Page 31 of Bluebell Tides

Ruth shook her head delicately. “I haven’t known how to begin. I’ve been frozen. Waiting. I guess I was waiting for this, for Quentin to show up, to kick me into gear.”

This stopped Sophie in her tracks. There was such honesty and fear in Ruth’s voice that Sophie wasn’t sure how to pester Ruth. She sipped her wine and watched a bird soar above the treetops.

“Honestly,” Ruth said, “I don’t know why you’re helping me. I can’t understand it.”

Sophie turned to look at her. At this moment, Ruth looked so underfed and pathetic that Sophie was reminded of herself during the days after the fire, when she’d climbed into bed and told herself that nothing would be okay again. That she was unlovable and unworthy of her own academic ambition.

“You don’t think you deserve help?” Sophie asked.

“No. I don’t know.” Ruth closed her eyes, as though she couldn’t face any of this.

Sophie cleared her throat, thinking again of her letter from the state of Oregon, of the mess she was in. “I’m in a crisis, too,” Sophie explained timidly. “I’m hiding, like you. Mostly from myself, but also from my ex-boyfriend and, ha, the entire state of Oregon. I know that probably sounds insane.”

Ruth opened her eyes and lent her a curious look. “What do you mean?”

Sophie explained what she could. She talked about how in love with Ethan she’d been, how willing she’d been to abandon so many of her relationships, how sure she’d been that he was the one. She talked about begging him and his friends not to light any bonfires, about how they’d belittled her and how she’d never felt like she belonged with them.

“Now, I wish I had never dated Ethan at all,” she explained. “I wish I’d never talked to him. He ruined my life.”

“Oh, Sophie. Love, it’s…” Ruth trailed off and cupped her hands, as though she’d just realized she didn’t truly know what love was. As though she’d just realized she’d never understood it enough to explain it to another person.

“I don’t know what love is,” Ruth added. “But it’s certainly ruined many more lives than just ours.”

Silence spilled between them. Sophie’s heart flipped over.

Eventually, when Ruth refused to add details, Sophie carried on with her story, explaining that Ethan came from money, and that he and all his friends only ever seemed to care about the money other people had, or the money they were going to make or inherit one day. “It was exhausting, especially given how hard I felt I was working at school,” Sophie breathed. “When Ethan basically threw me on the steps of the hospital and left me for dead, or whatever, I was so out of my mind that I might have forgiven him if he’d come back. But of course, he didn’t. Yet the cops showed up and explained to me that I was in over my head. And now, I’m supposed to go to court in two weeks.”

Ruth sighed. At first, Sophie thought her sigh was proof of how little Ruth could understand Sophie’s conundrum. But when she peered into Ruth’s eyes, she saw nothing but empathy.

“Not only do I know what it’s like to fall in love with the wrong person. I also know what it’s like to fall in love with someone from another world,” she said gently. “It was the most marvelous time of my life. I thought, finally, someone sees me for my potential rather than where I came from, who my parents are, or how the world sees me. I felt like everything I’d gone through had been a part of some dramatic story, one that was bound to have a happy ending.”

Sophie nodded furiously. “Yes. Exactly.” But how could Ruth understand her so completely?

“Was that Quentin?” Sophie breathed.

Ruth’s gaze dropped. “It doesn’t matter.”

Sophie guessed that meant it was Quentin, that once upon a time, Ruth Landers had fallen head over heels for that improbably handsome and wealthy man. She tried to picture them together in another decade and decided they’d been quite beautiful together.

“I thought I was smart enough for that situation,” Ruth said. “And I was smart enough to date the guy. Of course I was. I ran circles around him intellectually. But I wasn’t smart enough to understand the unique family dynamics at play, nor where I fit into them and that world, or didn’t. I realized I was making a fool of myself. Sensing he was going to end things anyway, I broke it off. I tried to save myself. But now…” Ruth trailed off. Her eyes were lined with red. “Now, so many years later, due to circumstances far beyond my control, it’s like his family has finally figured out a way to ruin my life. I can’t let them get away with this.”

Sophie tightened her arms over her chest. She wanted to tell Ruth that she needed more.

“They know I’m here in Bluebell Cove now. I suppose I should have seen that coming. I felt like I was being so careful and keeping my head down. Only going places where I knew they wouldn’t be. But Quentin’s little visit tells me I’m running out of time.”

Just then, on the opposite end of the house, the front door opened, and Mallory called into the foyer. “Is anyone here?”

The spell between Sophie and Ruth was broken. Sophie shot to her feet and called back, “I have a friend over! We’re back here.”

Teenage Mallory hopped out onto the back porch, sipping a diet soda and talking excitedly about something that had happened to her on the beach earlier that day, something to do with a boy and a sailboat and a message in a bottle that had washed up on shore. All the while, Ruth’s eyes seemed to widen, searching the shadows around the porch, as though she were waiting for Quentin Caldweck to leap out and grab her.

Later, when Ruth confessed how tired she was, Sophie led her upstairs, fetched a towel from the hall closet, and said she’d bring her something to eat in a little while. Just before Ruth closed the door between them, she stuck her nose into the hall and said, “I have a lawyer friend. In New York.”

Sophie blinked at her, confused. “You think this lawyer can help you? With whatever’s happening with the Caldwecks?”

Ruth shook her head. “Not me, but you. I’m going to call her and see what your options are. You didn’t set that fire out West. These people dumped you at a hospital and got out of there, trying to save their own hides. That isn’t right.”

Startled, Sophie blinked back tears. “Oh.”