She finally stands back up and shakes her head at me. “Nope, we’re not talking about me. There is nothing going on with me worth talking about when there is PLENTY going on with you. Lucy, your ex-husband and the love of your life has been back on the island for a little over three weeks and I can’t help but notice that you’ve been a lot more attentive to Stanford since that happened. You’ve been going out of your way to show everyone that the two of you are perfectly happy together, but I know you. I know this must be hard on you, seeing him again after all this time. You don’t have to put up a front for me. You know you can tell me anything.”

Leaning my back against the wall in the hallway, I close my eyes and let my head thump against the wall.

“This sucks. This really, really sucks,” I whisper.

I hear her feet shuffle and she moves to stand next to me, her arm pressing against mine as we both lean into the wall.

“I don’t know what is going on with me. I said good-bye to him in my mind and my heart. I let my anger take over where the love used to be and I’ve been fine. I’ve learned how to live without him. Forget three weeks, three MINUTES with him and suddenly I’m questioning everything,” I tell her as I lean my head to the side and rest it on her shoulder.

“Do you know what he did last week?” I ask, pulling the journal pages out of my back pocket that I’ve read so many times the papers are almost starting to fall apart. I hand them to Ellie and she unfolds them and starts to scan the pages.

“Those are some pages out of a journal he kept in high school. It was from the year I moved here and we first met and then when I tutored him in Chemistry. Everything he felt, everything in his heart, was poured out on those pages and it killed me, Ellie. The way he saw me and the way he opened up to me like he’d never done with anyone else before. I remembered every moment of that time with him and it hurt so much.”

I pause and squeeze my eyes closed even tighter, ashamed of the hundreds of times I’ve read those pages in the last week, alone in bed at night, after Stanford has kissed me good-bye and we’ve made plans for the following day.

“Wow,” Ellie says softly as she gets to the last page and hands them back to me.

“I know,” I tell her with a sigh as I refold them and shove them back into my back pocket.

“I know you’re going to hate me for saying this,” Ellie says softly, “But maybe it’s a good thing that you remember it. Your head has been so filled with the bad stuff and he’s just trying to get you to remember that there were good times, too. You two grew up together and you built a life together. It wasn’t all bad, and he’s trying to get you to realize that. He’s a different person now, Lucy. Everyone can see it. I think he just wants you to see it, too.”

“That’s the problem. I DO see it. I see so much of the old Fisher that I fell in love with and it’s tearing me apart.”

“I think what you need is a break,” Ellie suddenly announces as she slides away from the wall and stands in front of me. “Get your ass cleaned up and get out of this place. Go into town and get some fudge from Ruby’s. I think some double chocolate peanut butter swirl is just what the doctor ordered.”

She’s right, I’ve been cooped up in the inn for a week and all it’s done is given me more time to dwell on things. With a quick hug, I race over to my living quarters and take a quick shower, throwing on an old pair of jean shorts and a Butler House t-shirt, fastening my wet hair up on top of my head in a messy bun.

Pulling my golf cart into an open parking space a few spots down from Ruby’s, I immediately see the one person I’d hoped to avoid when I came to town. I should have known better. Standing here on the sidewalk, I can’t help but stare at him and I’m glad I threw on a pair of sunglasses so it’s not so obvious I’m checking him out. Today, Fisher’s paired his usual khaki cargo shorts with a red USMC t-shirt that hugs his upper body in too many right places. On his head is a backwards Butler House baseball cap that is ratty, dirty and incredibly faded. The sight of that hat does all sorts of things to me and I have to press my hand over my heart to try and get it to stop beating so fast. I gave him that hat right before he left for basic training. He took it with him on every deployment and told me he wore it more often than the uncomfortable helmets they were given. It’s been across the world and back countless times and I can’t believe he still has it.

I stop ogling him long enough to realize his black, F150 truck is backed up right in front of Ruby’s and I’m guessing he just got here and no one has noticed that he’s breaking one of the main summer laws on the island: no motor vehicles on Main Street. It sticks out like a sore thumb in the sea of white golf carts and bicycles parked along the street. I see him struggling to pull something out of the back end of the truck and I realize why he broke the law and drove into town. He’s delivering the sign he was working on when I stopped by Trip’s place last week. It takes up half of the bed of the truck and there’s no way he could have brought it into town on a cart.

Pushing my sunglasses up on my head, I jog over to the back of his truck and grab onto the sign across from him. I’d seen the sign almost finished and I know how much work he put into it. Seeing how absolutely beautiful it is with paint and the final coating of varnish, I don’t want him to mess it up trying to lift it on his own or hurt is shoulder.

He looks up in surprise. “Hey, what are you doing here?