Chapter 22: The Beach

Joelle's POV

I was standing in the surf to my ankles when I heard him shout my name.

The water was so cold it hurt, and I liked that.

It was the only thing around me that was not lying.

"Joelle!"

I turned.

Ivo came down the beach at a dead run, with his jacket gone and his shirt open at the collar.

He saw me in the water and stopped.

His chest was heaving, and in his hand he held my red shoes.

"I thought," he said.

He could not finish.

"I took them off," I said. "I wanted to feel the ocean."

"They were by the tide line."

"They were drying."

"I thought you'd gone in."

"I'm standing in four inches of water, Ivo."

His shoulders came down.

He crouched and set the shoes neatly on the dry sand.

Then he straightened and walked into the surf in his dress shoes.

He stopped in front of me.

"Don't," I said.

"I won't touch you."

"Then say it from there."

"All right."

He looked at me with the lights of the harbor on his face.

"I asked for your transfer," he said. "You know that. You've known it since Monday. What you don't know is why."

"I assume because you hate your brother."

"I do. That isn't the reason."

"Then tell me."

He took a long breath.

"Three years ago I read an author's note at the back of a book."

"It said the writer had a postcard of Seaview City she wasn't allowed to visit."

"It said she wrote the first chapter at the Fairmont library, under the green lamps."

My heart stopped.

"I wrote that."

"I know."

"That was an unedited author's note. I took it out before the final."

"Not in the first edition." He almost smiled. "I buy first editions."

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