“I wish this was easier,” I whispered. “It should be easier to be with the person you want.”
He kissed the top of my head. “Someday,” he said quietly, “we’ll start this in a place we can finish it.”
Impossibly, through my tears, and knowing I was only a few hours away from leaving him again, I laughed.
Emmett
“You’ve been quiet all weekend.”
Isabel found me sitting on a lounge chair on the lawn, where I could watch my family gather by the water and still feel like I had some privacy.
The birthday girl—and the sister I’d always been closest to—settled into a chair next to mine and folded her hands on her stomach.
I closed my eyes and sighed. “Yeah. Sorry if I’m ruining the celebratory vibe.”
She snorted. “I hate being the center of attention, Emmett. You having the man-sads because Adaline left is the best thing to happen to me. Everyone in that house is so worried about the two of you that once the presents were opened, I’m off the hook. I almost invited all the kids just so there was a distraction.”
Despite the persistent ache in my chest, I found myself smiling. “Glad to be of service.”
Isabel and I sat quietly for a while, and she sat up to watch the shoreline as her husband, Aiden, spiked a volleyball over the net. My brothers-in-law Bauer and Noah both dove for it.
Aiden laughed when they immediately started arguing that he’d touched the net.
Isabel settled back in her chair, grinning when her husband looked over, and they shared some wordless communication.
“You all do that.”
She glanced over, eyebrow raised. “What?”
“The thing where you look at each other, and it’s like you can read their mind.”
Isabel hummed. “Yeah, I suppose we do.”
“I’ve had a front row seat to all your relationships,” I said. “Since like … ten years old.”
She nodded. “True. We all found our person. That’s pretty rare these days.”
There it was again. That throb behind my ribs, something I hoped would ease with time.
Adaline was my person. There was no doubt in my mind.
I was so glad I came up to the beach house early because I’d never regret any of the time I got with her. Every conversation, every kiss, every time I made her laugh or smile, every time I was able to slide my body in hers and settle deep into that sense of rightness—I knew what she was to me.
And still … I was stuck.
The frustration cranked the ache in my chest to something sharp and hot, and I let out a slow exhale to try to get rid of it.
“You can talk to me,” Isabel said steadily, “if you want.”
I closed my eyes and tried to think of what I even wanted to say.
“It’s not that I don’t want to,” I managed.
She cut me a quick glance. “We’ve got time. No screaming kids who are going to interrupt every other minute. Why don’t you just start at the beginning?”
The rest of the family must’ve sensed that we needed privacy because no one approached us as Isabel sat and listened to the entire story.
The times I noticed Adaline after we first met.
Draft night.
When I sat in the hospital and inexplicably thought of her.
The ball.
Her parents.