“That will never happen again, I swear to you,” I whisper brokenly, trying not to shed my own fucking tears in the process.

“Fuck you, Fisher. FUCK YOU!” she screams.

She turns and takes off running down the alley and all I can do is stand there and watch her go.

Chapter 25

From Fisher’s Journal

March 3, 2004

“Fisher, come on. It’s freezing! I kind of thought we’d spend our last night together doing something a little bit warmer. Maybe with less clothing.”

Lucy’s musical laughter tickles my ears as she tries to lighten the situation and pretend there isn’t a dark cloud hovering over the two of us. She’s fought back tears every time we talked about our plans for today, our last day together. It makes me love her even more than I already do, knowing she’s doing everything she can to be strong so that I can walk away from her tomorrow without the distraction of worry and regret.

Tightening my hold on her hand, I pull her up the last couple of large boulders at the very top of the rock pile that lines either side of Fisher’s Lighthouse. Moving behind her, I wrap my arms around her waist and hold her close, resting my chin on top of the knit cap that covers her head. We stare silently out at the dark, endless ocean in front of us, a few angrily cresting waves the only bright spots in an otherwise sea of black nothingness.

“I love this spot. I always feel like we’re the only two people on earth when we come here. The entire world disappears and it’s just you and me,” Lucy speaks softly. I feel the vibrations of her voice travel through her back and gently rumble against my chest. Squeezing my arms tighter around her, I try not to think about walking away from her. After tomorrow, I won’t be able to touch her face, hear her laugh or see her smile for eighteen long months. My first deployment right after boot camp was a measly nine months and it dragged by, so I know being away from Lucy for twice as long is going to be akin to torture.

I didn’t think twice about signing up for the Marines my senior year of high school. I didn’t bat an eye when I came home and told my parents that I wouldn’t follow in my father’s footsteps and become the next fucking king of Fisher’s Island. I never regretted the rift my decision caused in my family, making my mother cry or having my father disown me. He only speaks to me when we were in public and he has to put on a good show of being a wonderful family man and supportive father. I even went along with the lie he told the island about how I moved out of their mansion on the cliffs and into my grandfather’s two-bedroom cottage in town because I wanted “a new experience” before I shipped out. I didn’t care about anything other than getting away from this damn island and the legacy that I never wanted.

The day I signed those fucking papers, though, I met Lucy Butler. After eighteen years of living in this one-horse town where everyone knows everyone else and the only new faces were temporary, Lucy was a breath of fresh air in my otherwise stagnant world. She didn’t blow through my life like a hurricane, but she disrupted my world just the same. Lucy was more like a gentle breeze that whispered against your skin, teasing you, soothing you and forcing you to chase after it just so you could feel it again. The first time I got her to smile, I felt like the world finally made sense. The first time I made her laugh, I felt like I could walk on water. The first time she kissed me, right here in this very spot, I felt like the fucking king my father always wanted me to be.

Almost three years later, nothing has changed. I still hate everything about this town, but I keep coming back because I can’t stand to feel the way I do when I’m away from her – like nothing makes sense, like I’m out there in the middle of that dark ocean, treading water all alone and trying to stop myself from sinking. Lucy keeps my head above water. She reminds me that there are still good people in this world who love you and expect nothing in return.

Given the situation in the Middle East, being redeployed was inevitable and I’ve been dying to get back in the action, but getting the orders still sucked and I did something really stupid that day. All I could think about was Lucy once again putting her life on hold, waiting for a man who wasn’t guaranteed to return to her. She had a good life here, full of beach parties with friends, working at the inn she loved and the fun and excitement of tourist season coming up to look forward to. I had the desert and IED’s, air raids and suicide bombers. We were only a few years apart in age, but a lifetime apart in experiences, and I told her as much.

It was the one and only time she ever hit me. My sweet, shy, beautiful girl lit up with rage and called me every name she could think of after she smacked me. I chuckle to myself when I remember that night a few weeks ago and Lucy turns around in my arms, sliding her hands up to rest on my chest as she stares up at me.

“What’s so funny?” she asks with a smile.

The beacon that circles around the lighthouse behind us slides over her features and I take a few seconds to memorize her face—her cheeks pink from the low temperature in the air, her silky, strawberry blonde hair spilling out from under her hat and splaying across her shoulders, her bright blue eyes sparkling as she smiles and the faint hint of freckles sprinkled across her nose.

“I was just thinking about the day I got my orders and you showed me your right hook.”

The corner of her mouth tips up in another smile, and with the dim light of the moon and the steady flash of the lighthouse, I can see her eyes cloud with worry. I wanted to bring her to this spot to tell her how much I love her, and now I’ve screwed it all up. I can tell she’s thinking that I might have brought her here to deliver the same spiel I gave her after I received my orders, the one about how maybe it isn’t a good idea that she wait for me, that maybe it would be better if she moved on. Her hands clutch tightly to the lapels of my wool coat and she pushes herself up on her tiptoes so that she doesn’t have to crane her neck to look me in the eye.