Page 83 of The Story Between Us

Emma’s door.

Ajar. He didn’t remember leaving it open, but maybe he had.

He entered the room.

Moonlight through lace curtains cast silver patterns on the floor. The purple notebook, the one with the coffee stain, sat on the nightstand. He picked it up, flipped through the pages.

Something nagged at him as he scanned the desk. One of her other notebooks—the blue one, the one with her swirly, artistic initials on the cover—wasn’t here. He’d watched her carry it everywhere. She’d been working on something in it near the end, something she wouldn’t show him, something she said was a surprise.

He got up. Checked the desk more carefully. The shelves. The stack of books by the window.

Not there.

His chest tightened. Had someone moved it? Had it been lost in the shuffle after she died, thrown away by accident, donated with the things that didn’t matter?

Calm down.

Her voice. Clear as anything. The same tone she’d used when he’d panicked about deadlines, about reviews, about all the small catastrophes that felt enormous in the moment.

It’s not lost. You just don’t see it right now.

He stopped. Stood in the middle of her room and let the words settle.

It’s not lost. You just don’t see it right now.

Maybe she wasn’t talking about the notebook.

He returned to the bed. Sat back down. Picked up the leather notebook again and flipped to a page near the end—her handwriting, a note about the Thornwood series.

The protégé has to let go. Not of the love—never the love. Just the guilt. The paralysis. The belief that grieving means staying frozen forever.

She’d written that years ago. For the book.

But she’d written it for him too.

“I’m sorry I’ve been hiding.” His voice emerged rough. “I’m sorry I used you as an excuse. Every time I couldn’t write, every time I couldn’t leave the house, every time I couldn’t—” He stopped. Swallowed. “I blamed you. Not out loud. But I made your death the reason for everything.”

The moonlight shifted. A cloud passing, or just time moving the way it always did.

“You’d hate that. You spent your whole life fighting to stay alive, and I’ve been wasting mine. Hiding in this house. Talking to the dogs. Letting the words die.”

He looked at the corkboard. The photo of them at the first book launch—both grinning, champagne glasses raised, the whole future spread out ahead.

“The book is almost half done. Can you believe that?” He laughed, or something like it. “I didn’t think I could finish without you. But Livvie. She’s—” He shook his head. “Oh, Emma, she’s…she reminds me of hope. Of the things I was afraid to believe in. And yeah, I know, I should have kissed her.”

You like her.

“I like her.”

You more than like her.

“I more than like her.”

So what’s the problem?

“She’s going to leave. When the book is done. She’s going back to New York, and I’m going to be here alone again and⁠—”

And what? You’ll survive? Like you’ve been surviving for three years?