Chloe’s breathing slows, becoming rhythmic and steady. It lulls me to sleep, and I dream that Chloe is pregnant instead of Stacey. I wake up a few hours later, alone in bed. Assuming Chloe is in the bathroom, I roll over, waiting for her to come back to bed. Ten minutes later, she’s still not back and the house is quiet.
“Chloe?” I call, getting out of bed. The bathroom light is off, but a light is on downstairs. Blinking, I go down and into the kitchen. “Chloe?” She doesn’t answer, and for a split second, I worry something happened.
Then I noticed the spotlight in the backyard is on, and the door leading to the screened-in porch is unlocked. I see Chloe’s silhouette at the end of the dock. I put my shoes on and walk out to her. The wooden planks creak under my feet, and she jerks around, startled.
“Oh, hey.” Moonlight bathes her pretty face.
“What are you doing out here?”
“I woke up and couldn’t fall back asleep.” Chloe pulls the blanket tight around her shoulders, breath clouding around her as she speaks. “And I didn’t want to wake you up since you should be sleeping right now,” she adds pointedly. “You have to drive back to Chicago tomorrow and then get up early for work.”
“I’ll be fine. I’m just working my regular hours on Monday.”
“Really?” She raises her eyebrows.
“Fine. It’s still a twelve-hour shift.” I sit on the dock next to her and she takes the blanket from her shoulders and drapes it over the both of us. “I woke up and you were gone.”
“I came out here to think.”
“About what?” My heart jumps into my throat. Did Stacey text again and Chloe saw it? How the hell would I explain that to her? I wasn’t keeping a secret from her…except that’s exactly what I did.
What I am doing?
“Everything,” she says with a smile, tipping her head up to look at me. The pale moonlight highlights the little freckles on her cheeks. Goddamn this woman is beautiful. “It’s kinda funny, isn’t it?”
“Maybe? Depends on what it is.”
“How everything came full circle.” She rests her head on my shoulder and I let my eyes fall shut. “This is where we met. Where I fell in love with you and where you fell in love with me, but neither of us let the other know. For years, Sam, years, it killed me watching you be with anyone but me. And then, well, you know what happened. But look, we’re right back here again, right where it all started. And this time, we’re still in love, together.”
I’m not an emotional person, but her words do something to me. I look out at Silver Lake, heart in my throat. She’s right in saying everything came full circle, because it did. But that doesn’t mean our story ends here, not with a happily ever after, at least. I fucked things up with Chloe once, and I swore I’d never do it again.
And that’s what’s funny—to the universe, at least, because I’m sure as shit not laughing. We’re right back where it all started, and this is also where things are going to end.15ChloeI probably shouldn’t have sat out in the cold for as long as I did. My throat hurts when I swallow, and I’m chilled to the bone and shivering as I get back in bed with Sam. Sitting on the dock with him, looking at the stars reflected on the still mirror-like surface of the lake, was worth a little bit of the cold, that’s for sure. And it reaffirmed to me just how much I want to come back to Silver Ridge.
In the back of my mind, I really did see myself settling down here. It was hard to imagine my life settled down with anyone but Sam, and for some reason I supposed he’d end up back here too, but with someone who wasn’t me. Seeing the man I love happy with someone else, starting his own perfect family while I watched from the sidelines would hurt, and not being around to witness that brought me more relief than I ever imagined. Now that we’re together, that we’re starting to build a wonderful relationship, the fear is gone, and I feel the most hopeful I have in a long time.
Turning away from Sam, I press my face against the pillow to muffle my cough. My chest burns and I begrudgingly get up to get something to drink, hoping to soothe my sore throat. I don’t have time to be sick, and maybe if I ignore feeling crappy it’ll go away. It makes no sense, I know. It’s a little after nine AM and Sam is still sleeping. Since he rarely gets to sleep in, I’m extra careful to sneak out of the room as quietly as possible.