snoring and the terrible silence of a room that had been full and wasn’t anymore.

He got up. His bones had turned to concrete, now shooting pins and needles as blood returned. The coffee she’d brought him hours ago sat cold on his desk, and he drank it anyway, grimacing at the bitter dregs.

The couch still held the shape of her. The blanket she’d used was folded over the arm—she’d done that before she left, tidied up after herself the way she always did. The manuscript pages she’d been reading were stacked on the side table, her red pen laid across the top.

He found himself crossing to the kitchen without deciding to. Her mug was in the sink. A faint trace of lipstick on the rim—that soft pink she’d been wearing.

He turned away. The window pulled him—the darkness beyond, the need to know if she was still awake. He walked to the window that overlooked her aunt’s house and pressed his forehead against the cold.

The fog had cleared while he was writing. The lake stretched out silver-black under a scattering of stars, mirror-still, reflecting the sky so perfectly it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began. The dock was a dark line into nothing. The far shore was just a suggestion.

And through the trees to the right⁠—

Lila’s cottage. A single light on.

Her window.

He stood there, breath fogging the pane, and watched that light like it was the only thing tethering him to the world.

She was awake. Reading, maybe. Or lying in bed, staring at the ceiling.

He didn’t let himself finish that thought.

Still…did she think about him too? The question surfaced without permission. He’d spent three years not wanting anything. Safer that way. Wanting things meant losing things, and he’d already lost enough.

But the story was pulling him forward now. The characters were demanding their ending. And he wanted to give it to them—not because of Richard, not because of the advance, not because of the lake house.

Because he wanted to know how the story ended.

Because he needed to know if there might be a happy ending waiting.

He turned from the window. Paced the living room. The dogs didn’t stir. They were used to his late nights, his restless wandering, his inability to settle.

The pacing took him down the hallway without his permission. His feet knew where they were going before his mind caught up.