I really fucking hate this restaurant.
“Why don’t you head back to the table, and I’ll be there shortly, okay?” She straightens her shirt.
“Yeah, okay.” I nod. “Thanks for the help.”
“Of course.” She grabs my hands as I slake by her. “I’m going to try, Evelina. I really am. Please don’t stay away forever.”
I sigh. I’m so tired of all of this. Everything is hard, and the people who are supposed to be the founding members of my support system are making everything harder for me.
“Show me you can respect my life decisions, even if you don’t like them, and then maybe we can talk. I’m not going to become Aunt Norma just because I might have the same disease as her. She was more than that, and so am I.” The door swings shut on my mom. I text Liam asking him to pack up our food as I walk back to the table.
I’ve had enough of this damn place.
Oh, we should get a cannolo to go, too, though.
20
Sprinkle en Français
“Ohmyword,Imissed poutine and Rohr’s waffles, but I think my huge-ass eyes might actually be bigger than my stomach.” I groan, sitting on the edge of a rock wall jutting into the ocean. It’s a breakwater, or at least that’s what Liam told me it was called.
This morning, we went to Rohr’s for a very New England-style breakfast and some great company. Clare and her husband Josh, Holly, Caleb, and a sullen, misses-a-certain-Fionn-O’Connor-and-is-living-in-denial Eli Blythe all met us there—each member of the party claiming victory for their matchmaking skills. A discussion ensued that ended with a stern warning to Caleb to never ever pull a surprise like that again, even if it did seem to work out for the best.
After breakfast, Liam brought me here to his spot—his Place Dauphine. An old abandoned military fort, guarding a million-dollar view.
A month ago, I would have been convinced that Liam had taken me to this decaying fort to finally be rid of me. But instead, he took my hand and led me around it. After navigating over rocks, branches, and other hazards, a clearing of seashells and pebbles opened up, giving way to water slowly lapping to shore in one spot and crashing wildly against the breakwater in another.
With a steady hand on my back, Liam guided me over a long row of uneven boulders that ended in this concrete platform that was once a lookout. The perfect seat to watch the sun glitter off the expanse of water before us.
Inhaling, I let the burdens of the past few days float away on the gentle sea breeze, rolling my shoulders and enjoying a clear mind for the first time in a while.
“I bet you’d miss this if you come with me,” I whisper.
“I can find another one.” He rubs his thumb across my knuckle. His professional camera sways against his neck.
A tugboat chugs slowly across the glittering sapphire waters in the distance. It’s pulling along a large tanker, at least four times its size, headed toward a collection of hazy islands dancing along the horizon.
Liam said they’re the “Isles of Shoals” and that he took a tour of the Appledore Island one summer a few years back. There’s a massive garden there that belonged to a writer named Celia Laighton Thaxter, and he toured her garden and took pictures of sailboats floating in the distance behind it.
“Are you going to snap a picture of the tugboat?” I ask, briefly letting my eyes shutter closed and soak in the warmth of the rays on my face.
“I’m waiting for it to get closer to the lighthouse.”
“Oh, good idea. That’s why you’re the professional.”
“Definitely not.”
I crack one eyelid open, peeking at him. “Definitely should be.”
He shakes his head with a sigh and lifts his camera, angling it at the lighthouse off in the distance. “Photography won’t pay my dad back.”
“There’s nothing to pay back. He loves you—that’s it.”
“It won’t keep me with you either.” His lips tip into a smile as he points the camera at me.
“Do you want to break your camera with my mug?” I tease, dipping into a Southern accent to sound like Nana.
“What do you think about me coming, though, Peaches? We haven’t really had a second to talk about it.”
