Dimly, I heard the sound of the front door open and footsteps approach. I was lying in front of my new home—the fireplace—and engaging in my new favorite activity: replaying all the stupid things I’d said to Josie the night she left.

The footsteps got closer, but I wasn’t worried. It was probably Calvin, who’d been coming by most nights to drown his sorrows about Lucia. He and I would switch off on lying down based on whose turn it was to pour the drinks.

“Cal?” I said, opening one eye and wincing at the light.

I’d had a lot to drink last night. There was a sniffling sound then another. I sat up, body protesting with the movement, and came face-to-face with Isabelle.

“Iz?” Tears streaked down her face as she sank to the floor next to me, Lola pressed against her chest. “What happened?”

Isabelle hiccuped, flashing me a watery smile. “I just need my big brother for a minute. Is that okay?”

And then she collapsed against my chest, baby and all, and cried for a long time. I held her and Lola, told her everything would be fine—a sure lie, since I wasn’t sure what had happened or if it could even be fixed.

“I’m going to go to the bathroom for a minute,” she finally said, wiping away tears with the sleeve of her sweater. “And then we can talk, okay? Can you watch the baby?”

I nodded as Isabelle walked away. She looked pale and deeply unhappy. If I’d taken the time to look in a mirror recently, I’d probably see my own pallid expression reflected back to me.

Lola seemed unperturbed, crawling on the floor and trying to eat something that looked suspiciously like a cigarette. I snatched her up quickly before I needed to pump her stomach.

The Bar was not baby-proof.

“What’s going on with your mom, huh?” I asked Lola, her wide, dark eyes peering at me curiously. I stroked her cheek, and she grinned at me, drool running down her lip.

The unconditional love I felt for my niece put a small dent in the month of heartbreak. We bounced around the room a bit, me pointing out random objects and Lola either laughing or crying at them. We skipped the penis paintings, of course, but she was inordinately drawn to the glasses and the sharpest of my knives.

“Gonna be a little killer, huh?” I asked, grabbing the butcher knife she kept trying to touch and putting it out of reach. I lifted her high in the air, and she squealed with delight.

“You’re great with her,” Isabelle said, sneaking up behind us. She blew her daughter a kiss before standing behind the bar and grabbing a towel.

“Easy when you’re in love,” I said, sitting on a bar stool with Lola in my lap. A look passed over Isabelle’s face.

“You want to talk about it?”

A long exhale. “I do. And, actually, I want to go on a fucking hike.”

I arched an eyebrow. “Well, then, let’s do it. I’ll grab the carrier.”

I dug through the closet until I found it, strapping it to my chest as Isabelle placed a squirming Lola inside.

“When was the last time you went hiking?” she asked softly as her fingers tightened the straps.

“All the time,” I lied. “Gotta get that exercise, you know?”

“Mhmm,” she murmured, unconvinced. “You know, Cal called me a few days ago.”

“Why?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant. Attempting to lace up hiking boots was hard with a baby on your chest.

“Oh, you know… just to let me know that you haven’t been outside since Josie left and that all you do is lie in front of that fireplace, groaning.”

I scoffed but stopped at Isabelle’s sharp expression. “I’m not… I’m not just groaning.” I paused. “Sometimes I exhale sadly.”

A twitch of her lips. “I think we both need this.”

We stepped outside into the misty November of Big Sur, turning toward the trail that extended behind my house, boots crunching over pine needles and pine cones. I hadn’t been outside once since Josie had left—something I’d never done before. Since usually nature was therapeutic, the silence letting me process my emotions.

And I’d been avoiding it. Because I knew what my emotions were: anger, frustration, embarrassment, yearning.

I didn’t want to think about that shit.

But as soon as we entered the forest, I felt something slide back into place. A crucial missing piece. It must have shown on my face because Isabelle reached over and squeezed my arm.

“There’s my big brother,” she smiled, dipping under a low branch.

We fell into place along the old trail, the forest alive and verdant around us. Lola seemed to love the woods, her little hands reaching out to grasp at every living thing we passed.

“So,” I said slowly. “Tell me what happened.”

“Maya and I had a huge fucking fight. A bad one.”

“Seriously?” I asked. “But the two of you were just in here the other day. For another date night. You looked—”

“Fine?” she interjected, shrugging a little. “Probably because we were. Or are. Nothing’s… damaged beyond repair or anything. But some things have been kind of bubbling beneath the surface… and this morning, they all boiled over.”

“About Lola?” I guessed.

Isabelle’s shoulders dropped as she sighed. “Having a baby is hard. I think Maya and I wanted to be parents for such a long time, but we never talked about it. All the big and little ways that your life changes. Our entire lives have been thrown off track. We don’t sleep. Our jobs are up in the air. We never have time to ourselves. Sex is completely out of the question.”

“You’ve had sex?” I teased.

“Yes, big brother. A lot of it. Unlike your virginal self,” she said, smiling now.

I placed my hands over Lola’s ears. “Don’t corrupt my niece. She’ll never know about my sordid past.”

Isabelle laughed for real this time, filling the woods with the happy sound. “It all amounts to this… like a seismic shift to a relationship. And I just wished we had… I don’t know, read some books. Or made sure we were on the same page about certain things.” Isabelle looked away. “I’m happy we live in Monterey. It’s best, I think. But you know Maya’s family lives in Texas. And I know you guys are only an hour away, but…”

“It’s isolating,” I said, remembering how they looked during the rockslide when I’d picked up Lola. “You said you’ve been feeling isolated.”

Another sad shrug. “We’re both on maternity leave, so we only see each other, no other adults, all day. I guess I thought our friends would come over more. Mom and Dad have been great, obviously; it’s just…”

“Different?” I offered.

There was so much honesty and hurt in Isabelle’s eyes.

“Yeah. Different. Not bad. Never bad. But not what I envisioned in my mind, if I’m being honest. Which is hard. So much of motherhood is about these moments… of happiness and love. And I have those moments. And so does Maya. But we’re not having them together. I’ve never felt so separate from her.” Isabelle’s voice cracked a little. “We were always so connected. On a deep, soulful level. And now I feel so separate from my wife. It’s awful.”

I’d always thought of Maya and Isabelle as true soul mates. Anyone who knew them would think the same.

“It’s hard for me to imagine the two of you fighting like this,” I said, stomach clenching.

Isabelle laughed again but not bitterly. “Oh, Gabe, we fight all the time. Just like any other couple.” She tilted her head at my confused expression. “Just like Max and Paige. Just like Mom and Dad.”

We stepped over a tiny stream filled with moss-covered rocks. “Which is also hard for me to believe if we’re both being extra honest today,” I said. The scent of the pine cones and the feel of the mist on my skin was hammering away at my thoughts about Josie.

“You know why, though, right?” Isabelle smirked.

“Um… I don’t,” I said, unable to stop from smiling back at her. “Why?”

“Because the Shaws are stubborn assholes, that’s why,” she said, pointing a finger at me.

“Hey, why are you pointing at me?” I laughed, smoothing my palm through Lola’s curls.

“Because you’re stubborn too, Gabe. We all are. And the hard truth of the matter is that all relationships require compromise. Which is not something that comes easy to us. It was one of the biggest things Maya and I would argue about in the beginning. That I always like to get my way, and I never thought to think of things from her perspective.”

I nodded, even though I found it hard to believe that these three couples I’d held up on a pedestal my entire life struggled so frequently.

“I know what you’re thinking, Gabriel,” she said with a knowing look.

I looked down at Lola. “That my niece is so adorable I want to physically eat her? And why is that?”

She grinned. “I say that all the time. I mean, how terrifying for a baby, huh? All these massive humans around you, saying they want to consume you. Especially you. You’re the biggest person she’s ever seen.” Lola held tight to my fingers, her delicate breathing in sync with my own.

“Also, you just deflected,” she laughed.

I shrugged. “Yeah? What was I thinking then?”

“You’re surprised that Maya and I fought, that couples even have fights. Especially Mom and Dad, who fought a lot more than you allow yourself to remember.”

That uneasy feeling returned to my stomach. “Okay. Maybe I was thinking that. It’s not a judgment. I just don’t want you and Maya to get a divorce.”

Isabelle exhaled. “We’re not going to get a divorce. She needed some time today. And I needed some time. Actually, we probably just both need to fucking sleep. I’m not in favor of big fights like this, and we rarely have them. But sometimes… like I said. It’s a compromise, always. In a million different ways, at a million different times. And that is the hard work of being in a committed relationship. Even if you’re soulmates,” she said, reaching forward and touching my arm. “I believe in love, just like you. How could we not with Mom and Dad as our role models?”

“It’s what I’ve always wanted. They just seemed so content every moment of the day. With each other, with all of us.”

“And they are content. Blissful, even. But I think… I think you and I have different ideas of what a soulmate is.”

“How so?” I asked.

“I’ve never felt so disconnected from Maya as I do right now. And I’m kind of pissed at her. And hurt. But of all the women in the world, she’s the woman I made a commitment to. A commitment to love her forever. And, most importantly, to fight for her. Which is why we’re giving each other a day to cool off, to process, and then sit down and begin the hard work of repairing what’s broken.” She waved her hand in the air, driving home her point. “The difference being, I wouldn’t do that for someone I wasn’t supposed to be with for the rest of my life.”

I nodded, taking it all in. Isabelle was right, and maybe it was the stubborn asshole in me, but I did believe loving your soulmate would be easy. Like breathing. Or, that kid feeling of climbing on your bike and speeding down a hill without a fear in the world, only this buoyant joy. That’s what I thought it would be like: simple and joyous.

That’s what I thought I was proposing to Josie, the night she left.

“Sometimes I forget… but Sasha and I fought. Quite a bit, I think,” I said. “Which isn’t easy for me to admit.”

Isabelle bit her lip, stooping to pick up a fallen leaf bursting with orange.

“There is another difference,” she said. “And you have to figure this out on your own. But there’s… how do I say this: healthy fighting? When you’re working through things that are important to the both of you. But then there’s… well, the fighting you and Sasha did. The kind that signals the relationship isn’t right.”

“You don’t think we were right for each other?” I asked. “We were so alike. Had a lot of the same goals and values. I thought we had the same dreams.” I hated the hurt in my voice, still there after all this time.

“Maybe on paper?” Isabelle said, shrugging. “But were you in love with her?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but whatever I was going to say got stuck there. An image of Josie floated up: of her and I, laughing, as she told me she hated macaroni and cheese. The comfortable playfulness between us, the ease, even though at that point, we’d only known each other a few hours.

Had I ever felt that comfortable with Sasha?

“Of course I loved her,” I said firmly, but it felt like a lie, and I wasn’t yet sure why. “The problem was on her. She didn’t love me back even though I would have made a great husband for her.”

“Her problem?” Isabelle hit my arm.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Stubborn asshole,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re just like the rest of us. And you’re going to need to work on that if you want to be that good husband you’ve always talked about. Plus,” she said. “Here’s an idea. ‘Husband,’ ‘wife,’ ‘boyfriend’… these are just words. They mean jack shit without actions behind them. Try just being a good listener. In the beginning of our relationship, Maya always said I didn’t listen to her, always forcing my own thoughts or ideas onto a situation. But listening—” she reached over, patting my ear, “is what’s going to be the difference for you. I promise.”

I looked at my little sister, exhaustion etched into the lines around her face. Her hair wild and held back with a chip clip. Baby drool on her shirt. She was such a wonderful mother—and now, suddenly, she seemed to be soaring past me in both wisdom and maturity.

“When did you get so smart?” I said.

She laughed wearily. “Not sure if I’m that smart. Just been through a lot.”

I pulled her in for a side hug, and the two of us walked in companionable silence for half a mile. The silence was edging its way in, and my thoughts were anxiously trying to stop it.

“You want to talk about Josie?” Isabelle finally asked, and I groaned in response. She nudged my shoulder. “I bet I can help.”

“I’m not sure what you could help with. Things with Josie and I didn’t work out, and I’m pretty sure I ruined my chances anyway.” I shrugged grimly, watching a small bird flit from branch to branch.

“Hmmm,” Isabelle said, tapping her finger against her lip. “What did you ask her? The night she left Big Sur?”

I shuddered at the memory. “I asked her to stay here with me. To move here, officially, and be in a relationship.”

“You did what?” she said, smacking me on the arm. Again.

“Hey, ow,” I said, ducking away from her. “I just did what Mom and Dad always told us to do. Be honest. And I was. That was what I wanted out of our relationship, and I asked her for it. I didn’t think… I didn’t think it would backfire so spectacularly. I thought Josie would want to sacrifice for me.” I paused. “I thought true love was sacrifice. Isn’t that what you were just saying about Maya?”

“Yeah, except what were you sacrificing?” she prodded, hitting the nail right on the goddamn head.

I sighed. “I know. I know what you mean, and I’m not sure why I stumbled. Because she called me on it. She said I could move down to Los Angeles, and I… well, I said no.”

Isabelle gave me a curious look. “What type of relationship had she proposed? Or did she want to stop seeing you altogether?”

“Long distance,” I said. “Nothing real intense or serious. Josie had…” I paused since it wasn’t my story to tell. “Josie was in a bad relationship a couple of years ago. Someone who manipulated her. Emotionally abused her. I think it makes it hard for her to trust people.”

Isabelle grabbed my arm, stopping me, and pinned me with an angry look. “So why would you ask a woman who’d been through that to leave her life and her job after only knowing you for a week?”

The blinding clarity of every idiotic thing I’d done and said hit me like a ton of fucking bricks.

I stopped under a large redwood tree, eyes to the sky as everything came roaring back. Thought of Josie, balanced on that fallen log, reclaiming something she’d lost.

I put my hands over Lola’s ears. “I’m such a fucking idiot.”

“Yeah,” Isabelle said. “A big ol’ lovable idiot.” She looped her arm through mine and kissed Lola on the cheek. “It’s the romantic in you. You’ve always been this way, and I watched Sasha take advantage of that, Gabe. Of your big heart and endless kindness. But real relationships, even ones built for soulmates, are not that easy. Mom and Dad fought to be together. Fought to stay together. Went through plenty of tough and challenging times that we never saw. Because we were kids and were too young to understand the nuances.”

“I know,” I said. “Deep down, I know this is true.”

“So why did you ask Josie to make that choice?” she asked softly.

“Because…” I started. I was mentally wandering into some uncomfortable territory. “Because maybe I’m not willing to make that same sacrifice. Because deep down, I do think Big Sur is the most magical place on the planet, and it’s hard to imagine anyone else feeling differently. And that does worry me. That I asked her to do things for a potential relationship that I wasn’t willing to do.”

I felt vaguely nauseous at the thought. Sure, I wasn’t Clarke, but hadn’t I asked her to give up her life for me? And offered nothing in return?

“What if you just took some more time?” Isabelle asked. “Why the rush? Why the ultimatum?”

“If neither one of us is ultimately willing to move,” I said. “Then I didn’t see the point of prolonging the inevitable and making it even more terrible when, I don’t know, six months from now, we’re still in the same position with no solution. It sounded like a recipe for a broken heart, regardless. And that week between us has been incredibly intense. I can’t really explain our connection, but it’s more than just sexual. There’s a spark between us I’ve never truly felt before. I thought it was… fuck, my heart? The universe? Trying to tell me that Josie was my soulmate. And I did… love the idea of having this one week together, falling head over heels for each other, and making it work. A real love story, like Mom and Dad.” I let my eyes close in pain. “And actually, that sounds terrible when I say it out loud.”

Isabelle had stopped in the middle of the trail and was just watching me. Waiting for me to come to the conclusion she’d come to forever ago.

“Why?” Isabelle asked.

“Life… and love isn’t that simple. And it’s a shit thing to do to Josie. Making her choose like that.” I was nauseous again, and I actually worried I’d puke into the wildflowers.

“I wasn’t born knowing this, Gabriel,” Isabelle said. “None of us are. But meeting and marrying Maya has taught me an endless amount about love and life and relationships. I told you, in the beginning, our main argument was about my stubbornness and inability to listen. I always thought I knew just what she needed. Wanted to be the one to give her what she needed. And over and over again, I hurt her feelings. Dismissed her needs, really. Totally unintentionally, and it came from this deep well of love for her. But still. It was hurtful. I had to own that. Plus, I’m an idiot too,” Isabelle continued. “Just ask Maya. She would concur.” We laughed together. “So I’m not trying to say I know every damn thing about love. Because I definitely don’t. But my ultimate advice?”

“Let’s hear it,” I said.

“You’re still hung up on her?”

“I’ve thought about her every moment of the day since she left.” Which was painfully true.

“And you’d like to pursue a relationship with her?”

“Absolutely,” I said firmly.

“Then talk to her. Listen. If she wants to still be with you, take it one day at a time. I think you’ll be surprised when a solution ultimately does make itself known to you.”

We walked for a long time after that until that same quiet, serene feeling started to invade my cells. Until I could start to see clearly again, my vision no longer mired with the grief and regret of the past thirty days.

If I really wanted a relationship with Josie, what was I willing to do?