He wrote our story before we lived it.
Or maybe he was hoping we would.
“You broke me open,”James tells Emma.“And I was too much of a coward to thank you for it.”
I’m crying now, tears blurring the words, because he saw me—really saw me, all of me, the brave parts and the broken parts—and thought it was worth writing down. He imagined a future where he was brave enough to show me everything, and then last night, he made it real.
The middle of the book gets harder when Emma’s ex-husband appears, a man named Jeff who told her she was too emotional, too impractical, too much. Who slowly convinced her that her dreams were foolish until he left her believing she wasn’t worth fighting for.
The details are different, but the shape is exactly the same. My wound, transformed into fiction with a tenderness that makes my chest ache.
The manuscript ends with James and Emma together. A happy ending. A declaration of love, a leap of faith, a future built on honesty instead of walls.
He wrote the ending he hopes we’ll have. Before we’ve actually gotten there.
I set down my phone and stare at the ceiling while Austen purrs against my hip, a steady vibration that feels like the only solid thing in the room.
There’s a thread I haven’t pulled.
I cross to my desk and open the drawer where I keep things that matter—birthday cards from my mother, a photo of my grandmother, ticket stubs from concerts I don’t want toforget. And Coastal Quill’s letters, every single one I saved, held together with a rubber band that’s starting to lose its stretch.
I find the one that’s been nagging at me. The one from a few weeks ago, back when I thought Coastal Quill was just a stranger who understood books the way I did.
Dear Between the Lines,
You mentioned someone who made you a wild card column. Someone infuriating and unexpected. Someone who showed you a strange kindness.
I have a confession: I’m jealous of him.
Not because he knows you and I don’t. I do know you, through these letters, in ways that feel more real than most of my face-to-face relationships.
I’m jealous because he gets to see your face when you laugh. He gets to watch you argue about things you care about. He gets to exist in the same room as you, breathing the same air, probably disagreeing about something small and unimportant while the actual important thing goes unsaid.
I only get your words on paper. Which are beautiful—don’t misunderstand me—but lately I find myself wanting more.
I stop reading.
My hands are shaking.
Someone infuriating and unexpected.I wrote to Coastal Quill about Scott. About a man who frustrated me and intrigued me and made me feel things I didn’t want to examine. And Coastal Quill wrote back saying he wasjealousof that man.
He was jealous ofhimself.
I keep reading, the words rearranging themselves into something entirely new.
I suspect you try not to smile a lot. You seem like someone who fights your own joy, like you’re not sure you’re allowed to have it.
You’re allowed. For the record. You’re allowed to have every good thing.
I’m counting the weeks down like something important is waiting at the end.
Yours in anticipation and mild jealousy,
Coastal Quill
I grab another letter—an earlier one.
The problem is: how do I tell her? How do I admit that I’ve been lying by omission? That the person she thinks she knows is just a fraction of who I am? That everything I’ve been too afraid to show her is the best part of me?
