Chapter Three:Noah
He always knew she’d come back.
Not in the hopeful, storybook kind of way. Not like the boys in movies who waited by train stations or left porch lights on, believing in fate. Noah Hayes didn’t believe in fate anymore.
But some part of him—stubborn, quiet, and buried somewhere beneath the broken places—had always known Eva would return to Edgewater. Maybe because the town had a way of holding on to people. Or maybe because she had never truly left him.
And now she was here.
He found out through Rachel, in the most ordinary way imaginable. She’d walked into the shop that morning for her usual lemon tea and stayed longer than usual, thumbing through a stack of poetry books like she was avoiding saying something.
Then, just as she was leaving, she’d dropped it.
"Saw Eva the other day. Thought I imagined it at first. She walked right past Hollow Bean like she belonged there."
Noah didn’t say a word.
He just stood behind the counter, still and too quiet, until Rachel gave him a look that said sorry and slipped out without pressing further.
After she left, he moved like a ghost through his own store.
The walls of Hayes Books & Vinyl had always felt a little too big when he was alone—especially during rainy mornings like this, when the floors creaked underfoot and the hum of the old air vents was the loudest sound in the room. The store was his sanctuary, built after she left. A place of dust, warmth, and distraction.
But Eva was a thread woven into the corners of every room. Her favorite spot by the window, where the sun came in brightest mid-afternoon. The small scuff on the back shelf where she used to kick her boots off too hard. The jazz records she swore she hated, but played over and over anyway.
He hadn't changed those things.
He told himself it was laziness. Nostalgia. Maybe a little pride.
But the truth was simpler.
He hadn’t wanted to erase her.
He hadn’t known how.
Noah moved to the back room and began opening the latest delivery of books. His fingers were steady, practiced. He cataloged the titles in silence, cross-checking invoices with a mechanical calm that had once been second nature. But today his mind wasn’t here. It was out there. Somewhere on Main Street. Somewhere with her.
Was she walking through town like nothing had happened? Did she think she could slip in and out of Edgewater without being noticed? Without looking back?
He doubted she knew how many people still remembered her.
Hell, he remembered her so clearly it was almost embarrassing. The way she bit her lip when she was nervous. The way she leaned against door frames when she was about to say something she knew would change everything. The way she laughed like she didn’t care who was watching.
God, that laugh.
He exhaled and leaned back against the wall.
Seven years.
He’d spent them building something solid. Tangible. Something that didn’t leave.
The bookstore had become his constant. A place people relied on. A place that grounded him. But even here, surrounded by hardcovers and the smell of cedar and ink, there were days—long, still, hollow days—when he wondered what it would’ve looked like if she’d stayed.
Would they have grown up together? Would she still write in the margins of books and drink her coffee too sweet? Would they have argued about whether music should be played in the car or listened to in silence?
Would she still have loved him?
Noah closed his eyes and pressed his palms into his eyes, hard, like he could push the thoughts away.
The letter had been a mistake.
He’d left it under her apartment door in Chicago four weeks ago. After a business trip brought him within a few blocks. He told himself he just wanted to see where she lived. Maybe walk by the building. Just once.
But seeing her name on the mailbox had undone him.
He wrote the letter in his car. Didn’t sign it. Didn’t think. Just folded the paper and slid it under her door and walked away.
He hadn’t expected a reply. He hadn’t wanted one. Not really.
He just wanted her to know.
That he still remembered.
That someone still did.
His phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out, thumb flicking over the screen without much thought.
Nothing.
No messages. No missed calls.
Not that he expected her to reach out.
If she wanted to see him, she would. If she didn’t, he wasn’t going to chase her.
Again.
Still, he scrolled back to the draft he had written earlier. One line.
“Are you really here, or am I just seeing ghosts again?”
He stared at it.
Then deleted it.
What was the point?
Noah turned back to the box of books and started sorting again. That’s what he did best. He rebuilt. He rearranged. He cleaned up what others left behind.
And if Eva was really back in Edgewater, the only thing he could do now… was wait.
But this time, he wasn’t waiting for her to stay.
He was waiting to see if she had the courage to face him.
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