I swallow hard, sinking into the wood chair around the table. I know that if I look under the table, I’ll see the place that we carved our initials one summer when we were seventeen and stupid and young, full of hope. Full of possibility.
IR and CM in a heart.
We held hands while we took turns chipping at the wood, knowing his uncle would roll his eyes and sigh before walking away if he discovered us. It felt illicit nonetheless.
If I just leaned forward and rubbed my fingers against the bottom of the table, I know exactly where to find those letters.
Driven by some strange impulse to see them again, I kick the chair out from behind me and slip under the table, pulling myphone out of my pocket, turning on the flashlight and looking up at where those initials are.
They’re smaller than I remember.
Gunner snuggles up next to me and I pet him mindlessly, looking at the hard work of that afternoon spent chipping away at an old fisherman’s table in a lighthouse, holding the hands of the boy I thought I’d marry one day.
The boy that’s turned into a man who ran upstairs to find me a towel and told me to make a place that already was my home into something that might feel like one.
“Are you okay?” Caleb asks.
I didn’t hear him come back. Or maybe if I did, I didn’t care because I’m still there under the table, shining my flashlight up at our initials.
“I’m fine,” I say, scooting out from underneath it, fully aware that I’m probably covered in dust and dirt and whatever the hell else is on the floor.
“No shortage of sand,” I tell him, brushing myself off. “Just making sure you’d hit the Silverlight Shore sand quota.”
“Are you making fun of my housekeeping?” He laughs.
I don’t return the laugh or the smile because it hurts. How does he not remember our initials are there?
“Yep,” I tell him. “That’s what I was doing. Just your average friendly, make myself at home floor check.”
Suddenly his eyes go soft. Smile fading, and I realize he’s realized what it was I was doing.
I feel acutely uncomfortable and I brush past him. Gunner whining softly as I walk over to the electric kettle and flip it off.
“It’s hot enough now,” I say.
“Ivy,” Caleb says.
My eyes close. The way he says my name. How is it that it can hurt?
My fingers tremble as I rip open the paper and silver packaging of the cocoa and dump it into my favorite whale cup. The water steams as I pour it. And for a minute I can just pretend like I haven’t been under the table looking at the place where Caleb and I etched our initials so many years ago.
The wind howls outside, and something crashes against the side of the lighthouse.
“The shutter,” Caleb says. “I secured it, but the latch was practically rusted through. You know how the sea air is.”
“Oh, I know,” I say. It comes out stilted, awkward, which is not the way I want it to sound. I want it to pretend like this was fine.
It’s not fine, I realize. That’s not fine, and I’m not fine. And I’m stuck here with Caleb until the roads are cleared. And there’s so much unsaid between us.
I close my eyes, cupping the warm hot cocoa in my hands, Nonna’s words coming back to me in a flash.
“Sometimes the storm is in here,” she had said, tapping her chest.
I turn around, gripping my cup like it’s a shield between us. And I look at Caleb, really look at him for the first time since he came back into town. He’s still my Caleb.
He looks different. Of course he does. I do too. Silver in his beard. Silver in his hair. Those glasses that somehow make him look even more adorable than ever. Bigger, broader. He’s a man now.
I bite my lip and I try to make sense of the advice Nonna gave me and the emotions inside of me that are just as tumultuous as the storm raging outside.
