It arrived in the mail.
A plain envelope. No return address. Just her name in handwriting she didn't recognize.
Mara stared at it on the kitchen table for hours, afraid to touch it. The kettle whistled, went cold. A storm moved in across the bay. Still, she didn't open it.
Until she did.
Inside: a letter from Eliot's brother. The one he never talked about.
Hi. You don't know me. I'm Theo — Eliot's older brother. We hadn't spoken in years. But I found your name in one of his notebooks after… after he died.
He left more behind than he meant to. Music, sketches. Some letters. One of them had your name. He never sent it. I wasn't sure if I should… but I figured if you're anything like the way he wrote about you, you'd want the truth — even if it hurts.
I'm sorry he never told you how dark things had gotten. That wasn't fair. But he loved you. I know that much.
If you ever want the rest of what he left behind, I kept it safe. He didn't want to be forgotten.
Neither do I.
— Theo
Mara sat frozen. Not from pain this time — not exactly. It was something else.
Truth.
There had always been a gap in Eliot's story, a silence she couldn't fill. Now, someone else carried the missing pieces.
That night, she told Jonah everything.
They sat outside the boat shed, stars stitched across the sky like old wounds healing.
"So you're going to meet him?" Jonah asked gently.
"I think I have to."
Jonah nodded. "Sometimes the final piece isn't what you expect. It doesn't fix things. Just… makes the picture more whole."
She leaned her head on his shoulder. It didn't feel romantic — just safe.
"You ever wonder if grief has a shape?" she murmured.
"Yeah," Jonah said. "It's the shape of the people who hold us when we think we're alone."
The next morning, Mara returned to the bookstore.
The girl she'd met before — Isla — was there, nose buried in the journal Mara gave her, a pencil tucked behind her ear.
"You came back," Isla said softly.
"I live here."
Isla smiled. "No, I mean… you came back for me. Nobody does that."
Mara reached into her coat pocket, pulled out a small, flat stone she'd painted a lighthouse on.
"Keep it," she said. "To remind you you're not drifting."
Isla clutched it like it was treasure.
That night, Mara wrote her last letter to Eliot.
You weren't the whole story. But you were part of mine.
I forgive you for leaving.
And I forgive myself for loving you anyway.
You didn't drown me.
I learned to swim.
Goodbye, love. This time, I mean it.
— M.