Page 54 of Finders Keepers

Quentin and I lay on the comforter-covered floor of my bedroom for a long time, mostly silent, staring up at the ceiling.

“What should we do with it?” he asks finally. “Put it back?”

I tuck away the part of me that feels slightly bruised by our find—both the one-two punch of Fountain’s and Louisa’s letters, and the end of our adventure—and put on my more objective historian hat.

“I think we should contact Sharon at the Sprangbur Conservancy and see if they want the letters and box for their collections. The way they talked about Louisa during the tour, as if she were just Fountain’s secretary…

I think this might help them reinterpret the relationship and make it known how important she was to both his business and his life.

That would make me feel moderately better, to get her some acknowledgment.

Maybe we can even ask Eugene and Emily if they would mind someone making a copy of the Edlo manuscript.

That could be nice for the Conservancy to have too.

After all, Louisa was the author, and for all intents and purposes, she was the lady of the house. ”

“If they ask how we found it…?”

“Maybe we give them a truncated version of the truth,” I say.

“We were interested in the legend of Fountain’s treasure, we did some research, and we found it in a compartment hidden in the outer wall of the cenotaph.

We don’t need to mention that you were sitting on the information for almost two decades. ”

Quentin pillows his hands beneath his head and stares up at the ceiling again, contemplating. Is he thinking about Fountain and Louisa, about us, or about something else altogether?

He starts talking slowly, as if still putting together his thoughts. “What Fountain said…about missing what’s real and in front of us because we’re busy living inside the stories we tell ourselves.”

“Yeah?”

“I think that’s what happened to us. We got too wrapped up in the stories we were telling ourselves about…

well, ourselves. And each other.” He turns toward me now and rests a hand on my hip.

“My biggest regret in life is that I missed what was real and right in front of me back then. That I didn’t see you trying to prove yourself to me the same way I was trying to prove myself to you.

That I ghosted you instead of facing what I’d done.

That I wasn’t around when you needed me, when your dad got hurt. I will never forgive myself for that.”

“Quentin…”

“I told myself you couldn’t possibly want me unless I hoodwinked you into it.

Part of me still thinks that, if I’m being honest. But I’m going to try so hard, Nina, to stop telling myself that story now.

I’m hoping we might start a new one together.

I know you might have changed your mind about staying—”

“I haven’t,” I say. “I haven’t changed my mind at all. In fact, the library formally offered me Mrs. MacDonald’s position yesterday morning. I’ve already accepted.”

It’s true that I considered taking the job at Malbyrne and going back to Boston in the immediate aftermath of our fight.

But then the other day, staring at that puzzle box on my nightstand, I found myself thinking about Julius James Fountain, wearing pink paisley pajamas that matched his chair.

He believed that fear was just a shorthand way to discover everything you loved and would do anything to keep.

And that made me realize that, even without Quentin in the picture, what I was most afraid of losing were my parents and apple fritters and Hanako’s bar.

The special collections room and Mr. Farina’s booty shorts and the scent of honeysuckle.

I think my heart is here now, whether it’s broken or whole.

Obviously I prefer whole. But as much as I want to be Quentin’s Nina, I know I don’t have to be in order to find happiness. I understand now that love, when it’s real, doesn’t require you to be someone different. It just makes you even more solidly yourself.

And the fear of getting it all wrong, getting hurt…Maybe it’s just a sign that you’re doing it right.

“You…you did?” There’s so much hope in his expression that it’s a physical pain inside my breastbone.

I nod. “It’s what I want. I want to be here. And I prefer it to be with you. Because I love you, Quentin. And I’m sorry that the treasure wasn’t worth more, but—”

I’m kissed silent, the rest of my words swallowed up before they make it past my lips.

“The treasure is worth everything,” he says.

“Because for me the treasure is you, Nina. And it always has been.” Quentin punctuates the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me with a small laugh that rises to the very top of my mental catalog’s Favorites list, filed under The moment I knew, deep in my soul, that there would never be anyone else for me.