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He pulls me closer, and kisses the top of my head. “Want to take a walk down the beach?”
“Definitely,” I say.
We get off the towel and each grab another beer to take with us. We walk, hand in hand, down to the edge of the water. Our feet are bare and I shudder as the cold water hits me, swirling through my toes.
We walk along the shore in the dark, only the stars and the lingering gleam of the fire lighting our way. But with Carter next to me, I’m not scared at all, not anymore.
He’s all the light I need.
EPILOGUE
ANGELA
The summerin Harborview passes like a dream, filled with sun drenched days at the beach, nights grilling on Carter’s deck, weekends away on Isle North visiting Archie, and shifts at the hospital getting used to my new role as charge nurse in the ER. August passes like a blur, and suddenly, Carter is graduating and his new job is about to start.
He’s currently dressed in his cap and gown, talking to his parents and sister animatedly about his research while I snap candid photos. Over the summer, Carter and I talked a lot about his parents, and he decided to start sharing more of himself with them for a change. He figures that if he overwhelms them with information about his life, they’ll be forced into paying attention to it for once.
From the look on his mom’s face, startled but proud, and the way his dad keeps clapping him on the back, I can tell that they’re at least receptive to it. And we’ve already talked vaguely about seeing them for Thanksgiving, so that’s something. I metthem for the first time yesterday, and have been pleasantly surprised by how nice they’ve been.
“I want to get a few more posed shots,” I yell out to them, holding my camera out.
“Haven’t we taken enough already?” Carter asks, giving me that classic shit-eating grin of his.
“No, we have not,” I say, pointing the camera at him again.
Carter nods, and dutifully poses with his diploma in front of him, a solemn look on his face, his hat perched on his head. Behind him is the campus library, a building he told me he visited exactly three times, because apparently, scientists don’t use libraries. But I want a photo of him in his regalia in every corner of the damn campus.
I adjust the settings on the camera one last time. It’s a film camera I bought myself in the hope of expanding the mediums of art I can work with. I take the photo, and then motion for his mom, dad, and sister to move back into the frame. They pose next to him, and his mom and dad look genuinely happy to be with their son on his graduation day.
“Want me to take one of you two?” Carter’s sister, Elle, asks.
“Sure,” I say, showing her how to use the camera.
Carter drags me against him, tucking me under his arm.
“I’m so proud of you, Professor Steel,” I say to him, feeling myself grin.
“I like it when you call me that more than I’d like to admit,” he says. “But I couldn’t have done it without you, Angel.”
“That’s not true,” I tell him. “You were almost finished with your degree by the time we started dating.”
“Sure, but have I ever told you why I chose the University of Maine?” he’s grinning back down at me now, hazel eyes twinkling, and I know that the photos Elle captures of this moment are going to be perfect, even if we’re out of focus and blurry.
I shake my head.
“I got into four schools for my PhD. Every one I applied to,” he says.
“Show off,” I mutter.
“And I thought about going to California, or Boston, or the Midwest,” he continues. “But every time I thought about those places, something felt like it was missing, like if I went, I’d spend the entire time searching for a piece of myself. And that piece was you, Angel. I chose the University of Maine because I wanted to be near you, and even if you weren’t there, I wanted to be in the place where we met. The place where I fell in love with you while we were growing up together. Who knows what my PhD or my life would have been like if I went to another school.”
My heart squeezes in my chest. “I put off moving back to Harborview for years because of you,” I admit.
“I know,” he says.
“But I came back because I missed it. And I missed you, even if I wouldn’t let myself admit that back then,” I say. “I guess I was missing you like a lost piece of myself, too.”
Carter leans in and kisses me gently, and I hear the click of the camera as Elle captures the moment.
