“You look great,” Brooke says, almost shyly. “I’ve missed you.”
Before Valeria can think better of it, her body bypasses all the “stops” her brain is yelling, and she rushes forward, stumbling over her feet, folding right into Brooke’s arms, clinging on to her with everything she has.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered into the curve of Brooke’s neck, taking a greedy inhale of her cologne. One Valeria doesn’t recognize. The realization springs tears that sting the corners of her eyes. She hates how much of Brooke’s life she’s missed out on this past year.
Valeria holds her tighter, hoping this hug will somehow let Brooke know how much she missed her, how much she regretted not leaving that cabin with her all those months ago.
Brooke presses Valeria closer, and she’s thankful for her warmth, a warmth her body knows as if it were her own. It’s an anchor Valeria thought she’d lost forever, and it makes the ache in her chest that much stronger.
“Shhh,” Brooke soothes, her hand sliding up Valeria’s back in slow circles. The gentleness is too much for Valeria to handle, and the dam inside her breaks. Tears slip free, streaking down her cheeks and onto Brooke’s dark peacoat.
“I’m sorry I made you choose,” Brooke says between her own sobs. “And then ... I left you. I swear, I’ll never do that again.”
“I know,” Valeria chokes out through a tight throat, and she means it, despite the voice in her head screaming at her to walk away.
For a time, that trust seems to hold. They drift back into each other’s orbit as if nothing ever snapped, fingers finding familiar hands, lips meldinginto old rhythms. Months blur into something soft and heady, and everything between them tastes of relief. It’s sweeter than Valeria remembers, intoxicating in a way that makes her stop questioning how frail it all once was.
But trust is fragile, and Valeria’s is about to be shattered.
Being with Brooke again felt like slipping into sunlight after a long winter. Every laugh, every kiss, every moment beside her filled Valeria with a dizzy kind of happiness she thought she’d lost forever. Just like at the beginning of their relationship, they stayed up late talking about nothing and everything, bodies intertwined. It felt like starting over. Valeria told herself over and over that this time would be different—that they’d learned, that their explosive arguments were behind them.
But little by little, the shadows began creeping back in.
It was nothing major at first; the cracks started small. It was in the way Brooke’s eyes shot to Valeria’s phone when a message flashed across the screen. How Brooke tensed any time Valeria went out with the girls without her, or out in general.
At first, Valeria ignored it. She told herself not to overthink, not to ruin what they had with her paranoia. Valeria trusted her, but the knot in her stomach kept tightening, pulling at her in moments when she should have felt safe.
Despite her best efforts, just a few weeks after everything felt perfect, they were right back where they’d always been, trapped in the same miserable loop of arguments. Brooke picking apart every little thing Valeria did, and Valeria too worn down to fight, and too afraid of the loneliness she’d felt without Brooke to do anything about it.
CHAPTER ONE
CAMILA
There aren’t many things Camila truly dislikes, but unpacking and organizing her house after her move from Chicago has got to be up there.
She swears boxes multiply overnight when she isn’t looking, and furniture that once fit together seamlessly now refuses to do so—angles wrong, screws missing, and Camila’s patience? Gone. But that’s not the worst part; the real tragedy is that Camano Island apparently has a vendetta against coffee shops. There are maybe four on the entire island, and the closest one is a ten-minute drive away. Which—okay—isn’tthatfar, but it’s at least an hour’s walk, and that’s what Camila truly hates. That small things like that aren’t readily available, so she can’t just decide to go on a quick morning walk for coffee.
In Chicago, Camila would walk out her front door and be swallowed whole by the hiss of espresso machines and the burned-sugar perfume of caramel syrup within minutes. Here, she gets gas stations, drive-thrus, and a single bakery that closes at two on weekdays.
She tells herself she’s making the best of it—new house,new job, new ... well, everything. Still, as she waits in the drive-thru line for her coffee, engine idling, cup holder empty, she can’t help thinking this might be her least favorite thing about her new town—and that’s saying something, considering she just learned the local hardware store doubles as the post office.
She does love how quiet it is, though. The silence here settles gently instead of pressing in, and her new coworkers have been nothing but kind and welcoming. The house helps, too. It’s perfect, really. It sits right on the beach, where waves comb the shoreline at night and replace the old soundtrack of traffic and sirens with something soft and melodic. She hasn’t touched her white noise machine in days, letting the waves outside her window do the work of easing her to sleep.
She’s back in Washington because her mother had a stroke, and because being an only child leaves little room to say no. It doesn’t help that her parents know exactly which strings to tug. Not that much convincing was needed. As soon as Camila’s dad told her about her mom’s stroke, all the regret about their strained relationship hit her at once. When he asked her to come back, she agreed right away without thinking it through. No matter what’s happened between them, Camila loves her mom and wishes they had been closer, even though their being distant isn’t her fault.
Her mother’s idea of bridging the gap is the house on Camano Island. Bought outright and handed over to Camila as a peace offering. A clumsy, expensive apology for the years of silence, for the way her being a lesbian was treated like a disappointment to be endured rather than understood.
Camila hadn’t said no when her parents offered;she wasn’t going to. It was the least her mother could do. Now, though, the house comes with expectations. Time. Visits. Her mother looks at her as if something is owed, and Camila is running out of excuses to keep putting off seeing her.
What Camano Island doesnotdo gently is rain. One moment, the sky is clear, a most beautiful shade of baby blue, no clouds in sight, and the next it opens as if it’s been holding a grudge. Rain slams down hard enough that Camila swears it’s denting the hood of her car.
A knock raps against her window, startling her. She rolls it down low enough to accept her coffee from a thoroughly soaked barista. Water pours in with it. Her sweater darkens instantly, sleeves heavy with rain. The lid on the cup wobbles, barely hanging on.
“Thank you!” Camila calls, voice raised over the drumming rain, and eases her foot onto the gas. She barely gets a car length before realizing she can’t see more than four feet ahead. The wipers flail uselessly, smearing the windshield into a watercolor of gray.
Camila considers pulling over, but there’s nowheretopull over. Just rain, road, and a latte that she’s convinced is more storm than coffee at this point.
Camila exhales and tightens her grip on the steering wheel, eyes tracking the rain as it claws down the windshield. She grew up near here, but she hasn’t been back in Washington long enough to re-familiarize herself with the way storms materialize without warning in early fall or the wet, gray weight that settles over everything. Driving through it now has her nerves wound tight, stress buzzing under her skin.
