Thirty-one. Almost married. Being back on the island and knowing he was someplace else far away. Telling herself the search was over—for love, for the person she was supposed to be—not knowing that in a short time it would all circle back in on her again.
“Grace?” Adam asks now, noticing her sudden change. “Are you okay?”
“I—I ...” Grace stammers. Her throat tightens. She grasps for words. Meaning. They’re not there. Adam. The ring. Ray. This moment. The impossibility of sitting between two lives she once thought werereal. How easily in just one glance she could remember so much. Love. Time. The girl she used to be.
A frantic, unsteady heat rises in her chest. In her stomach, panic works itself into knots. “I need a minute.” She pushes out her chair too fast. A dizzy feeling wraps itself around her. She grabs the edge of the table, steadying herself, then looks from Ray to Adam, not sure where her focus should land. Finally, she straightens, takes a breath. “I-I’ll be back.”
Grace pulls open the bathroom door, half expecting to find someone waiting for her inside. Maybe the Cece she saw in here the other night, propped up on the counter, sipping a sugary cocktail, on the verge of accidentally saying something profound. Maybe some other version of herself she hasn’t met yet this week.
All she knows is that for the first time since arriving in Sea Drift, she hopes she crosses paths with someone—anyone—who can tell her what to do. Who can show her which way is forward when her heart keeps tugging her backward into different parts of her past.
But there’s no one here.
She peeks into each stall to double-check and confirms the room is empty. No hidden message. No meaningful sign. Just Grace, her erratic pulse, and her spinning thoughts.
She moves to the sink, cups water in her hands, and splashes it against her neck. It doesn’t help the feeling inside her go away. Adam—the man she loved and who left her, now asking for a second chance. Ray—the person she loved and ran away from for reasons that, right now, don’t fully make sense. She holds her hands beneath the faucet, trying to cool herself down, but it’s no use. Not when the only thing she can focus on is the ring.
She needs air.
Grace slips out of the bathroom, slides through a back door, steps out onto the Beachcomber’s patio bar, weaves through the forming crowd, then down a short ramp and onto the sand. It’s dark, the whole beach empty. Grace kicks off her shoes, pulls up the bottom hem of her dress, and walks toward the water, hoping to find a stronger breeze. Standing on the shoreline and looking out at the ocean at night is a different experience than staring out at it during the day, the clear horizon and translucent water becoming an endless sheet of black.
The night breeze brushes Grace’s skin, but it’s not nearly as cooling as she’d hoped. She steps a bit farther, past the dry part and down to the firmer stretch of sand. The water rises up over her feet, providing her with a momentary feeling of relief.
Until she hears it.
Footsteps. Fast ones. Barreling up the beach.
Grace turns. A silhouette charges through the moonlight—ripped shorts, baggy sweatshirt, wild hair whipping in the warm breeze.
Cece.
One day shy of twenty-five.
And sobbing.
“Hey!” Grace calls out as Cece gets closer. She drops her dress hem, the fabric trailing through the water, and rushes to her. “Slow down!”
Cece stumbles to a stop at the sound of another person, drops her palms to her knees, her breath ragged. She gasps once, then again, like she’s trying to put herself back together before she falls apart.
“What happened?” Grace asks when she reaches her, though she already knows. Despite the darkness, the memory of this night remains painfully clear. “What are you running from?”
Cece keeps her tear-streaked face tilted down. “I just left the most important part of my life behind,” she says, still half gasping for air. “The person I love, the one I’ve always loved! I threw one dream away to chase another.” She wipes her cheeks on her sweatshirt sleeve. “And the truth is that I don’t even know why I did it.”
Grace stands beside her. This version of herself, the one who gave up on something because she thought maybe she’d find something better, only to find thatbetterdidn’t last. The one who still believed every choice she made would lead her somewhere brighter.
“The truth is, he only knows a part of me,” Cece says, panting. “The part he’s always seen down here. He doesn’t know the one who has a life and dreams outside of this place.”
Her inhalations and exhalations evening out, Cece stands, looks out at the dark water, and wraps her arms around herself so tightly it’s as if she’s trying to keep her body from unraveling.
“Maybe you should go back,” Grace says, her words as quiet as the air, not sure that she should be saying this, but feeling so confused about everything that she’s not certain she cares. “Maybe you should go back to the thing you ran from and pick it instead.”
Something changes then. The air or the energy. Whatever it is, Grace can’t ignore it. There’s a shift.
Cece turns toward Grace slowly, their gazes locking into place. A flash of recognition shapes Cece’s expression. It’s only then that Grace realizes that for the first time this week, there’s nothing there to conceal who she is. No hat or sunglasses. No drunken veil to make the encounter seem fuzzy. Here, in the dark of night, everything is suddenly clear.
“Don’t you see?” Tears continue to fall down Cece’s face. “Don’t you understand by now that this isn’t how it all works?”
“How what works?” Grace asks, though the flush of goose bumps all over her body suggest her mind already knows.
