Page 85 of The Lightkeeper

The tears I’d held back suddenly overflowed, spilling down my cheeks just as there was a loud knock on the front door.

“I’ll get it,” I said quickly, swiped my cheeks clean, and stood.

Dad was already asleep in front of the wood-burning stove, his open book toppled onto his chest. Even though he was on medical leave from the college for the rest of the semester and then on break until the fall, he still wouldn’t take time to actually relax. But I couldn’t blame him because I would be the same way.

My heart rose into my throat as I got closer to the door. It couldn’t be Kit; he wouldn’t be in Boston. Couldn’t be. I willed my hopes back down into my chest and opened it.

“Frankie?” I gaped at the woman on my doorstep. It was Frankie, but it looked nothing like her. Fitted pants. A loose blouse underneath a sweater vest.

“Aurora!” Her eyes went wide, and then she smiled in relief. “Thank God.” And then I was knocked back by the force of her hug.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, squeezing her back like she could magically transport me back to Maine.Back to him.“Does your brother know you’re here?”

“God, no.” She shook her head and the last of my hopes that Kit had sent her deflated. “He’d probably kill me.”

I hummed and closed the door behind her. “What are you wearing?” I’d never seen her dressed so… professionally before.

“Oh, I borrowed this from Lou.”That made more sense.“I just wasn’t sure what to expect when I got here, so Ifigured I shouldn’t look like a wax-stained slob on your doorstep.” Then her eyes raked over me. “What areyouwearing?”

I looked down at what I had on. Sweatpants. A T-shirt, and a zip-up. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

“It’sgray.”

I blinked, and I realized I’d hardly worn any color since coming home. Grays and blacks and beige. I could claim I wasn’t paying attention, but deep down, my brain knew I wasn’t ready for color—knew I didn’t feel very colorful right now.

But what did that matter? Wearing a color wouldn’t change anything.

“What are you doing here, Frankie?” I asked again, suddenly feeling like every second in her presence was like peeling a scab over a wound that was trying to heal.

I tucked my arms over my chest, holding myself tight.

“I came to convince you,” she declared. “You have to come back, Aurora. Kit is in love with you.”

I reeled, my shoulder bumping into the wall in the hallway. She certainly didn’t beat around the bush.

“No.” My head swiveled, resisting the sting I felt behind my eyes.In love with me?No. She was wrong. “No, he’s not. We were just a fling?—”

“A fling?” She choked and shook her head. “Oh no. If you were a fling, then I’m going to go back to calling sea stars starfish because you and my brother were about as close to a fling as sea stars are actual fish.”

My head ducked.

“You know my brother, Aurora. You have been around him more in the last four months than anyone has been in the last decade. He letyouinto his world?—”

“He didn’t have a choice?—”

“Bullshit,” she scoffed. “We thought he didn’t have a choice when he came home and lived at Mom’s… next thing we knew, he’d moved into a lighthouse—a freaking lighthouse,Aurora.” She jerked her head. “No, if Kit Kinkade doesn’t want to be around people, he will find a way.” Her expression softened. “But he wanted to be around you. He wanted to be with you. You helped him be better, and in the end, he pushed you away for the same reason he pushed the rest of us away—because he thought you deserved better.”

“Did he?”

“How can you not think that? After seeing what he wrote? What he drew?”

Wrote? Drew?My brow pulled together. “What are you talking about?”

Now, she looked as confused as I was.

“The journal.”

“What journal?”

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