“ I was running from the fact that I'd made the worst decision of my life, and I was too proud and scared to undo it.”
She reaches across the island and takes my hand.
“I followed your career,” I say. “I'd search your name once in a while. When you passed the bar, I found the announcement online. When you joined Caldwell Price & Associates, I read about it on their website. I needed to know that what I did didn't break you.”
“It didn't break me.”
“I’m glad,” I say. “But it doesn’t change the fact that we lost out on a decade with each other, and it’s my fault.”
We sit at the island and hold hands across the butcher block countertop. The morning light has shifted from gray to pale gold. The fog outside is almost gone. The ocean is blue now, deep and bright, and the waves catch the sunlight.
“My parents' voices are still in my head. I've been living inside their system for twenty-eight years, and I don't know how to dismantle it overnight.” It’s a painful admission to make, but I owe it to Jasmine to be honest.
“I'm not asking you to dismantle it overnight. I'm asking you to choose me when it counts. Not every time. Not over your family in every situation. But when your mother makes a comment about me or your father tells you that I'm a distraction, I need you to push back. I need to know that you'll stand beside me, not behind them.”
“I will.”
We spend the rest of Sunday on the beach. The fog has cleared, and the sun is out, low and bright over the water. The air is cold, but the wind has died down. We walk the coastline for an hour, stepping over rocks and tide pools.
Jasmine finds a piece of sea glass, pale green, worn smooth by the waves. She puts it in her jacket pocket.
“Where would you travel if you could go anywhere?” I ask.
“Italy first. Then Japan. Somewhere warm with incredible food and no cell service.”
“I had the best sushi of my life in Vancouver. Cole recommended this tiny place near the waterfront. No menu, you just eat whatever the chef makes. I went back the next day.”
“You went to a restaurant two days in a row?” she asks with a laugh.
I’ve missed hearing her laugh. “It was that good.”
She's quiet for a few steps, then she says, “Can I put books in your study?”
“There are already books in the study.”
“They're half empty, Logan. Three walls of built-in shelves, and they're half empty. That's a crime.”
“I haven't had time to fill them.”
“I have boxes of books in storage that I've been meaning to unpack since I moved into my apartment two years ago. Let me bring them.”
“Bring them all.”
She stops walking. “You'd let me put my books in your house?”
“Jasmine, I'd let you knock down a wall if you asked.”
She laughs and takes my arm, and we keep walking.
By late afternoon, we start packing up. The house is quiet and clean. I wash the breakfast dishes, and Jasmine folds the blankets, and we move around each other in the easy, coordinated way of two people who have spent a weekend learning each other's rhythms.
I lock the front door and stand on the porch for a minute. The ocean is gold in the late afternoon light. The rocks are dark. The air smells like salt and pine.
Jasmine comes up beside me and slides her hand into mine.
“Thank you for bringing me here,” she says.
“Thank you for coming.”
