Page 63 of Fate, Interrupted

“So do I,” I say.

“Good,” she says. “I hope we fight about it.”

We eat in the middle of the lake with the afternoon waning around us, and we debate poetry with the pointed pleasure of two people who both know what they’re talking about and have no intention of conceding anything.

But the thing I said sits between us, not finished, not resolved, not named for what it actually is, and neither of us reaches for it again.

Not today.

But it’s there.

And we both know it.

The shore comes back into view eventually, the dock extending its narrow length into the water, the rental shack sitting in the shade. I row us in with considerably more competence than I rowed us out, which Norah notes with commentary is a mercy on all of us.

When we arrive, I ship the oars and catch the dock piling. We are back where we started, but I no longer feel as if I’m pretending this is casual.

“Silas,” she says.

“Yeah.”

She doesn’t look at me. She looks at the water alongside the dock, at the light doing its afternoon work on the surface.

“You should know this about me. I don’t scare easily.”

Not a reassurance. Not a promise—a fact she’s setting down between us without softening it.

Chapter seventeen

Norah

The boat hits the dock harder than it should.

It’s not catastrophic; no skidding, no one goes into the lake, no lawsuit, but the hollow thump of wood against the piling carries across the water, with ringing clarity because the maneuver was meant to be graceful and wasn’t, and I laugh before I can stop it. Not the polite version I keep in reserve for the shop when someone says something mildly amusing. The real one, pulled straight out of me without asking permission.

“You meant to do that,” I say.

Silas doesn’t look up. He’s already reaching for the rope, his attention narrowed to the knot with the focused concentration of a man who has decided that if he ties this with enough precision, history will remember the docking differently.

“I eased us in,” he says.

“You lunged at it.”

“The approach was controlled.”

“I think the dock would disagree.”

I step carefully onto the dock, one hand wrapping around the weathered post at the edge while the boards move slightly under my feet, warm from the afternoon sun and rough under my palm.

“I offered to help row,” I remind him.

“You offered an op-ed on my rowing,” he says, stepping up beside me and lifting the picnic basket out. “That’s different.”

“Op-eds can be supportive.”

“Only if they’re supporting your opinion.”

“I absolutely was. I was emotionally present for the entire thing.”