Chapter 8
## EPILOGUE — THE WORD HE FINALLY SAID
They didn't get married that summer.
They didn't even get engaged.
They started with coffee.
Then dinner.
Then long walks along the Newport waterfront.
Lucas learned that Laurel hated thunderstorms but loved the ocean in winter.
Laurel learned that Lucas had taken up cooking after his father's death, though his cinnamon rolls were terrible.
They argued sometimes.
About trust.
About his mother.
About the years they'd lost.
There were nights Laurel cried without knowing why.
There were moments Lucas wanted to apologize again, and she had to remind him that rebuilding a relationship required more than endless guilt.
They went to counseling.
They learned how to disagree without disappearing.
And slowly, carefully, they built something neither had experienced before.
Love without secrecy.
Love without permission.
Love without fear of what other people might think.
A year later, Laurel opened her own bakery in Newport.
She called it The Six-Ten.
Lucas stared at the sign on opening morning.
“Six-Ten?”
Laurel smiled.
“The train I never took.”
He kissed her forehead.
“And the train I'm grateful you missed.”
She laughed.
“That's a terrible business slogan.”
“Good thing I'm not in charge of marketing.”
Eighteen months after the canceled wedding, Lucas asked Laurel to take a walk.
It was a chilly October evening.
He brought her to Newport's old railway station.
The building had been renovated into a small community center, but the original clock still hung above the entrance.
Laurel stopped when she saw it.
“Lucas?”
He took her hand.
“There's something I want to show you.”
Inside, beneath the old departure board, stood a wooden bench.
On it rested a small white envelope.
Laurel stared.
Her breath caught.
On the front was one handwritten letter.
L.
Lucas picked it up and handed it to her.
Inside was a train ticket.
Newport to Philadelphia.
Departure time: 6:10 p.m.
And a letter.
Laurel,
Five years ago, you asked me to come to this station and say one word.
I didn't come.
Not because I didn't love you.
Not because I didn't want you.
But because I never knew you were waiting.
For a long time, I believed the worst thing that happened to us was losing five years.
I was wrong.
The worst thing was letting someone else decide what our love was worth.
I can't give you back those years.
I can't erase the nights you cried or the mornings you woke up believing you weren't enough.