Page 5 of Breaking Through

I braced my hands against the shower wall, letting the water pound against my shoulders like summer rain. The cedar-scented body wash I used filled the small space with its forest smell, grounding me in the present. It wasmysanctuary, my carefully constructed solitude. There was no room for smiles, cameras, youth, hope, or second chances.

The police scanner crackled to life as I pulled on my olive-drab uniform, a kind of armor I understood. "Storm system approaching from the northwest. High winds and possible waterspouts over the lake. All units be advised."

"Copy that," I responded, grateful for the distraction. I could handle the weather. It followed patterns and made sense. Unlike the way my hands wanted to shake when I thought about thatcamera lens catching the moment I emerged from the water, like some kind of...

My phone buzzed, interrupting the thought. It was a text from Sarah at the Little Blue Bean. She was the town gossip and an unrepentant matchmaker:

Your usual is ready when you want it. And hey, you'll never guess who's sitting in here looking at Polaroids with the most interesting expression...

I typed back:

Not today.

I knew she'd see right through my terseness, knowing she'd been watching me watch him all summer.

Three dots appeared, and then:

He ordered a vanilla latte with an extra shot—just saying. And he keeps touching one photo like it's made of gold.

I turned off my phone and did my best to ignore the images Sarah conjured. I imagined him sitting in his usual corner, his hands wrapped around a warm ceramic mug, worrying that bottom lip with his teeth as he studied his morning's work.

I didn't need to know what kind of coffee he drank, how he looked studying his snapshot, or whether he was thinking about our encounter the way I couldn't stop thinking about it.

A storm was coming. That's what mattered. Not green eyes or gentle smiles or the way my name might sound on his lips. Notthe way he made me want things I'd given up on years ago when I traded in a burning building for a burned-out life.

Definitely not that.

As I climbed into my truck, I caught myself glancing toward town, where a certain photographer was probably warming his hands around a vanilla latte, looking at a Polaroid of a scarred man emerging from the lake like a damaged Poseidon. Looking at me the way no one had in years, like I was worth the light he'd captured.

Three photos a day, he'd said when I overheard him talking to Sarah last week. It was his ritual and promise. It was a way of finding beauty in a world that sometimes seemed determined to burn it all down.

The scanner crackled again, this time with another warning about the approaching storm. I turned up the volume, drowning out thoughts of artists and their cameras, green eyes and kind smiles, and the way the morning light had turned his skin to gold. I drowned out the voice in my head that whispered maybe, just maybe, he could see something in me worth saving.

I had a job to do. A purpose. A routine.

And there was no room in any of it for someone who could look at broken things and see beauty. No matter how much a part of me wished there was.

Chapter three

Holden

The Polaroid shot of the man rising from the lake pulsed in my bag like a secret heart as I fumbled with my grandfather's house keys. I'd looked at it so many times throughout the day that the image burnt itself into my memory: water cascading off broad shoulders, storm-gray eyes meeting mine through the mist.

Parker would've called it a perfect example of Blue Harbor magic. I called it a reminder that I wasn't as settled into my new life as I'd thought.

Gran's wind chimes tinkled softly from the porch eaves—crystal ones that splintered sunlight into rainbow shards across the weathered floorboards. She'd hung them the summer I turned ten when I visited my grandparents for a week.

She declared that every home needed music, even when people were quiet. Now, they played their delicate song to an audience of empty wicker chairs and fading chrysanthemums.

"That you, Match?" Grandpa's voice carried from the living room, more robust than it had been in weeks. The childhood nickname still made me smile. It reminded me of my earlychildhood, when I was a toddler who couldn't say "magic" but was always searching for it.

"No, it's a burglar who happened to have a key," I called back, our usual exchange bringing a smile to my face. "A burglar who smells something amazing coming from the kitchen."

Maria appeared in the hallway, her silver-streaked dark hair escaping from its bun. She wore one of Gran's old aprons, which had embroidered bluebirds that had faded to barely-there whispers of blue.

She'd been friends with Gran for thirty years before becoming Grandpa's home healthcare worker. Sometimes, I caught her absent-mindedly straightening picture frames the way Gran used to.

"Chicken soup," she announced, wiping her hands. "Isabella Harlow's recipe, not that chemical-laden stuff your grandfather's been hiding in the pantry. I found three more cans this morning, Clark!" she called toward the living room. "Hidden behind the good china!"

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