Page 109 of Until the Storm Breaks

That night in the storm after the memorial. When we toldeach other we loved each other. He wrote about us and stood up in front of hundreds of strangers to declare it. Calvin Midnight, who guards his privacy like a fortress, who never likes to talk about his personal life, just told the world he loves me.

The tears come without warning, hot and overwhelming. My hands are shaking as I replay his words in my head.

Until the storm breaks.

Or until I do.

He’s waiting. Not running, not hiding behind metaphors. He’s sitting in what he calls the wreckage, waiting for me to decide if we have a chance. It’s the most vulnerable I’ve ever seen him, and he did it in front of everyone.

My chest feels too tight, like I can’t get enough air. The tears keep coming because hearing him say those words, seeing him be that brave, breaks something open in me. This is Calvin saying he believes me about the tattoo, that he knows I’m not some obsessed fan. This is him trying to bridge the gap between us the only way he knows how—through words, but honest ones this time.

The door opens and Lark slips in, her presence immediately making the small storage room feel even smaller. “Hey. It’s dead out there, everyone’s at that harvest festival in Millbrook. Thought I’d check on you. You okay? You’ve been back here a while.”

I hand her my phone wordlessly, replay the video. She watches Calvin read the poem, her eyes widening as she realizes what she’s witnessing. When it ends, she lets out a long breath and hands the phone back to me.

“Wow,” she says, sitting down on a case of beer across from me. “That’s not just a poem, Maren. That’s him telling the whole world he loves you. That’s him admitting he’s drowning without you.”

“I know,” I say, still staring at my phone. “It’s... I’ve never seen him do anything like this.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I need... I need to think about this for a minute.” I gesture to my clipboard and the produce order I’d been working on before. “I’ll finish up the weekend order. Process everything.”

Lark squeezes my shoulder. “Of course. Take all the time you need. I’ll handle the bar.”

“Thanks.”

“Hey,” she says at the door. “That took guts, what he did. Just remember that.”

Then she’s gone, and I’m alone with his voice still echoing from my phone.

I replay the video. Once. Twice. Three times. Thirty minutes pass, maybe more. My phone stays silent except for the sound of his poem on repeat.

But I’ll sit here,

in the quiet wreckage of what we almost were,

and wait.

Until the storm breaks.

Or until I do.

He hasn’t called. He read this incredibly personal thing about us to hundreds of strangers but hasn’t picked up the phone to talk to me directly. Why? Is he waiting for me to reach out? Is he sitting in Seattle wondering if I even saw it?

Or maybe—and this thought makes my stomach clench—maybe it wasn’t really for me. Maybe he needed something profound for the festival, something raw and real to remind everyone why he’s Calvin Midnight. God, what if I’m sitting here analyzing a poem that was just him giving his audience what they wanted? Another beautiful performance from the master of turning pain into art?

The door opens again and Lark peeks in. “Still watching it?”

“He hasn’t called,” I say, setting my phone down. “Not even a text.”

“Maybe he’s terrified. Maybe he thinks you didn’t see it. Maybe he’s waiting for you to make the next move.” She studies my face. “What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. “I need time to think. To figure out what this means, what I want to say if I do reach out.”

“Come on,” she says gently. “We’re closing early. You need to get out of this storage room and process this somewhere that doesn’t smell like stale beer and cardboard.”

“It’s Saturday night, Lark. We can’t just close,” I protest, but even I can hear I’m not really fighting it.