Grace took a seat and instantly sipped from her water glass. “Okay,” she said, waiting.
“And, well, I don’t think it’s very fair that you’ve been keeping such a big secret from me,” Adam said and folded his hands.
She set down her glass, but her fingers stayed cold. “Wh-what do you mean?”
Adam leaned across the table, making sure their eyes met. “The fact that you’re an incredibly prolific writer and have been downplaying your talent to me since the day we met.”
“Oh.” Her posture quickly straightened as her heartbeat settled. “Um ... thanks.”
For the rest of the meal, Adam rattled off his favorite scenes. “It’s wonderful, Grace,” he concluded as their waiter set down their dessert. “Or should I say ... Cece.” His lips lifted into a teasing smile. “It’s cute that you used your mom’s nickname for you for your protagonist,” he noted, not reading into it any further. “But truly, the book is so enjoyable. It’s going to be a huge success.” He took a bite of his lava cake. “The whole plot feels so ... real. Like something you pulled out of your life.”
A pit formed in Grace’s stomach, knowing it was her chance to tell him about the parts of her story—her past—she hadn’t talked to him about yet. To explain the truth behind the fiction. She pulled in a deep breath and parted her lips. “Thanks” was what came out instead.
The next week, while at a wine bar near her downtown studio apartment, Adam asked Grace if she’d move in with him. She breathed a sigh of relief, glad she hadn’t said anything.
Now, alone in the beach house, Grace wills herself to push the memory away.
“Stop daydreaming and just write something,” she says, so angry and agitated to have found herself—putherself—in this position. “Anything.” She rolls out her wrists. “Describe the weather. Set the scene.Anyscene. When in doubt, sprinkle in some verbs for action.” She stares at the screen as if it’s a crystal ball.Please—please—tell me what to do.“Juststart.”
She types a few lines, deletes them, tries again. But there’s no point. She’s so far removed from this manuscript—this whole story—she doesn’t even remember her original vision for it.
Grace slams the laptop shut, drops it on the coffee table, and heads for the kitchen—half hungry, half looking for an excuse to quit. A feeling in her stomach—hollow and sour—suddenly reminds her that she hasn’t consumed a real meal all day. She opens and closes cabinets, hoping to find something—a bag of chips, a rogue box of dry pasta—left behind by past renters. But there’s nothing.Not so much as a morsel or a crumb of anything to inspire or nourish her here.
“Don’t even think about it,” Grace tells herself, remembering Meg’s offer. The Beachcomber. Dinner. Although the vintage motel’s waterfront restaurant was once one of Grace’s favorite spots to catch a late meal, there’s no way. A casual run-in was one thing, but having to sit face-to-face for an extended period? There’s too much history she’ll be forced to cover, too many life updates she doesn’t want to give or hear. “Absolutely not.” She pulls open a drawer, only to find chopsticks and a ketchup packet. “You’re better off starving.”
In the living room, her phone rings, ripping through the quiet. Grace jumps at the sound, then slams the drawer shut. She moves to the sofa and grabs her device, not sure whose number she expects to find flashing across her screen.
“Adam?” She says his name like it’s a question. “Hi.” Her pulse picks up, her mind conjuring up potential reasons for his call, their days of casual check-ins long behind them. “What’s going on?” she asks, already assuming the worst. “Is everything okay?”
“Do you remember the first time we came up here together?” Adam asks, a complete curveball. “To the lake?”
“What?” Her heartbeat settles, then lifts in a different way. “Uh, yeah.” Realizing he’s fine, Grace heads back into the kitchen and rummages through a cabinet, though all that’s there is a box of baking soda. She shakes it, like a slice of pizza might fall out. “It was our first summer together, right? A few weeks before my thirtieth.”
“It was.” His tone is uncharacteristically nostalgic. “We sat out on the dock one night and talked about the future. If we both wanted to stay in the city forever. Where we saw ourselves in five years.” He clears his throat. “We were so young—too young to realize all our plans might not work out.” A quiet beat passes. “It’s not fair that they didn’t.”
Grace sets the box back on the shelf as memories of that night flicker to life, reel by reel, in her mind. The moonlight on the lake. The warm glow of the house behind them. Adam’s hand wrappedaround hers. It was a version of herself—her whole life—she was sure would last.
“Wh-why are you bringing this up right now?” she asks, confused and caught off guard.
“Ready to laugh?”
“I don’t know.” Grace is cautious. “Am I?”
“I’m out on the dock, having a drink,” he explains. “I was thinking about you. About us.” He stops himself, like he’s embarrassed to go on. “Anyway, I felt something on my hand. When I looked down, I saw a ladybug—completely random—sitting on my knuckle.” He chuckles, soft and melancholy and forced. “A sign, you know?” His voice is laced with uncertainty, as if he’s feeling out how this will land. “Thought it meant I should give you a quick call.”
Grace’s pulse stutters again. Her fingers fumble for her lost necklace—a phantom comfort—though, of course, it’s not there. For a second, her thoughts drift. The two of them, their feet flirting with the water’s surface. The conversation. Grace admitting that maybe she wanted to leave Manhattan soon, then ever so hesitantly adding that perhaps she’d like to get married one day, try her hand at being a mom.
“Well, look at that,” Adam had joked that night, shortly after Grace divulged these things. “I found a sign.” He reached into his pocket, set something between them. “A penny. Guess that means it’ll all work out, right?”
“Very funny.” Grace laughed. “Coming from a guy who’s too logical to believe in those sorts of things.”
Adam picked up the coin and flicked it into the lake. Oneplopand it disappeared. “I believe I’d like to be with you for a long time,” he said, his eyes on the water. Grace ignored the fact that he didn’t mention whether he wanted to be a parent, too. “Does that count?”
Back then, it did.
At the beginning, things between them felt ideal, like a hard-to-put-down story—the pacing, the ways the characters interacted, all ofit just right. It was the middle—the part that followed the courtship and dreamy honeymoon phase—when everything began to feel so hard.
“I don’t even know you lately, Grace!” Adam had shouted one summer night two years earlier. “You’ve completely lost yourself—your whole identity—to this process!”
