Chapter 21: Remember

Hazel's POV

I sat on the end of the old boat club pier with my feet over the water and waited for him to come.

It was a cold clear night, and the lanterns from my welcome-home party were still strung along the railing, unlit.

He stopped six steps behind me.

I heard him stop.

"It was a Tuesday," I said without turning round. "It rained."

"Yes."

"I was eighteen, in a yellow slicker, and I was eating chips out of a paper cone because the sailing lunch was boring."

He said nothing.

"You came down the pier in a suit with your phone in your hand."

"You didn't want to be there."

"I had been," he said quietly. "My father wanted me seen."

"You asked if the chips were any good."

"And you said they were terrible, and held out the cone."

I turned round then.

He stood under the unlit lanterns with his hands open, and his face held steady for as long as I looked.

"I'd like you to tell me the rest," I said. "Rule three is suspended. For this."

He took a breath.

"You laughed at my shoes," he said. "They were wet through."

"You said a man who wore shoes like that to a regatta deserved to lose them."

"Then you ate most of the chips yourself."

I was laughing.

It came up through me, wet and surprised, and under it was something else.

"Nobody planned that," I said. "It wasn't in a binder."

"It was a Tuesday, and it was only me and you."

"Hazel."

"Her first note is three weeks after it."

I wiped my face with the back of my hand.

"I loved you before she ever touched it. I didn't chase you."

"That first day I just spoke to the one person who was nice to me."

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