Melanie.
I know it like I know the sound of my own name. I don’t move from my truck, unsure if I want her to see me. But I watch.
She’s in Sophie and Liam’s front yard, rinsing her feet off from the beach. She’s wearing a swimsuit, her skin sun-kissed and glowing. Melanie lifts the hose to her chest, and then her hair, the rose gold strands darkening as the water runs down her back. It’s so familiar yet so far away. She looks radiant, happy. Carefree. Like she’s doing just fine without me.
And that wrecks me.
Not that I want her to be hurting—I don’t.
But it’s because I asked for time and she’s actually giving it to me. She hasn’t reached out once to talk about things.
I grip the steering wheel until my knuckles turn white. My instinct is to get out and go to her. Have it out, once and for all. But I still have so much I’m wrestling with. I don’t know what she wants. What I want. If I’m even capable of giving it to her.
I’m gutted over what she lost, what we lost, but it’s the secret of it all that keeps cutting me open. That she carried the pain alone. She kept it from me all this time. And maybe that’s because I left without saying goodbye—because I made it easy for her to shut me out. The guilt of that crushes me. But what twists the knife even deeper is that she’s had these last few months, and she still hasn’t told me. If she could keep something this big from me, what else is she holding back?
Still, my gaze is pulled to her like a magnet. She hands the hose to Sophie and wraps herself in a towel, jogging up the front steps to say hello to Liam and his youngest daughter. I ache for Melanie, watching as the toddler giggles when Melanie tickles her. I could be on her in three long strides if I wanted to. But I don’t move.
And then, as if she can feel my eyes on her. She looks toward my truck and our eyes lock through the windshield.
Everything stills.
She gives me a small, wistful smile, like we’re strangers who used to know each other inside and out. And then she looks away.
She says something to Liam, and he chuckles. A mix of emotions swirl through me, envy and grief and this deep guttural need to go to her and fix everything that is broken between us.
I reach for my door handle, ready to swing open my door and close the distance between us when Melanie jogs back down the steps and rummages through her beach bag, picking up her phone. She answers it and her face immediately pales.
I lower my window a bit more, desperate to know who she’s talking to and what they want but I can’t quite make out the words. I just know something is wrong. She ends the call, a look of panic etched across her beautiful face.
“Mel, you good?” Liam frowns at her from the porch.
I open my door then, my feet moving involuntarily until I’m three feet from her. I want to reach for her, but I don’t. Not yet.
“It’s my dad,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper. “He had a heart attack.”
“Where is he?” Liam asks, jogging down the steps, already passing the baby to Sophie. “Is he okay?”
“Cape Memorial Hospital. I—I don’t know.”
“I’ll drive you,” Liam offers.
“No,” I say, my voice louder than I intended. “I will.”
Melanie turns to me and then she just breaks.
No hesitation, no words. She walks straight into my arms. Sobs wrack her small frame as she falls apart.
But I catch her.
Her cries tear through me. I wrap my arms tighter around her, feeling the water from her suit soak through to my shirt. My hand finds the back of her head, and I pull her into my chest, anchoring her to me. Anchoring myself tothis. There we stand, on the sidewalk, the weight of twenty-five years crashing over us. The heartbreak, the first love—and then thesilence, the songs that never got written. I don’t know how long we stay like that; I just know one thing is crystal clear—I can’t let her go.
Not now. Not ever.
* * *
Sophie runsinsideand returns before Melanie has even pulled away. “I brought you some dry clothes, Mel.” She holds out a tank top and a pair of women’s gym shorts. “You should change before you go.”
Melanie pulls back from me then but doesn’t look away. My thumbs swipe at the tears on her cheeks. “Sophie’s right,” I say, glancing toward her. “Maybe we should pack a small bag, you might be there for a while.”
