Page 71 of Better than Yesterday
I let out a long, ragged exhale and dropped the act. My shoulders slumped. “Is it that obvious?”
“To the others, maybe not. But I can see it. Takes a bullshitter to know a bullshitter and all that.” He turned to face me. “You want to tell me why you’re out here staring at the ocean instead of eating cake?”
“Because I ruined it,” I said, the truth finally spilling out. “I couldn’t stand being in there and watching them. You. I had what you all have. I had it in my hands, and I threw it away because I was scared she would do it first. I’m a coward, Eli.”
Eli listened, his expression unreadable. He didn’t interrupt.
“I ended it because I couldn’t stand the thought of waiting for the axe to fall. So I swung it myself. And now... seeing Ben, seeing everyone so happy... I just feel like I disqualified myself from this family’s good luck.”
Eli took another long drink, his face unusually contemplative. “I had a list. When things got serious with Jules. A whole list of reasons why it would never work. She was too structured. I was too chaotic. She was a planner. I lived for the moment. Her job was her life. My life was my job. It was a very logical, detailed list.”
He turned to me, and I could just make out the wry set of his mouth. “And every single item on it was bullshit. Just a shield. A pre-emptive excuse for when I inevitably screwed it up or when she realized she could do better. Because deep down, I was terrified of repeating the same mistakes Dad did. I figured if I didn’t let myself fall all the way, it wouldn’t hurt as much when it ended.”
His words struck a chord deep inside me, like the cracking of a rib.
“You keep trying to treat love like it’s a business plan, Braden.” His voice firmed up, cutting through my haze of self-pity. “You want to run the numbers, assess the market,and mitigate the risk before you invest. Then get out if the odds don’t look good. But it doesn’t work that way. It’s not a solvable equation. The risk is the whole point. It’s a leap. You don’t get the reward”—he gestured with his bottle back toward the warm, bright house full of love and laughter—“without it.”
Eli’s words, coming from my carefree, fun-loving brother who had stared into the same family abyss and found the courage to jump, dismantled the last of my justifications. There was no logic left to hide behind, only the agonizing truth of my mistake.
“It’s too late,” I said, looking down at my beer. “She got the offer. The big one. The dream job.”
“And?”
“And she’s gone. She’s probably packing right now.”
Eli looked at me, his gaze sharp and unwavering. “How can you be sure she accepted? Have you called her? Have you even sent a text?”
Of course I hadn’t. Calling her would make it real. Her silence, or worse, her polite confirmation that she was moving on, would be the final nail in my own coffin. It was easier to live with the assumption of loss than to have it confirmed.
I couldn’t answer him. I just shook my head.
“Jesus, Braden.” Eli clapped a hand on my shoulder, hard. “You’re the smartest guy I know, but you’re being an idiot. You made a mistake. But until you see the taillights of her car crossing that bridge, it’s not over. Unless you decide it is.”
I scrubbed a hand over my face. “I really screwed this up.”
“Yeah,” Eli agreed. He finished his beer and set it on the railing. “You did. A lot of us do, and Tessa bears someresponsibility also. But sometimes we get a second chance, or maybe a third in your case. If you go after it.”
He went back inside, leaving me alone in the dark. But this time, instead of the gray fog, a spark of something else flared in my chest. Challenge.
Chapter Twenty-Five
TESSA
My townhouse had become unrecognizable,transformed from an anonymous corporate rental into a command center. Where cardboard boxes and IKEA furniture had once defined the space, my walls now displayed a mosaic of possibility—laminated maps of Dove Key and neighboring Calypso Key’s marine ecosystems overlapping like sheets of hope, grant funding timelines pinned alongside my very non-professional sketches for the Dove Key Marine Conservation Center. Empty coffee mugs migrated across the desk in a slow accumulation of late nights, their rings staining papers I hadn’t moved.
This was my war room. This was also, I was beginning to understand, my declaration of war against the life I’d been living—the one I hadn’t chosen.
It was nearly eleven o’clock when I opened my laptop and stared at the email draft I’d been composing for hours. The cursor blinked in the empty field, waiting patiently.
After sending the email declining the Great Barrier Reef fellowship, I’d gotten a whirlwind of concern. Dr. Albright had called, his voice heavy with paternal disappointment and worry, urging me not to be rash. He’d told me to take a few days. To sleep on it. To realize that I was just burned out from the field work and that I shouldn't throw away a career-defining opportunity over a "bout of island fever."
He meant well with his follow-up emails. But every time he told me to "think it over," the clarity in my chest only sharpened. He was offering me a compromise, a way to keep one foot in the safe, prestigious world of Scripps while I "got this out of my system."
But I didn’t want to get it out of my system. I wanted to live in it.
I couldn't build the conservation center as a side project. I couldn't split my focus between the bureaucracy of a massive institution and the scrappy, hands-on reality of saving this reef. Dr. Albright’s gentle concern only crystallized the truth I’d been avoiding. I couldn't just say no to Australia. I had to say no to the safety net.
I pulled up the draft. It wasn't just a decline letter anymore. It was a departure.
