Chapter 261: Madeline
I sleep like I’ve been poured back into my own body—heavy, warm, held on both sides by heat that smells like pine and salt and something only they have. No alley. No water. Just breath at my nape and a palm splayed low on my stomach, and when I finally drift up, they’re gone to the boat and the sheets still remember them.
I pee, sip water, promise them and myself I’ll rest, then climb back into bed with Boomer and all his wreckage. Ten chapters in, my heart is sore for him—parents, the girl, all of it—and I’m bracing for the next hit when my phone buzzes across the duvet like a tiny fish trying to escape a net.
Charlie: make an insta, you recluse.
My first reaction is a flinch so sharp I taste metal. I haven’t had social media since… before. I erased myself like an animal shedding a skin; no tags, no breadcrumbs, no trails. Safety used to mean silence.
But safety looks different now. Sloane is gone. Nick is… dealt with. I’m in a town where gruff men in work boots take boats out in a storm for a girl who once fetched a floating hat. And the app is already sitting there on my shiny new phone, like Charlie tucked courage into the home screen.
“New life,” I whisper, and tap.
Sign up. Email. Password. Username. My thumbs hover. For one stupid, reckless second I type @madelineanderson, then delete-delete-delete so fast I almost laugh at myself. Too much, too soon. Try again.
@thewhalenerd.
It fits like a sweater I forgot I owned.
I follow Charlie first—she’s exactly as she is in real life: filthy gorgeous selfies, sea-spray hair, sunset donuts, captions that feel like winks. Then Finn and Liam: @finnlikescheddar, @liamlikesmozzarella. Of course. Their grids are a museum of chaos—cheese shots staged like perfume ads, blurry party photos, decks and ropes and the Vigil’s bow knifing through slate water, a few shameless ab/bicep thirst traps that make me snort and roll my eyes and double-tap anyway.
Then the twins. @reid_anderson_swmri. @jake_anderson_swmri. Barely anything there—work, horizon lines, the Vigil in fog, a photo of the two of them at the rail looking like twin storms in black beanies. In a tagged shot I spot the other man who stood with them on the boat the day everything broke and then stitched—Cruz. The memory is a smear, but I remember his steady voice on the boat, the way the crew on the other one seemed to listen when he spoke. My chest goes tight with a weird, tender gratitude.
I flip back to my empty profile. “Okay,” I murmur, and pick a picture. It’s the one from the night I came home: all of us crammed on the SWMRI couch, Charlie mid-cackle, Finn and Liam leaning in, Jake doing that small contained almost-smile, Reid’s arm slung behind me like a promise. My hair is messy, my face is bare, and I look… alive.
Caption: family 💕
I hit post and it’s like tossing a bottle into the tide. For a second I just stare at the screen, heartbeat in my fingertips. Then an hour or so later, the little hearts start to pop—Charlie immediately: finallyyy 😘; Liam with twenty star emojis for no reason; Finn with a heart and a “OUR GIRL.” A few names I don’t know—town people—drop anchors and whales and “welcome home.”
Heat blooms low in my stomach that has nothing to do with pain and everything to do with belonging. I tuck the phone beside me, curl around the Boomer book again, and let the page pull me under until the next buzz lights up the bedside table.
Jake: ten minutes. Ready for your surprise, Trouble?
My grin is instant and ridiculous. I didn't realize the day had passed and it's this late already. I smooth the blanket over my legs, glance once at the photo I just flung to the world, and whisper to the room, to the town, to the ocean beyond the glass, “Ready.”
I pull on the dark green hoodie—soft, broken-in, the exact shade of a pine bough after rain—and ease it carefully over my bad wrist, teeth catching my bottom lip as I work the cuff past the brace. Hair up next: a messy bun I twist one-handed, a few copper strands slipping down to frame my face like they always do when the air turns damp. Good. I like the way they look wild.
Skinny jeans, the stretchy pair that forgive every wince. Wool socks to make my feet feel coddled, then boots—laces looped and tugged with the method I’ve perfected since one hand had to do the heavy lifting. I spritz a breath of my little vanilla travel perfume at my throat, dab again at the inside of my wrist where there’s bandage instead of pulse, and smile at the soft ghost of sweetness anyway.
Jacket. Scarf. It’s still summer, technically, but Northhaven laughs at calendars and the water writes its own weather report. If they’re taking me anywhere near the harbor, I want warmth tucked into all the places the wind likes to find.
I text: Ready when you are.
From outside, a familiar engine note browses the street and settles in front of the house. My heart does the dumbest, happiest flip. I loop the scarf once more, tug the hoodie sleeves to my knuckles, and lock up behind me, stepping out into the salt-bright air like I’m walking straight into whatever the ocean has planned.