But is the woman I’ve become strong enough—certain enough—to return to where it all began?
Hands shaking, I reach inside my coat and touch the silver chain around my neck—two shells.
One from the past.
The other from Clay. A shell that held meaning I didn’t quite understand. But perhaps it’s the one that reminds me of what I really want. Who I might become, if I’m willing to risk everything I used to be.
The old storm-rattled house, the bedroom where I slept—it made me feel sheltered. Safe.
And Clay. The thought of him is a merciless ache in my chest. A campfire glow. Something primitive—as basic and necessary as air.
When Mom left, I felt the gravity ripped out from under me. But Nana made things sturdy again, built scaffolding I could hold on to. When I moved away to Seattle, I felt off-center once again. I lost mybearings, north from south; I could no longer hear the sea from my bedroom window.
But these last couple months, sleeping in his bed, waking to the tide and the rain lashing against the house, I’ve felt rooted again. Calm—like a still pond without a whisper of wind.
I’ve felt like myself.
The me I might have been if life hadn’t destroyed who I was, little by little.
Overhead, the sky grows darker, a low echo of thunder rolling across the sea—like a truth breaking through the clouds.
Maybe we’re not meant to know what’s right or wrong. To know which path to choose. Which life. Maybe the not-knowing is the point.
Because maybe we’re meant to be a little reckless.
Madcap and foolish and wild. Maybe that’s where life truly begins: at the edge of what we fear most. Maybe we’re meant to chase the things we can’t explain. To find what we can’t live without, and do whatever it takes to hold on to it.
I spent so much time running from what happened that night, pretending the island didn’t exist, but now I lift the oars, pressing them down into the water, heaving the boat back toward the thing I’ve dreamed about most of my life.
It’s always been about that small dot of land.
Saltwell Island.
But now… it’s also about him.
I row hard, terrified that the storm will blow me farther out to sea, where I’ll lose sight of the island for good.
Waves spill over the bow, the ocean turning angry, and for twenty minutes I seem to make no progress—the island never drawing closer. The wind lashes at my face, and then, as if it were seeking me out, the rain starts to fall in gusting sheets. The storm has found me.
I tilt my eyes down, away from the downpour, and a gust rips the hat from my head, sending it tumbling out across the waves. I dig the oars into the water. Pulling, pulling, trying to move the little boat.
My lungs burn.
But I know I can’t stop.
The waves grow higher, and with each swell, the island vanishes ahead of me, swallowed up by the sea. But at the crests, I catch just a sliver of it rising above the tide.
The rain shifts, blowing sideways now, and I can feel it pushing me away—farther from the island. “No!” I scream, shoving the oars into the water as if they could anchor me. And when I lift my eyes, looking for the island again, it’s no longer there.
Gone.
I stop rowing, counting the waves as they rise and break over the boat, waiting for the swell to lift me—waiting for it to reappear.
But when the lull comes, when the sea stills for half a second, there is no island.
I turn, scanning the horizon. Maybe the wind spun me off course. Maybe the island is behind me now, just out of view.
Or maybe… it’s truly gone—slipped back into a ribbon of time, and it won’t return for another twenty years. By then, it’ll be too late. I will be too late.
