Page 1 of Friends to Lovers

chapter one

I pull up to the salt-weathered house late Sunday afternoon, seagulls announcing themselves above and the ocean crashing in far below.

As I step out of the car, I suck in the Pacific Northwest air, like it’s the first breath I’ve taken in two and a half years.

It’s briny out here on the coast, where the sky stretches endless and blue over water that sparkles in tiny fractals, and where one week from now, my little sister will be married under the red-roofed lighthouse that juts out from the green headland a short walk away.

The trunk of the rental car heaves open with a groan, a stark contrast to the perfect Oregon day.

It’s fitting that my return to the West Coast would not only be on the heels of losing my job, but involve a dented Mazda that sounded like a freight train running off the tracks the entire way from PDX.

Coming back here was never going to be easy, but the journey could have been a little kinder.

Inside, the house is largely the same. The kitchen sits at the front, the long oak table that we can all fit around under the windows.

Through a small mudroom opposite are French doors leading to the screen porch that runs along one side of the house.

When everyone else arrives the day after tomorrow, there will be laughter rolling in from the yard, conversation in the kitchen, music playing.

For now, there’s only silence.

I drop my car keys on the granite island and walk my bags into the living room, where the sun streams in through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

I should go upstairs and unpack, start the week on a responsible note, settle myself in before the others arrive.

But a wave of all the memories this place holds suddenly washes over me, and I find myself unable to move another step.

This house has seen me through so many versions of myself, and this newest one feels like a stranger here, an intruder.

I brace myself. If I’m going to survive this week, I need to pretend that I haven’t intentionally been staying away these past few years.

I take another deep breath, pour a glass of wine, and fold my legs under me on the couch.

It was this view of the ocean that sold my parents and the Websters on the place when they purchased it together twenty years ago.

And now, with the familiar feel of the sun warming my shoulders, the sight of the waves shimmering before me, that same view quiets my mind for the first time in days.