Page 55 of Everything You Hate
Chapter Fifteen
Scarlett
That is the whole of my difficulty.
A woman wrote that in 1892 about a man she couldn’t have and a life she couldn’t refuse, and I’ve been sitting with it since four in the morning like it’s addressed to me.
It isn’t. I know it isn’t. I have a rental car and a passport and eight million people waiting on a post, and Evangeline Merrick had a wedding date and a father with a settlement in his safe. The comparison is insulting to her.
I trace my finger along the coordinates I’ve penciled onto the hotel stationery. The east side of No Name Island. A fissure. A chamber.
Three days since Dean told me I don’t belong here.
Three days of avoiding the marina.
I fold the stationery and tuck it into the journal. My phone sits silent on the nightstand. No calls from Malcolm. No texts from the production company. Just the analytics dashboard he sent, the graph spiking, the comment section filling with plansand questions and the bright, borrowed enthusiasm of people who’ve decided someone else’s history is their adventure.
I should call him. Tell him the north shore is a dead end. Tell him the real story is somewhere else.
I don’t.
Instead, I pack the journal into my bag, zip my jacket, and walk out to the rental car parked behind the Tidewater.
The long way to the farm takes me past the harbor. I don’t look at the marina. I keep my eyes on the road and my hands at ten and two and I tell myself this is about the story, not about the man who runs the boats, not about the kiss on the porch or the argument on the dock or the way his voice went raw when he said I can’t protect everyone.
Bodhi Haven owns No Name Island. Not Dean. The land records are clear---the north shore parcels belong to Haven Holdings, and the smaller offshore islands are included. Gull Shit Rock is Bodhi’s to permit or deny. Dean runs the boats that go there, but the island itself answers to his nephew.
If I want to search that fissure, I need Bodhi’s permission.
Not Dean’s.
The farm appears at the end of the gravel drive, red barn and white house unchanged, fields rolling down to water. No demon goose in sight. No Noodle charging the tires with wings spread and malice in his heart. The place is quiet. Midmorning on a weekday, and the Haven machine is running somewhere out of sight---Shea at the resort, Piper at the bookstore, Henry and Bodhi wherever men like them go to worry about permits and docking rights and the arithmetic of keeping a family afloat.
I park beside the barn and sit for a minute with the engine off. The last time I was here, Dean kissed me on the porch and then told me it was a mistake, and I ate two pieces of Wren’s pie and pretended not to notice the way Mimi looked at us when we came back inside.
Now I’m back, and he’s nowhere, and the air through the open window smells like hay and animals and something cooking that makes my stomach clench with a hunger I didn’t know I had.
I get out. Grab my bag. Close the door quietly, like someone might hear.
“Hey! You came back!”
Colter Haven jogs around the corner of the barn with a bucket in one hand and a grin that takes up half his face. No pretense. No caution. Just genuine, unfiltered delight at the sight of me, like my showing up unannounced at his family’s farm is the best thing that’s happened all week.
“Hi.” I smooth my jacket. “I’m sorry to drop in without---”
“Don’t be sorry. Be hungry. Shea left a pan of something in the oven that I’m pretty sure is still edible.” He sets the bucket down and wipes his hands on his jeans. “You just missed the morning chaos. Hazel’s at school. Dad’s at the south dock arguing with the county about something I’m pretending not to understand. Bodhi’s in his office doing CEO things and looking like he hates every minute of it.” He squints at me. “You look like you’ve been reading something interesting.”
I blink. “How can you tell?”
“The bags under your eyes. The way you’re holding that bag like it’s got something alive in it. And also Piper texted the family chat that you’ve been camped at Brine and Bean for three days with a really old book and a notebook you won’t let anyone see.” He shrugs. “We have a group chat. It’s mostly memes and complaints about Bodhi’s meeting reminders, but sometimes there’s actual information.”
Of course they have a group chat. Of course Piper told them. Of course Colter knows exactly why I’m here and has decided to be nice about it anyway.
“It’s Evangeline’s journal,” I say. “The woman who started the feud. She wrote about meeting Thomas Haven on No Name Island. There’s a cave. Or a fissure. She called it a chamber.”
Colter’s grin doesn’t fade. It sharpens. “No shit?”
“I was hoping to talk to Bodhi about it.”
