Page 17 of This Is Who I Am

Not too bad for a sedentary mathematician.

Sadie whoops as I splash back into the water. “There she is!”

Devon grins. “Told you. Less thinking, more doing.”

I float on my back for a second, staring up at the wide, cloudless sky, letting the water cradle me. Maybe there’s something to what they keep hammering on—less thinking, more doing. Less doubting, more trusting.

I paddle back toward them, shaking the water from my hair.

“We’ll make a surfer out of you yet,” Devon says.

“I wouldn’t hold your breath.”

Sadie smirks. “We’re surfers, which automatically makes us more patient than most.”

I ride one more wave—not well, but better—and then wade back to shore, my body tired but my mind a little lighter.

As I squeeze the water from my hair, the salt drying on my skin and the ocean still tugging at my feet, I tell myself that maybe it’s time to stop letting doubt dictate my every move, to stop analyzing every possibility before I’ve even let something begin, to stop believing that hesitation will protect me when all it’s ever done is keep me standing still.

* * *

I stare at my reflection in the mirror. Dinner with Cass shouldn’t feel this momentous. It’s just a friendly meal, after all—we clearly established that. Yet it feels like something more because of what she confided in me.

I grab my lotion and smooth it over my arms, the scent grounding me as I try to ignore the nerves buzzing beneath my skin. It’s just dinner. Yet I’m standing here like I have something to prove, like I need to present myself in a certain way.

As I button up my blouse, my fingers hesitate at the last one, hovering over my collarbone.

Less thinking, more doing.

I let the top button stay undone. Maybe it’s okay to be seen—if just a tiny bit.

CHAPTER11

CASS

I run a hand through my hair, trying to make it look casual enough for a non-date. Because this isn’t a date. Even so, I still changed my outfit twice.

I glance at the clock. Estelle will be here any minute. I reach for the bottle of wine and pour myself a small glass to steady my nerves. Then the bell rings and I buzz her up.

As expected, Estelle looks gorgeous. Her curls frame her face in a way that makes my breath catch for a moment. I invite her in, trying very hard not to be too impressed by her easy beauty. She looks nothing like the woman who left the restaurant last night. She’s stone-cold sober, for starters. And I haven’t wooed her with my food yet.

She hands me a bottle of wine and a gift-wrapped package. “For you.” She grins.

I put the wine to the side and focus on the package. She brought me a gift. How thoughtful.

I tear the paper carefully, revealing a wooden frame, the glass slightly worn but intact. Inside is a black-and-white image—an old postcard, by the look of it—of the very building we’re standing in now. The restaurant. My home. But decades ago, when it was something else entirely.

Surprised, I glance up at her. “Where did you find this?”

“My father’s house,” she says. “He had a whole collection of Clearwater Bay memorabilia. I thought you might like it.”

I meet her gaze. “I love it.”

“Good,” she says. “I wasn’t certain whether you’d find it sentimental or just clutter.”

I glance at the photo again, at the old bones of this place, the way it stood against the cliff’s edge even then, battered by wind and salt and time. “It’s not clutter,” I say. “It’s history.”

She smiles, and I invite her to sit. I catch myself staring, at the way her blouse shifts against her frame, the way she moves with the kind of grace that makes me too aware of my own body, of its heft and hesitations.

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