Page 6 of Second Chance with the Half-Elf
But fate’s already circling like a hungry tide.
And I know better than anyone—when the tide wants you back, you don’t get to fight it.
CHAPTER 3
EVIE
By day three, the wine is running low, the dust in this house is actively trying to murder me, and the salt air has already started rusting the zipper on my camera bag.
Welcome back, Evie.
The attic’s the last place I want to be, but the probate lawyer was clear—everything has to be inventoried before I can list the house. And of course my mother, queen of half-finished projects, left the attic packed like some kind of crypt.
So here I am.
Sweat trickling down my back, hair knotted up in a half-assed bun, sleeves rolled to my elbows as I shove aside boxes labeled in that looping, too-hopeful script of hers.
Christmas. Cameras. Books Evie Wanted Once.
I pause at that one, a fist curling in my chest before I shove it out of the way.
No time for sentimentality. And certainly no patience for ghosts.
The next box tips when I nudge it, sending a few old hardcover books skidding across the floorboards. I reach down to scoop them up—some classics, brittle with age.
And there it is.
The Odyssey.
An old clothbound edition, blue with gold edging faded to pale thread. I remember this one; Mom used to read me bits of it when I was too young to understand half the words. She loved stories about journeys and coming home.
Figures.
I’m about to toss it onto the keep pile when something thin slips out from between the pages.
A photograph.
I freeze.
It’s one of those old instant shots, edges yellowed.
Two teenagers, wind-blown and sunburned, standing in front of the Lowtide lighthouse. I’m grinning like a fool, holding up a battered compass. He’s behind me—Aeron—arms crossed, trying and failing not to smile.
There’s a smear of salt across the bottom edge, like someone touched it with wet fingers.
It feels like a punch to the sternum.
I sink back onto the attic floor, staring at the thing like it might catch fire.
Why the hell would she keep this? Why tuck it here, of all places?
My throat goes tight, breath hitching before I can stop it.
Fifteen years since I ran like hell from this town, from that boy, from the one thing I wasn’t brave enough to face.
I swipe a wrist across my face. “Nope. Not today.”
A creak on the stairs jerks me upright.
