Silvie thanks him politely and slips her hand into mine as we continue to the car waiting for us. The door closes behind us, cutting off the memories of a life I didn’t get to finish. Memories that still cut deep when I let myself think of them.
She doesn’t say anything, and that feels worse.
We get a few blocks away when she finally says, “What was that?”
I stare at the buildings, the familiar buzz of the city that makes my throat tight. “I didn’t know how to bring it up. I don’t talk about it.”
She waits.
“I loved it here,” I admit. “More than I meant to. And leaving felt like the greatest failure of my life. Just talking about it makes me have to face who I didn’t become when I thought that was my dream.”
Her hand slides into mine and squeezes, and it pushes me to continue.
“I went to school here. Then I worked in finance at Smith and Townes.”
She exhales slowly, like something is clicking into place.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” she asks, surprised.
“I don’t know...it was like a past life. Not me anymore. You know?” I shrug. “I’m just a bartender from Coconut Beach now.”
“Why did you go back to Coconut Beach?” she asks softly.
I look out the window for a few seconds, and then I say, “I went back for my mom.”
For a while, the city hums around us as we make it back to her penthouse. Life continues even though I feel like I’m failing.
“I didn’t mean to hide anything from you,” I promise. “I just don’t like talking about it. I miss it more than I thought I did. And coming back has shown me that.”
And I realize that’s the first time I’ve let myself fully admit it.
“You weren’t hiding,” she says. “It sounds like you’ve been grieving.”
I nod, because she’s right. And I haven’t been able to fully process it until I met her.
“Why didn’t you just tell me?” She laughs. “You let me play tour guide like it was your first time in the city. You lived here for years.”
“I didn’t want you to know someone who doesn’t exist anymore. That’s not me,” I say quietly.
Silvie leans closer. “I like knowing you. All of you. The sweet man who takes care of his mom and Jonah. The hot bartender. The hot surfer. All of you.”
I look at her and realize this isn’t about secrets or not being who we think we can be. It’s about us. And somehow, we’ve been orbiting each other in this lifetime, yet we still ended up together. Even in some strange capacity, like a fake marriage.
Fake marriage. Fake rules. Fake lines we promised not to cross. One look at her and I know the truth. Whatever this is, it’s already real. And we’re running out of time to stop it.
25
Silvie
My chest feelsheavy in a way I didn’t think it could. I’m shocked. I had no idea that when I took Cal to New York with me, he was practically coming home. He went to college there and studied finance at NYU. He built a whole life here that looks a whole lot like mine. His family didn’t own the company, but he was climbing his way up, and it sounds like he was good at what he did. Henry was practically in awe of him. And now I’m shocked. Who the hell is Cal?
The plane hums beneath us, and I am still trying to figure out this version of Cal that I didn’t know existed until today. And he was just so chill about it, like it wasn’t a giant piece of his life that I had no idea about. I wouldn’t have brought him here and rubbed his face into it if I had known.
Cal’s next to me, his broad shoulders relaxed and his gaze fixed on the window like he’s watching memories and not clouds. He looks the same and feels the same. Yet everything feels different. I feel somehow closer to him, now. Like he gets me and gets my world after all.
How many moments did he understand me in ways I didn’t realize when I was working and taking calls at his kitchen table? It doesn’t feel like he betrayed me. It feels like I’m discovering something about him that is incredibly attractive, and that part makes me wonder if our paths had crossed years ago. I went to NYU, too. I likely would have been a year behind him. But did we see each other and never know? Part of that makes me sad. What if he’d been the rightguy, wrong time? What if we were meant to be, so the universe laughed and moved Birdie to Coconut Beach, so I’d somehow go there someday and meet Cal. The world works in weird ways.
And this changes things. Things that scare me and pull me closer to him. I have questions. So many questions. I have to unravel this man bit by bit.
