Page 16 of Five Summer Wishes

I let out a hollow breath. “It used to be.”

“Is it the girls?” he asked. “The will?”

“It’s everything.”

Another long pause. Then, softer: “Do you want me to come up?”

I flinched. “No. That’s not what this is.”

“Okay.”

And he meant it. That’s the worst part. Daniel never fought for anything. Not even us.

“I should go,” I said.

“Okay,” he repeated.

And that was that.

No anger. No heartbreak. Just the gentle thud of another door closing between us.

I couldn’t go back upstairs. Notyet. Not with my thoughts echoing against the bedroom walls like accusations I wasn’t ready to answer.

So I grabbed my jacket and walked.

The harbor wasn’t far. Just a few turns through streets I’d memorized as a teenager desperate to outrun them. Most of the houses were dark now; light spilling faintly behind curtains, the town tucked into itself like an old quilt someone kept stitching back together out of sheer stubbornness.

The wind off the water bit through my sleeves, sharp enough to remind me I was still here. Still deciding. Still mine.

At the end of the dock, I found him.

Nate Morrison.

If there was ever a person built for this place, it was Nate. Solid where I’d always been restless. The kind of man who could mend a boat, fix a leaky porch roof, or stand at the edge of your worst day without flinching. He’d been my first real friend here—the one who’d seen through every version of me I tried to perform. I’d left him behind more times than I wanted to count. And somehow, he’d stayed, stubborn as salt air, steady as the tide.

Tonight, he sat hunched on a weathered bench at the end of the dock, a battered thermos in one hand and an old notebook in his lap. A halo of boat lights flickered behind him, softening the new gray at his temples and the lines at the corners of his eyes. Time had made him look older, yes. But it hadn’t made him small. It had carved him into something even more unshakeable.

He looked up when he heard my footsteps. No surprise on his face, just that calm recognition I’d once found comforting and now found impossible to bear.

“Didn’t expect to see you out here,” Nate said, voice low and warm enough to slice right through the chill.

God help me, part of me wanted to turn around. Run.

But I didn’t.

I just stood there on the dock, breathing him in like the last safe place I wasn’t sure I deserved.

“Couldn’t sleep.”

“Yeah,” he said. “The air gets inside your head, doesn’t it?”

I nodded.

He held up the thermos. “Still drink tea?”

I sat beside him. “Only if it’s black and over-steeped.”

He refilled the cup, handed it over without looking. The mug was chipped. The tea was hot and strong. Just the way I used to like it.

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