Until the storm breaks, p.27
Until the Storm Breaks, page 27
That’s it. The text he promised. Brief, informational, nothing more.
When I finally drive back to the cabins an hour later, his truck is gone. The empty space where it usually sits looks wrong. Inside his cabin, everything that matters is gone. Toothbrush, laptop, the book he’d been reading. He’d packed methodically, deliberately. Not frantically, but with purpose.
I sit on his bed, the sheets still rumpled from this morning. Just hours ago I woke up in his arms, feeling safe for the first time in years. Now I’m sitting in an empty cabin that smells faintly of his cologne, trying to understand how everything fell apart so fast.
At the bar that afternoon, I pour drinks on autopilot. Muscle memory takes over while my mind churns. Pull the tap, slide the glass, make change, smile. The motions I could do in my sleep.
I wasn’t supposed to be here. I should have been packing for Seattle today with Calvin, but instead I’m behind the bar after calling everyone this morning to tell them I’d be working after all. They were confused since I’d made such a big deal about getting the days covered, but I just said plans changed. Better to stay busy than sit in that empty cabin thinking about how quickly everything fell apart.
It’s that weird lull between the afternoon crowd and the dinner rush when only the dedicated drinkers and early birds show up. Eleanor comes in, not her usual night. She typically avoids the noise and chaos, but here she is, romance novel tucked under her arm, white hair perfectly set despite the wind that’s been battering the harbor all day.
“Not your usual night,” I say, reaching for a wine glass.
“Couldn’t stand my own company anymore,” she says, leaning against the counter. “Plus Jason’s doing that halibut with the blackberry sauce. You know I can’t resist that.”
“You alright, dear?” Eleanor asks, setting her glass down. “You seem tired.”
She takes a sip, then studies me over the rim. Her eyes are sharp behind her reading glasses, the kind of sharp that comes from seventy years of watching people, of knowing when something’s off.
“I’m fine,” I lie.
She hums, clearly not buying it but too polite to push. “Well, make sure you’re taking care of yourself. You young people think you’re invincible. I’m always here if you need to talk, honey. I’ll be in my booth.” She pats my hand once before heading to her favorite corner spot.
The next hour drags. I serve drinks, wipe tables, pretend everything’s normal
An hour later, when Eleanor’s settled with her halibut and the bar’s picked up slightly, Lark corners me by the register. She’s been watching me all shift, I can feel it, and now with a break in customers she’s making her move. She leans against the bar, arms crossed.
“So you gonna try that vague excuse again about why you’re working when you said you’d be heading to Seattle, or are you gonna tell me what actually happened?”
I look around, making sure Eleanor’s absorbed in her book and Marcus is focused on his pool game with Tom. The bar’s just busy enough that our conversation gets lost in the general noise. “Calvin left.”
Lark blinks, processing this. “What do you mean left? Left to get groceries? Left to—”
“Left for Seattle. This morning. Alone.” The words come out flat, matter-of-fact, like if I say them without emotion they won’t hurt. “His biological parents showed up at breakfast. Ambushed us at the café. Asked him for money. Calvin walked out, and when I got back to the cabins, he was gone. Packed up everything and drove back to Seattle.”
“Wait, back up. His biological parents?”
“Yeah. Just showed up.” I grab a pack of napkins and begin restocking them. “They’d been following his career, apparently. Waiting for the right moment to make contact.”
Lark’s quiet for a moment, processing. “After thirty-five years?”
“His dad looked just like Calvin, it was uncanny. Same jaw, same way of standing. And they asked for money,” I confirm, remembering the man’s entitled tone. “It was brutal. You should have seen Calvin’s expression when he realized who they were. Like someone had punched him.”
“No wonder he freaked out. That’s a lot.” She grabs a rag, starts wiping down the bar beside me. “But he just left? Without talking to you?”
“He found out about my tattoo,” I admit quietly. “He saw it this morning and then after the whole birth parent thing, he confronted me about it outside the café. Asked why I never told him.”
Lark winces. “Oh shit. Bad timing.”
“The worst. He thinks I lied to him. Which I did, by not telling him.” I focus on arranging bottles, needing something to do with my hands. “He said he needs time to think. To figure out if what we have is real.”
“What you have is real,” Lark says firmly. “Anyone who’s seen you two together knows that.”
“But he doesn’t know that. All he sees is his birth parents wanting to use him for money and me hiding that I have his words tattooed on my body. Everyone wanting something from Calvin Midnight the writer.”
“You don’t want anything from him except him.”
“I know that,” I say. “But after this morning, I’m not sure he does.”
The night continues like that. Pour drinks, dodge questions from regulars who heard something happened with Calvin at the café, pretend everything’s normal when it feels like my chest has been hollowed out.
My phone stays silent, though I keep checking it throughout my shift. Just nothing, which somehow feels worse than an actual confrontation would. At least if we were fighting, we’d be talking.
I pull up our text thread while in the storage room, staring at it. Morning coffee requests. Dinner plans. Late night thoughts. Inside jokes. Now we’re what? Ex-something? Almost-something? Nothing?
I type: I miss you. Delete it.
This is stupid. Just talk to me. Delete it.
I know you’re scared but so am I. Delete that too.
Finally, I settle on:
Me: Good luck at the conference. I hope it goes well. I mean that.
It shows as delivered. Then read, almost immediately. The typing indicator appears for a second, then vanishes. No response.
The silence tells me everything I need to know.
“What are you going to do?” Lark asks later as we’re closing up, chairs already on tables, floor mopped with that lemon cleaner that makes everything smell aggressively clean. “About the cabin, I mean. Since Calvin’s gone and the sale is happening.”
“I don’t know.” I’ve been avoiding thinking about it, but the deadline looms like a storm cloud. “Look for an apartment, I guess. Theo mentioned he has a studio available. He sent photos, it’s actually nice. Good light, decent kitchen.”
“That’s something at least.” She pauses in counting the till. “Though you could stay with me if it doesn’t work out. My couch is comfortable.”
“Thanks,” I say, touched by the offer. “I appreciate it.”
That night, after closing, I get home to find Laila waiting by the door, tail wagging like always. Theo had dropped her off earlier in the afternoon after Chloe’s preschool, and we’d managed a quick beach walk before my shift.
There’s still some sand scattered by the door where I hadn’t swept yet, evidence of Laila shaking herself off, delighted as always by the waves. She doesn’t know anything’s changed. Doesn’t know Calvin’s gone, that we’re losing the cabin, that everything’s falling apart. She’s just happy I’m home.
I let her out for her nighttime bathroom break, then collapse onto the bed with my laptop, Laila curled beside me, her warmth a small comfort. I think about texting Theo about the studio, but that would mean fully admitting to myself that Calvin isn’t coming back. That this is really over.
Instead, I end up on the Found Words Festival website. I click on his bio. The standard academic paragraph about his book, his teaching, his publications. “Currently working on his second book.”
He’s scheduled for two panels and a reading. I wish he could have stayed to talk about finding home instead of running from it. Wish we could have worked through this together instead of him needing to process alone.
Laila shifts, pressing her head into my lap, and I scratch behind her ears absently while scrolling through the conference schedule. Three days of panels and readings. He’ll be in his element there, surrounded by other writers and academics. Maybe that’s what he needs right now. Space to think without me there complicating everything.
I pull on the UW shirt he left behind, probably not on purpose, probably just forgotten in his rush to leave. The cotton is soft from years of washing, and it still smells like him. Cedar and coffee and that specific cologne that made me want to lean closer.
Laila sighs in her sleep, presses closer against my leg. I stroke her soft fur, finding comfort in her simple presence.
“Don’t worry, girl,” I whisper. “I’m not going anywhere. Not like him.”
She responds by licking my hand, tail thumping once against the bed. Like she knows, like she trusts, like she’s not worried at all. My phone stays silent. No texts, no calls. Just the sound of waves through the window and Laila’s steady breathing.
Tomorrow I’ll start looking for apartments. Tomorrow I’ll figure out how to move forward. But tonight, I just hold onto Laila and try not to think about how Calvin looked at me when he asked about the tattoo. Like I was a stranger. Like everything between us had been a lie.
Some storms you don’t survive. Some storms, you just endure.
And some storms, apparently, you run from at the first sign of lightning.
CHAPTER 26
CALVIN
The Seattle apartment greets me with its familiar sterility when I finally unlock the door after nine PM. I’d driven straight through after leaving Dark River this morning, stopped only once for gas, and spent the entire afternoon and evening walking the city in the rain, putting off coming back here. But eventually the rain got heavier and the coffee shops closed and I ran out of reasons to stay away.
The windows frame the city lights blurred by rain. Everything here is exactly as I left it. First editions lined up by height on the built-in shelves. The minimalist furniture that a designer assured me would “speak to my aesthetic” sits there, saying nothing. A bar cart stocked with whiskey I bought to impress people I no longer invite over. Zero clutter, zero warmth, zero evidence that anyone actually lives here.
Nothing like the cabins. Nothing like Maren’s mismatched mugs and the way she left books face-down on every surface, spines cracking, making the librarian in me cringe and laugh at the same time. Here, my twenty identical shirts hang precisely one inch apart. There, her clothes were thrown over chairs, mixed with mine on the floor, evidence of life actually being lived.
I set my bags down by the door, and the sound echoes in the emptiness.
I pour myself a whiskey and sit at my desk, the one that cost hundreds of dollars and with a chair that has perfect lumbar support and makes me feel like I’m writing important things even when I’m just grading freshman essays about why The Great Gatsby is still relevant.
I open my laptop, staring at a blank page. I’m supposed to be preparing for the panels about finding meaning in loss. The irony sits heavy in my chest. I’m supposed to talk about weathering grief while actively running from the best thing that’s happened to me in years.
The document cursor blinks at me. I type: Thank you for having me.
Brilliant. Profound. Sure to change lives.
Twenty minutes pass. Thirty. Nothing else comes. The blank page mocks me, and all I can think about is how Maren would tease me about my writer’s block. “Just write something terrible,” she’d say, stealing my coffee. “You can’t edit a blank page.” But she’s not here to steal my coffee or make me laugh or pull me away from the desk when I’m taking myself too seriously.
Seven years she’s had my words on her skin. Seven years. The image stays with me: that delicate script on her ribs, words I wrote turned into something permanent on her body. All those times she must have turned away, adjusted positions, made sure I never got a clear look. The deliberate deception of it burns.
The thing is, I believe her explanation. Twenty-one and grieving, finding comfort in my words. That tracks. Being scared to tell me once we got involved. I get it. But understanding why she lied doesn’t erase the fact that she did. For weeks. Every single day, choosing to hide it.
My birth parents I can dismiss easily. Strangers wanting money. But Maren? That’s more complicated. She’s the woman I fell for, who happens to have been carrying my words on her body since before we met. The two things can be true at once. The question is whether I can get past the deception.
I pull up my laptop. Multiple browser tabs sit open. The faculty portal with its endless administrative emails. Messages from my department chair about next semester that I haven’t answered in weeks. And there, in a separate window, the sabbatical request I’ve been drafting.
Dear Dr. Harrison, I am writing to request a sabbatical. Due to personal circumstances requiring my attention...
Personal circumstances. Is that what Maren is? A personal circumstance?
I finish typing it properly this time. Print it. Fold it. Slide it into a university envelope. Maybe I’ll submit it tomorrow. Maybe I won’t. But having it ready feels like a step toward something, even if I don’t know what.
I wake before dawn, same as always. But here there’s no reason for it. No sunroom to work on, no coffee to make for two, no Laila demanding breakfast. Just me in this sterile box, trying to remember why I thought this was where I belonged.
The morning brings Seattle’s eternal drizzle. I make coffee with the expensive machine that requires a manual to operate, nothing like the simple pour-over rhythm Maren and I had developed.
By midmorning, I give up on trying to write and head out into the city. I end up at Elliott Bay Book Company, drawn by muscle memory and masochism. The new releases table features authors I’ve never heard of, bright covers promising fresh voices and diverse perspectives. Writers who have something current to say, something that matters now.
Through the stacks, I drift to the “Local Authors” display. There, tucked in the bottom corner like an afterthought, sits one face-out copy of my collection. Someone’s stuck a “Staff Pick” sticker on it with a handwritten note: Beautiful meditation on loss. Made me cry on the bus. - Brad
Brad, whoever you are, I’m sorry.
I can’t stand being in here anymore, surrounded by all these words, all these stories that actually got finished. I push through the doors back into the drizzle.
The rain follows me to Volunteer Park. A couple shares a bench despite the weather, leaning into each other like the world outside their bubble doesn’t exist. The casual intimacy of it makes me look away.
My phone buzzes. Theo.
Theo: How’s Seattle?
I stare at it for a full minute before responding.
Calvin: Fine. Working on conference stuff.
Theo: You okay? You left pretty suddenly.
My biological father ambushed me at breakfast and the woman I love has my words tattooed on her body.
Calvin: Yeah. Just needed to get back. You know how it is.
Theo: Sure. Hey, Maren seemed upset when I saw her earlier to drop off Laila. Everything okay there?
My chest tightens. So she’s not pretending to be fine. She’s upset. Visibly upset. Upset enough that my brother noticed.
Calvin: It’s complicated.
Theo: It doesn’t have to be. Hope you two can figure things out. I’m here if you need to talk.
I don’t respond to that. Can’t respond to that. Theo means well but he doesn’t know the full story. Finding out someone’s been hiding something that fundamental changes things.
Dark River is smaller than Seattle. Quieter. Less impressive on paper. But somehow, I felt bigger there. Like I was expanding into spaces I didn’t know existed. Here, surrounded by everything I thought I wanted, I feel like I’m shrinking. Like I’m disappearing into my own life.
That evening, the walk to campus is meditative in the rain. Or it would be if I could stop thinking. The UW liberal arts building looms Gothic and imposing. The back entrance is propped open for cleaning staff, and I slip through like I’m nineteen again, sneaking into after-hours study sessions.
The hallways smell like industrial cleaner and academic anxiety. That specific combination of floor wax and desperation that every university in America probably shares. I pass my old classroom, peer through the narrow window at the empty seats where I’ve spent the last decade trying to teach something I’m not sure I understand anymore.
How do you teach people to write about truth when you’re lying to yourself?
There’s a framed faculty photo on the wall outside the department office. The whole creative writing department grinning at some long-ago holiday party. I find myself immediately: shorter hair, stiffer smile, trying so hard to look like I belonged. Like I’d made it. Like getting a tenure-track position at thirty was the answer to everything.
You look miserable, I think, studying my own face. You look like someone performing happiness.
The grad assistant working the late shift in the department office looks up from her laptop when I enter. She’s maybe twenty-three, wearing a Sleater-Kinney t-shirt and the exhausted expression of someone grading freshman composition essays.
“Professor Midnight,” she says, surprised. “Didn’t expect anyone this late.”
“Jasmine, right?” I remember her from orientation.
“Yes! I’m impressed you remember.”
I hand her the envelope. “Can you time-stamp this?”
“Sure.” She pulls out the date stamp, marks it officially. “Want a receipt?”
“Yeah. Just in case.”
She prints out a small confirmation slip, hands it over.
“Thanks,” I say, pocketing the receipt.
