I asked Nate to meet me at the bench that afternoon.
He replied that he'd finished with the rental things and could come. I told Ruth where I was going, took my bag and walked there on my own.
Nate was already sitting at one end when I arrived. He stood, then waited while I chose where to sit. I took the other end.
The new board in the middle looked paler in the sun.
“Thank you for coming,” I said.
“Of course.”
I looked at the water. It was easier to begin when I wasn't looking straight at him.
“You still love her?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I nodded. This time I had come to give him my answer.
I rubbed my thumb against the strap of my bag. The fish clip was in my hair, holding a little section away from my face. I'd put it there before I left Ruth's, tried it twice and decided it was still a perfectly useful clip.
“I wanted you back,” I said. “When I found out Mum sent the message. For a while, I really wanted it.”
He breathed in slowly.
“I was trying to think of it as getting back something she'd taken,” I went on. “As if we could just start where we stopped.”
“A lot happened after that.”
“Yes.”
I turned toward him.
“You chose her. Then you chose to lie to me. I can't start again with you.”
He lowered his eyes.
“I understand.”
“I don't want us again. And I don't want to wait and see if you change your mind.”
“Okay.”
The answer was quiet. I had been afraid of having to refuse something I still wanted badly enough to reach for.
Instead we sat with the answer between us.
A woman passed with a dog that stopped to inspect the bench. It looked at Nate's shoes, looked at mine and decided neither was worth further attention.
I laughed softly.
“Fair judgement,” I said.
Nate gave a small smile. It faded before he could make a joke out of the whole afternoon.
“Are you leaving Monday?” he asked.
“Yes. Ruth's taking me.”
“The job at the guesthouse.”
“And my room. I've got a lamp and no curtains yet.”
“Curtains are useful.”
“I'll become a person who owns some eventually.”
He nodded. “I hope you like it there.”
“I already do.”
I leaned back against the bench. The sun had warmed the board behind my shoulders.
“I still want to fall in love,” I said.
He looked at me again.
“Not today. Probably not for a while. But I liked being in love. I don't want to spend the next few years pretending I didn't.”
“You shouldn't have to.”
“I won't.”
I said it more firmly than I'd meant to. That felt good.
We watched the water for a few minutes. I didn't try to find the seventeen-year-old boy in his face, or ask him to tell me another story about how happy we'd been. I knew we had been happy. I didn't need to keep proving it.
When I stood, he stayed seated until I had picked up my bag.
“I've kept the fish,” I said, touching the clip.
He looked at it. “I saw.”
“I like it.”
“It suits you.”
I smiled a little.
He rose. For a moment I thought we might hug. Neither of us moved closer.
“Goodbye, Nate,” I said.
“Goodbye, Lucy.”
My name sounded ordinary in his mouth now. Sad, but ordinary. I could walk away from it.
At the corner, I looked back once. He was still beside the bench, his hands in his pockets, looking at the river.
I went on.
The town was warm and bright. People were buying groceries, stopping to speak outside shops, carrying flowers for reasons that had nothing to do with our wedding.
I bought a cold drink on the way back to Ruth's. The bottle made my hand wet. I wiped it on my trousers and kept walking.
Ruth was in the garden when I arrived. She looked up, and I nodded before she could ask.
“All right?” she said.
“All right.”
I sat on the step with my drink while she watered the plants. Then I took the watering can when she asked and did the ones she hadn't reached.