AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Only if you’re willing to put up with me falling off the board every five seconds.”
“Everyone starts somewhere!”
Michael laughed and waved, disappearing inside. Dane suppressed a smile and pulled his phone out of his pocket, checking his email. He had a status update from Alissa, whose email had more than one exclamation point, and some administrative updates from Josie.
A text message burst through his focus—his mother.
JOHANNA: How are things?
That was all her text said. His thumbs hovered over the screen.
He didn’t like to be dishonest, but his mother only wanted him to love what he was doing. Telling her how deflated he felt about his work was a guaranteed way to worry her. That was the last thing he wanted.
But then again, he had some hope too. Alissa had… inspired him with her enthusiasm.
He shook that thought off. No, she was overly optimistic. That would only lead to more misery for her in the future. She had to be realistic. That zeal was going to wear off and reality was going to take its place—not every article was going to be fun and she might have to deal with the business side of the paper at some point. She’d realize that soon enough. He didn’t have to burst her bubble.
DANE: They’re okay.Everything’s just fine.
His mother’s response bubbles popped up instantly. She was a slow texter, but he preferred that to her using speech to text to send an incomprehensible stream of words that took several seconds to parse.
JOHANNA:All right. But it’s okay if you aren’t okay, sweetheart.
Dane suppressed an eye roll that would have made his teenaged self proud. He didn’t blame his mother for her concern. He wasn’t always the most forthright with how he was feeling, especially if it would make her worry more than she already did. But he was mildly annoyed that she assumed he wasn’t doing well from a few simple texts.
He lifted his thumb to respond, but stopped. Was his mother sensing something that he was denying in himself? Hethoughthe was okay. She knew more than anybody that he wasn’t the type to walk around with a smile on his face.
Maybe life here was draining him in a different way than life drained him back in New York. Before, the small irritations in life—the late trains, the long lines, the inconvenience of something as simple as laundry—combined with his frustration at his boss’s detachment made him collapse face first into bed every night.
But here, there wasn’t any of that. The contrast between him and everyone else was what got to him. Even with how welcoming everyone was, he still felt like he was on the fringes looking in. Writing about the town wasn’t making it any better, as he’d once assumed. It almost made him feel like an anthropologist reporting on another culture, not sinking in enough to truly be a part of it.
The closest he felt to belonging was when he read Alissa’s pieces. She brought out the common threads between people and he could see how he wasn’t all that different.
So maybe he wasn’t okay after all, but it really was fine.
He saw better things on the horizon, especially with the paper and all the great things they could do with Alissa on board. Maybe it would feel like home soon enough.
CHAPTERELEVEN
Instead of being awoken by a siren or a garbage truck, Alissa was awoken by the lack of noise. It was so still that her rustling the sheets felt excessively loud. For a moment she thought something was seriously wrong—Denver was never silent—but then she remembered where she was. Whale Harbor was almost Denver’s polar opposite.
She sat up and rubbed her eyes, tapping her phone screen to check the time. It was five fifteen, way earlier than she needed to wake up. The barest hint of sun shined through one of the windows.
She leaned over and gasped. The sky above the trees was illuminated with the pale pinks, oranges, and blues of the sunrise, the dark outlines of the trees the only thing between her and the horizon.
She got out of bed and opened the curtains to get a better look. The way her Denver apartment was positioned hardly let light in, much less a full view like this. How was something as simple as a sunrise this stunning? Now she truly understood what the word “breathtaking” meant. Taking a photo wasn’t going to capture the beauty of it, but she wanted to capture the feeling of looking at it in words.
Alissa sat down at the small desk in the corner, which still gave her a view of the sunrise, and pulled out her old writing notebook. She had hastily shoved it into her suitcase before she left the way she often did on the few vacations she took in the past. Usually it sat unused, but now she felt compelled to break it out.
She flipped through to find a blank page, passing by notes for a story she started years ago. The ideas were loose—all she had were the characters, including a moody, mysterious man with a troubled past.
She flipped back to them, smiling as she scanned her notes. Working atEpichad drained every ounce of her creative juice, so she had stopped working on it. But the more she read her notes, the more she saw ways to start it again. They were a bit of a mess, but a mess she could work with.
Her heart fluttered as she grabbed a pen. It had been so long since she’d written anything creative that she wasn’t sure where to start. Since all of the writing she did these days was slated to be published in the paper, she thought about her book in print, sitting on the shelf of a book store. One of her college professors had told her that if she finished a book to send it her way. She’d happily help Alissa publish it.
The thought sent a rush through Alissa that was much stronger than coffee.
She threw on a thick cardigan and sweatpants, then took her notebook and pen out onto the porch of the B&B. The sunrise was even more spectacular from that vantage point, filtering through the tree trunks. She took a deep breath in. The combination of the sea salt air and the view was a balm on her soul.
