Chapter Six: Starting Over
Eva hadn’t expected to stay.
Edgewater was meant to be temporary. A place to pass through. Like visiting a graveyard—you came, paid your respects, and left before the ghosts started talking.
But somehow, she was still here.
It wasn’t even dramatic. There was no one decision. No lightning-strike revelation. Just one small moment after another. Unfolding. Anchoring her in ways she hadn’t anticipated. Like how the scent of cinnamon and espresso filled her lungs when she stepped into the Hollow Bean Café. Or the way Rachel always left the radio on low, the same indie playlist looping through her day like a thread stitching time together.
And now—she was behind the counter, wearing an apron, pouring lattes, and wiping down tables with a rag that smelled faintly of lemon and old nostalgia.
Her first real day had started in chaos.
A fuse blew right before opening. The croissants were underbaked. A box of mismatched mugs shattered in the back like a warning from the universe. But Eva didn’t leave. She rolled up her sleeves. She swept up the broken things. She reset the breaker. She burned the next batch of croissants slightly less.
Rachel had watched all this with her arms crossed and a smirk tugging at her mouth.
“You’re a disaster,” she said, nodding approvingly.
“You’re the one who hired me.”
“Desperate times.”
But Eva could see it in her eyes—relief, maybe. Or something close to it. Rachel didn’t say it out loud, but Eva could feel the unspoken truth: someone had shown up. Stayed. And not just anyone. Her.
By mid-morning, the rush had started. Students from the college two towns over. A pair of elderly women from the church knitting group. A man in a suit who clearly didn’t belong but ordered black coffee like it was penance. Eva moved through it all with surprising ease, like the motions were waking something up in her. Something old and steady.
Her body remembered how to move without overthinking. Her hands remembered the rhythm of work. And slowly, something inside her began to shift.
---
The bell above the door chimed again.
She looked up automatically this time, because the first few times it had almost stopped her heart. She was done flinching.
It wasn’t Noah.
Just an older woman with a scarf tied neatly around her neck, holding a book like it was a secret.
Eva gave her a soft smile and turned back to the espresso machine.
Still not him.
Still a strange kind of relief.
---
Later, during the lull between rushes, Rachel brought two iced teas to the back booth and slid into the seat across from her without asking. Her hair was pulled into a messy bun, her eyeliner smudged like she hadn’t had time to care that morning.
“Okay,” she said, sipping loudly. “You’ve survived two shifts without quitting or crying. Time for the real question.”
Eva arched a brow. “Which is?”
“Are you going to keep running, or are you going to actually be here?”
Eva looked away, fingers tightening around her cup. “You don’t waste time, huh?”
Rachel shrugged. “Edgewater’s small. No room for pretending.”
There was a long pause between them. Eva didn’t fill it. She watched a couple outside walk by holding hands. Watched a leaf spin across the sidewalk.
“I’m not running,” she said finally. “Not anymore.”
Rachel studied her carefully, then nodded once. “Okay.”
Just like that. No lecture. No I-told-you-so. Just acceptance.
It was the kind of grace Eva hadn’t known she needed.
---
She closed the shop with Rachel that night.
The sky was soft and gold, the first hints of dusk painting the streets in long shadows. Eva stepped out onto the sidewalk, locking the door behind her while Rachel lit a cigarette and leaned against the brick wall like she had all the time in the world.
“You did good,” Rachel said between drags.
Eva snorted. “You say that like I didn’t almost serve someone chai with oat milk and whipped cream.”
“Rookie mistake. You’ll learn.”
They stood there in silence for a few moments, watching the last of the traffic crawl through Main Street.
Then Rachel asked, without looking at her, “You gonna talk to him if you see him?”
The question hung in the air like smoke.
Eva didn’t answer right away. She traced the shape of the town with her eyes—the post office, the old movie theatre, the bookstore’s glowing windows two blocks down.
She didn’t need to look directly at it. She felt it. Felt him. Somewhere nearby. Always just beyond reach.
“I don’t know what I’d even say,” she admitted. “I think about it… but everything sounds wrong.”
Rachel flicked ash onto the pavement. “Maybe you don’t have to say anything. Maybe just being here is the first thing.”
Eva looked down at her hands, callused again from wiping counters and lifting trays.
“Maybe,” she whispered.
She walked home slowly that night.
Not out of fear.
But to make it last.
The air smelled like rain was coming. Her muscles ached. Her clothes carried the scent of coffee and sugar. And for the first time in longer than she could remember, she felt… real.
Not healed. Not fixed.
But real.
And that was enough, for now
Rachel didn’t believe in fate.
She believed in caffeine, good boots, and people keeping their promises. Everything else was just chaos in nicer packaging.
So when she stepped out of Hollow Bean the next morning with a tray of scones for the community board meeting down the street and saw him—Sawyer—leaning against the driver’s side of a silver pickup, she did not gasp, drop the tray, or scream like a character in some cheap Hallmark rerun.
She did, however, stop walking.
He hadn’t changed much.
Still tall, still wearing that same relaxed posture like the world didn’t bother him. His hair was shorter than she remembered, a few more years of living etched into his jawline and under his eyes. There was a quiet about him now, something slower, heavier. Not broken—but close.
He didn’t see her yet.
Rachel took her time walking up. Balanced the tray on one hand, pulled off her sunglasses with the other. When she reached him, she didn’t smile.
“Didn’t expect to see you back in town,” she said, cool as ever.
Sawyer looked up, squinting slightly. Recognition settled slowly on his face.
“Rachel.” He nodded once. “Still mean as ever, I see.”
“Still avoiding small talk with people who ruin things,” she replied, and handed the tray off to a teenager passing by. “But here we are.”
His mouth twitched at that—almost a smile.
They stood in silence for a beat. The air between them felt like it could snap if either one moved too fast.
“I heard your dad sold the garage,” Rachel finally said, crossing her arms. “Didn’t think you’d come back without a reason.”
“I didn’t,” Sawyer said. “Came for the paperwork. Wasn’t planning to stay long.”
“But you’re still here.”
“I had a detour.”
Rachel tilted her head. “Let me guess. You found out she was back.”
Sawyer didn’t answer, but he didn’t need to.
Rachel sighed and looked away, her jaw tightening. “You don’t get to show up and act like you’ve got unfinished business just because now it hurts.”
“I’m not here for closure,” he said.
“Then what are you here for?”
His voice was low. Steady. “To see her. Once. Even if it wrecks me.”
Rachel stared at him for a long time. She didn’t like him. She didn’t hate him either. What she hated was what he did to Eva just by existing.
But she also saw something behind his eyes that wasn’t there years ago. Not just guilt. Something rawer.
Regret, maybe.
Real regret.
“I’m not your messenger,” she said at last.
“I’m not asking you to be.”
“Good. Because she’s finally breathing again.” Rachel stepped closer. “If you hurt her all over again, I swear to God, I will salt the earth you walk on.”
Sawyer almost laughed. “You always did have a flair for the dramatic.”
“And you always think silence is the same thing as peace.”
He opened his mouth to say something else, but she stopped him with a hand in the air.
“Not now. Not here.” Her voice was tight. “Let her come to you. Or don’t come at all.”
And with that, she turned on her heel and walked away.
She didn’t look back.
But part of her knew he was still watching.
---
Later that afternoon, back in the café, Rachel said nothing to Eva. Not at first.
She didn’t need to.
Because when Rachel handed her a clean apron and their fingers brushed, Eva froze.
“You saw him,” Eva whispered.
Rachel hesitated. Then nodded.
Eva’s breath caught. Her spine stiffened like she was bracing for impact.
“Did he ask about me?”
“No.”
A pause.
“But he didn’t need to.”
Eva didn’t respond.
She picked up a rag, turned toward the sink, and scrubbed harder than necessary.
Rachel didn’t push.
But that night, as she locked the door and walked to her car, she saw the truth in Eva’s shoulders.
She wasn’t running anymore.
But she sure as hell wasn’t ready to stand still.
Not yet.