Sarah shook her head, still feeling unsettled and bewildered. “I can’t believe I didn’t know.”
“You weren’t supposed to know.” Owen’s voice was patient. “That was the whole point. No one was supposed to know.” He steepled his hands on the table. “And none of it excuses blowing you off the way I did.”
Sarah nodded. She could still picture the email, the sting of that handful of words that she still knew by heart: I’ve met someone here and I want to be with her. I’m sorry, but it’s for the best. We should both be free. She could also remember her pulse beating hard in her throat as she’d swam across the pond to the opposite shore where the Camp had been, and found no house at all. There’d been a bulldozer where the boathouse had stood, and a crane, a bunch of workmen standing around a hole in the ground, smoking cigarettes and tossing their butts into the dirt. Sarah had been gaping when one of the men had noticed her. “You lost, sweetheart?” he’d asked, his expression just short of a leer. “This is private property.” Private property, Sarah thought, remembering the first time she’d heard Owen Lassiter’s voice. Without saying a word, she had turned around and swum back the way she’d come.
Owen looked down. “I was ashamed. I didn’t want you knowing the truth about me. About us. About any of it.”
“You know that it wouldn’t have made a difference. I didn’t…” She took a sip of water and patted her lips dry. “I didn’t care about money, or your family. I cared about you.”
“But you didn’t know who I was. Not really.” He lifted his gaze to meet hers. Up close, she could see faint wrinkles around his eyes, a few strands of gray in his eyebrows, but his eyes were still that brilliant, aching blue of a perfect summer day. “And I’m sorry. You deserved the truth. I just wish…” He paused, drumming his fingers on the table. Sarah felt her mouth go dry. She was barely breathing, fingers twisting in her lap, heart fluttering, knowing what was coming. “I wish we’d had a real chance,” he said. “Because I’ve never been as happy with anyone as I was with you that summer.”
She looked across the table at the first boy she’d ever loved, saying nothing, not trusting herself to speak.
“Are you happy?” he asked gently. “I—I thought about you so much, after we…” His voice trailed off, and he gave a wry smile. “Well. After I dumped you. I hated that I’d hurt you, and I’d always hoped that you were happy.”
Am I? Sarah asked herself. Not lately. And here was Owen, looking at her like she was the only woman in the world.
Ever since she’d texted him—no, Sarah thought, ever since she’d seen him—she’d been deciding what would happen next, how far she’d let herself go. She’d spent almost fifteen years with Eli and had never once considered cheating. She’d never even been seriously tempted. And Owen was so handsome, and it had been so long, and he was looking at her with an intensity that made her feel like she was melting, like she’d spill right out of her seat.
“Do you have any plans right now?” she asked him.
He met her eyes and shook his head.
“Come with me,” she said, and Owen got immediately to his feet, without asking where they were going, like he’d follow anywhere she led.
They were mostly quiet as they walked through Central Park to her studio. Sarah unlocked the front door and led him up the stairs, aware of his closeness. She opened the door to her place, now furnished: her single bed against one wall, her piano against the other, the two windows overlooking the street, a bouquet of white hydrangeas on the coffee table. Owen looked around and nodded like he was confirming something he already knew.
“This is exactly the kind of place where I imagined you living.”
“It is?” she asked, thinking how different the studio was from the brownstone, which was bright and warm and colorful, full of furniture and art and toys and books and people. Here, the walls were painted white. There was just a stack of sheet music on the piano’s lid, a single framed poster from the Spoleto Festival on the wall, the white flowers on the kitchen’s tiny counter, and the white down comforter on the bed.
“Like an artist’s garret. Just you and your music.” He gave her another knee-wobbling smile, then nodded at the piano. “Will you play for me?”
“Oh, I don’t—”
“Please?”