Page 97 of The Beach Trap

Kat nods but doesn’t meet my eyes. “It might be time to call the real estate agent.”

That must mean that she doesn’t have the ability to buy me out. My stomach bottoms out; Kat must be devastated. She’s about to turn and go upstairs when I speak.

“You don’t have to leave tonight,” I say. “You’re welcome to stay, unless you have other plans.”

Kat turns, a cautious smile on her face. “I’d like that.”

•••

We order takeoutfrom Camille’s and eat on the back deck, watching the sun go down. The days are getting shorter, a reminder that summer is coming to an end. Just like our time here.

“I’m sorry we have to sell the house,” I say as we finish eating our seafood pizza and sushi. We’ve settled side by side on the top step, looking out over the beach.

She nods and sets her plate aside. “I’m still hoping something might work out, but there’s no guarantee. My dad—” She stops, clears her throat. “Ourdad made some bad financialdecisions, so there’s no money and my income isn’t stable enough to qualify for a mortgage.”

Her voice is shaky, and I tread carefully as I speak again. “It’s got to feel like losing the last piece of him.”

“Yeah,” she says, nodding. I steal a glance at her; her eyes glisten with unshed tears. “This was one of the only places where he relaxed and spent time with me, where I felt like he might actually love me. We didn’t have an easy relationship, so the memories here feel extra special.”

“I’m really sorry,” I say, wishing with my entire soul that I had the money to snap my fingers and buy this house for her. For me, too. I might not have grown up coming here, but I can’t deny I feel a connection to this place.

Kat leans back on her hands, her eyes fixed on the horizon. “You know that last day at camp, when he came to pick me up?”

“Of course.” As if I could forget the defining moment of my adolescence.

“Before that day, Dad was perfect in my eyes. My hero. But after—” She shakes her head. “It shattered my view of him, of my family—of myself, too. We never talked about it—it was this big secret I felt like I had to keep to protect my family. But now I realize it wasn’t a secret at all. I’m not sure when my mom found out about you, but she knew.”

I ball my hands into fists, not trusting myself to speak. Knowing you were someone’s dirty secret and hearing it are two different things, and I’m not sure what to make of the fact that Kat’s mom knew.

Kat wipes her eyes. “I idolized him so much growing up that I couldn’t blamehimfor any of it. So I blamed you. I’m sorry for that. Sorry for the way I treated you, and I’m sorry I never responded to your letters.”

I’ve never imagined that Kat Steiner could be this vulnerable.Her hair is loose and slightly frizzy in the ocean breeze, almost no makeup on her face. I can see a few freckles on her cheeks, the beginnings of some lines on her forehead, a tiny scar on her chin from some long-ago injury. It’s like I’m seeing her, unfiltered, for the first time.

I’m about to speak, to tell her how sorry I am for judging her so harshly all these years, when I realize she’s crying. Silent tears roll down her cheeks; she’s trying to keep herself from falling apart.

Feeling awkward, I scooch over and carefully put my arm around her. At my touch, her shoulders shake and she puts her face in her hands, letting herself sob.

When Kat catches her breath, she glances over at me, her face tear-streaked. “How do you get through it?” she asks, pleading. “The grief? All this pain? I feel like I’m walking around with a knife sticking out of my stomach. One wrong move and it hurts so badly I can’t breathe.”

Tears fill my own eyes as I remember the months after my mom died—not only losing her, but the pain of realizing that my dad wasn’t coming for me. I was so young that I hardly had words to express how I felt, but I remember that pain she describes. I felt it again a few years ago, when my grandmother passed. Even though she’d been sick for a while, I wasn’t ready to let her go.

“Time does help,” I tell her, which sounds trite. “Crying helps, too. Having someone to talk to helps.” That was one of the hardest things after my mom died; I had no friends in my new town, and my grandparents were going through their own terrible loss, so I had to keep my grief to myself.

“I probably need therapy,” Kat says, giving a sad laugh.

“Maybe,” I say. “But you can talk to me, too. Whenever you need to. I can’t do much, but I can listen.”

She shakes her head. “I can’t lay that on you. I feel like I needto spend the next fifteen years apologizing to you for what he did—”

“I have an idea,” I say, breaking in. “How about we stop apologizing for our father’s mistakes?”

She swallows, takes a deep breath, and nods. “And let’s stop blaming each other for his mistakes, too.”

“Deal,” I say, giving a tentative smile. Then I pause, thinking about something else that’s been weighing on me. “I have good memories of him, too. Of our dad. But sometimes I worry that remembering the good means I’m excusing the bad things he did, and I refuse to do that. I can’t pretend like the scales are balanced.”

Kat thinks on that for a moment. “Maybe the scales don’t need to be balanced. Maybe the good and the bad can just exist, side by side. Dad made some serious mistakes, but Henry reminded me the other day that he gave us a gift. And I don’t just mean the beach house. I mean the chance to get to know each other again.”

I smile. “I can get behind that.” Then I nudge her shoulder with mine. “So... you’ve been hanging out with Henry?”

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