For some reason, my first instinct is to duck, as if Declan can hear her from across the street.
“Yes, Rosh. And it’s probably twenty times cooler than you’re picturing it to be. It’s beautiful.” I stare at the unfolded drawing on my bent knees.
“And you’re not asking this man to pull out his tool kit and come over right this second… why?” She adds an ironic lilt to her voice, and I picture her right eyebrow rising like it always does when she thinks I’m being an idiot.
“Because!” I cry, indignant. “The conversation ended with us agreeing to be friends again. Just friends, Roshi!”
“Okay? And do friends not help each other renovate houses after literally sketching the blueprint?”
“Well, maybe they do. But…” I exhale, frustrated andunpracticed at forming the words. “Apparently, this letter that he tried sending me was, like, an apology? He was asking to meet up and work things out, I’m assuming, based on the way he was describing it. But the vibe was very ‘that was four years ago’ and ‘what’s in the past is in the past.’ He clearly doesn’t want anything he wanted in that letter to happen now. Which was obviously awkward for me because… well, because I wanted him to still want whatever he wrote in that letter to happen. Which is dumb. We’re adults now. It’s not like that anymore.”
“That’s not dumb, Blair. You guys have a lifetime of history together, and he’s literally hand-drawing blueprints of the house you own across the street from him. I’d be in love, too.”
“I’m not in love.”
“Right. And by not in love, you mean your souls are intrinsically, infinitely, irreparably intertwined because practically all your earliest memories have been made with him and even as an adult you’ve been incapable of going one day without thinking about how he’s the only person on planet Earth who will understand you in the way that he does.”
“Ugh, Roshi.” I groan, elongating her name like a curse. “What are they teaching you atlawyerschool these days. You don’t need more training on how to soliloquy my ears off.”
“Okay, okay! I’m sorry, I’m done. But listen, if this man sent you a pen-and-paper, delivered-by-owl letter to confess his feelings to you, I don’t think you should be expecting him to admit if he still feels something for you after just finding out you never read it,” she grinds out dramatically. “The man is probably reeling! So, be friends with him. Friends friends.” Her tone is suddenly nefarious. “And see where it goes from there.”
Hmm. Her words are shockingly comforting. In our timeat Pepperdine, Faye was always a serial monogamist, while Roshi was dropping her current fling and searching for the next. If anyone knew how to navigate confusing dynamics, it was her. If anything, she was the arbiter of them.
“So… keep your enemies close is what you’re saying,” I deadpan.
“No, Blink. No enemies. Just act like a friend would act. Ask him for help. Open up a bit. We all know that’s a foreign language to you, but this is Declan we’re talking about. You’ve been his friend before.”
Yeah. I have been. And it was the source of pain and longing for years. Both while we were friends and then in the aftermath of not being friends. The few months we actually dated was the only time he wanted me in the way I wanted him to.
I don’t know if I have the emotional bandwidth to be his friend again when I always end up wanting more. But as I hit end call on Roshi, I feel the invisible tug between Declan’s and my houses. Unfortunately, he was looking like the only buoy in the middle of this vast, friendless ocean right now. Being his friend might just have to cut it.
The house is silent and I’m trying to envision what my life would look like here, in Seabrook. I’d be a short drive from my mom. I could help her manage the stores. I could keep writing my romance novel. Maybe I’d actually finish it this time, especially if I wasn’t a consultant. It all seems good.
But then my mind starts picturing Lottie waltzing around the tiny kitchen island in a long dress. I don’t even have memories of her in this yellow-tiled kitchen. But she was here once. And I picture her hands placing every piece of decor on the coffee table. On the shelves. Did she place my favorite books above the desk to remind me of my love for words? To push meto write below the authors that inspired me in the first place? Or is that wishful thinking?
Locking the door behind me, I hop back into my car with my journal and laptop in a striped tote bag and head to the beach. Cypress trees fly past my rolled-down windows in a hazy blur, and the breeze feels saltier by the second. I park in the secret spot I’ve had since the day I got my driver’s permit and trek down two wooden steps onto the soft white sand.
Surfers dot the waves in the distance, and the locals whose mansions are practically built on the sand are throwing huge pieces of bark to their dogs. I take my spot under my favorite tree. The roots are thick enough to sit on, and the fluffy, Lorax-looking branches make a flat canopy above my head. I’ve always loved how the tree hems you in from above like the palm of an outstretched hand.
Taking my journal out and balancing it on one of the roots, I unfold Declan’s blueprint and stick it between journal pages to study. On the front, he’s suggested adding wood to support the windows and replacing potentially rotting sections in the doorway. On the back, arrows point to his neat handwriting, explaining his ideas.
“Tear down laundry room wall and extend kitchen. Connect the tiny island to a wraparound bar to give it a coffee shop feel but keep the space open to the living room.” And by the bedroom: “Build a mini deck out to the garden. Lay new stones to build a path. You can use while watering plants.”
For some reason, “you can use while watering plants,” scribbled in black ink, brings tears to my eyes. Lottie used to wear aged yellow gloves to carry her huge watering can to her garden, where she would water each plant with meticulous care. In my memory, the sun shines behind her smile lines, and butterflies dance around her brightly colored dress,mistaking her for a flower. Watching her take care of her plants felt like watching someone fall in love. She looked at them adoringly, like they were whispering compliments only she could hear.
For the first time, I could picture myself living in the cottage. Waking up from the spill of light through the sliding doors. Making myself a latte and enjoying it on the small wooden deck. Purchasing gloves of my own to water the garden I would make in her memory. And then settling down at the desk to write or help my mom with managing the stores. For once, the thought of living here didn’t feel like a prison built by grief, it felt like the key to unlocking the prison doors.
It would still be painful, but it wouldn’t be as painful as being alone in a tiny New York City apartment, thousands of miles from the beautiful town that reminded me of her. If I missed her, I wanted to come to this tree, by this ocean.
Tears are falling from my eyes when I hear shuffling in the sand in front of me.
“Blair?” the voice says.
I wipe my tears before looking up to find Declan in a wet suit, with wet hair and tanned skin, staring down at me.
“Declan?” I reply in shock. “You… surf?”
He laughs softly as he shakes his head, and the movement makes tiny droplets of water spray from his hair. “I’m not sure you could call it surfing quite yet. I started last year and I’m still not very good, considering the…” He gestures to his left leg. The one that has a limp.
