The Ocean Remembers

The Girl Who Read My Stories

For a while after she leaves, I sit with the page in front of me and pretend it still has my attention.

It doesn't. The sentence I've been writing has lost its thread, and in the quiet of the library, I keep hearing a voice that isn't Camille's.

Food doesn't become more appealing simply because it has gone cold.

My mother said that so often it became part of the house. Apparently, it stayed with me, because I find myself standing before I've decided to and climbing the stairs toward a meal I never asked anyone to prepare.

The dining area is softly lit. Camille has set two places at the table, and I stop at the entrance, caught by a familiar arrangement.

The water glasses sit beside the plates. The cutlery is laid out properly, and the food is placed in the middle for sharing.

It's an ordinary dinner setting. My mother used to arrange the table much the same way.

The resemblance brings back a memory of the last evening I spent with my parents, before we left the house together. I remember sitting at the table, listening to my father complain about something at work while my mother told him to stop talking shop over dinner. I remember laughing.

I don't remember what we ate.

My eyes sting, and I look away before the feeling can settle. It's frustrating how easily a familiar detail can pull me backward. I stand there for another moment, then move toward the table.

Camille is at the kitchen cabinets, putting something away with her back to me. She doesn't turn around, and I'm grateful for it. I take my seat and begin eating, though I couldn't tell you what the food tastes like.

A chair scrapes against the floor.

Camille sits opposite me in a worn T-shirt and loose cotton trousers, her hair gathered carelessly at the back of her head. She picks up her fork and starts eating as though we've been sharing meals for years.

It's strange how quickly another person's presence can alter a room.

She reaches for her water. I take another bite. Somewhere between those small, ordinary movements, I become aware of just how unfamiliar this is.

I haven't shared a dinner table like this in years.

Neither of us speaks for a while. I'm grateful she doesn't feel the need to fill the silence. Eventually, though, curiosity gets the better of me.

"You said we went to school together."

She looks up. "We did."

"I don't remember you."

"You've made that extremely clear." There's no real offence in her voice. "I think this is the longest you've gone without ordering me out of a room. Should we celebrate?"

"The night's still young."

She laughs, and I'm mildly surprised to discover that I don't entirely dislike having caused it.

"I attended the same school as you and Nathan for several years," she says. "You two were practically celebrities in the academic department."

"That's an unfortunate way to describe two boys who spent most of their time arguing over examination scores."

"Speak for yourself. The rest of us found it entertaining."

I take another bite. "And what were you doing while we entertained the school?"

"Trying to keep my scholarship."

The answer comes without embarrassment or self-pity.

"My parents couldn't have afforded the fees," she continues. "I earned a scholarship, and keeping it meant maintaining my grades. I wasn't at the top of the class, but I worked hard enough to stay where I needed to be."

I study her for a moment, trying to match the woman sitting across from me to the scattered images I have of school.

"I remember you now," I say. "You sat a few rows behind us in literature."

Her eyebrows lift. "You remember?"

"Fragments. Don't get excited."

"I'm not excited. I'm relieved. I was beginning to think you'd forgotten everyone who knew you before you became famous."

I return to my food.

She isn't entirely wrong, but I have no intention of discussing the condition of my memory with someone I've known for less than a day.

"You used to ask questions when nobody else would," I say. "Even when the teacher had already moved on."

"Because sometimes the teacher hadn't explained anything properly."

"That would explain a lot."

She points her fork at me. "See? That's exactly how you used to sound."

"Charming, even then."

"Infuriating, even then."

For the first time, the conversation feels less like an interrogation and more like two people trying to locate something they once knew.

"You and Nathan were always competing," she says. "Every term, one of you would come first and the other would act like the school had committed a personal offence."

"Nathan took losing more seriously than I did."

"Because you could afford to be casual about it. You were naturally good at almost everything."

"Not everything."

"No, I suppose not. You were terrible at pretending you didn't care."

I glance at her.

She smiles into her glass.

I remember Nathan beside me in classrooms, challenging my answers, checking his work twice while I was already sketching ideas for whatever story had occupied my mind that week. He was disciplined in a way I wasn't. I had a habit of trusting my instincts; he trusted preparation.

We both wanted first place. We simply approached it differently.

My father used to call us the firm, especially when Nathan came over to study. He'd say it with a straight face, as though we were two serious professionals rather than boys who could turn a mathematics test into a week-long dispute.

I haven't thought about that in a long time.

I nod, keeping the memory to myself.

Then Camille says, "Your stories were different, though."

I pause with my fork halfway to my mouth.

"What stories?"

"Your school stories. The ones you wrote for literature."

"You read them?"

"Of course I read them."

"Why?"

She looks genuinely offended. "Because they were good."

"They were assignments."

"They were eleven pages when the teacher asked for two."

I lower my fork.

She leans back slightly, pleased to have my attention.

"It was the story about the lighthouse keeper," she says. "The man who kept the light burning for a ship that had already sunk because he couldn't accept that it wasn't coming back."

The room seems to grow quieter.

I wrote that story when I was thirteen. I barely remember finishing it, much less showing it to anyone beyond my teacher and the students who happened to be in the classroom.

Yet Camille remembers it.

"Do you remember the ending?" I ask.

"Every word? No. What it did to me? Yes."

She sets her fork down.

"I kept thinking about whether the lighthouse keeper was brave or just too afraid to admit he'd lost something. I argued with myself about it for days."

I look at her, trying to understand why that detail unsettles me more than the compliment.

Most people who talk about my writing mention the plots, the twists, the endings. They talk about the books that made me a bestselling author. Camille is talking about a story I wrote before any of that existed.

"You remember a lot for someone who barely knew me."

"I knew your writing."

"That isn't the same thing."

"No," she agrees. "It isn't."

For once, she doesn't try to argue.

"I read the other stories too," she adds. "The ones people passed around. Some were unfinished. Some didn't make much sense. But I liked seeing how you thought. You could start with something ordinary and make it feel as though the entire world depended on what happened next."

I look down at my plate.

"They were rough drafts."

"That's what made them interesting. You hadn't worked out every answer yet."

I don't know what to say to that.

It's an uncomfortable thing, having someone remember a version of you that you barely remember yourself. Especially when she seems to have noticed things I would rather leave buried.

To change the subject, I reach for my water.

"Nathan read them too, I assume. He read practically everything I wrote. It was part of our competition."

"He did."

Something in her expression shifts, small enough that I might have missed it if I hadn't been watching.

"Nathan also seemed to find a lot of reasons to be around you," I say.

She gives me a look. "You noticed that?"

"Not at the time."

"That makes more sense."

I set down my glass. "Explain."

"He'd offer to help me revise, even when I hadn't asked. He'd borrow books he could easily have found in the library himself."

"That sounds like Nathan."

"He was kind to me," she says. "I thought that was all it was."

"And later?"

She considers the question.

"Later, I wondered if he was trying to tell me something without actually telling me."

I picture Nathan at school, always certain about his next step when it came to examinations and competitions, yet somehow less direct around people he liked.

I never asked him about Camille. At the time, I had other things occupying my attention, and Nathan had never admitted to having feelings for her.

"Did you like him?" I ask.

Camille looks at me for a moment.

"You're surprisingly interested in my school life."

"I'm interested in whether my best friend spent years making a fool of himself."

She laughs again.

"I liked Nathan. He was a good friend. But I never knew what he wanted from me, and he never said anything clearly enough for me to answer."

I nod, though I can't tell whether the answer satisfies me.

Nathan has been my closest friend for as long as I can remember. He has stayed when most people stopped trying, and I have never had much reason to question his loyalty.

Still, hearing Camille speak about him this way makes me wonder how much of our school life I missed while I was busy trying to win.

The plates are nearly empty when I realise we've been talking for much longer than I intended.

Camille turns her glass slowly between her hands. I should have finished eating and returned to my library by now. Instead, I'm sitting across from a woman who remembers stories I wrote as a child and knows things about my best friend that I never bothered to ask.

"So that's why you remember me," I say. "The stories."

She looks up.

"The stories," I repeat, making my voice deliberately casual. "And now you get to meet the famous Silas Undertow in person. I hope the experience hasn't been disappointing."

"You're determined to be unpleasant, aren't you?"

"I'm told it's one of my better qualities."

"Whoever told you that was lying."

I almost smile.

Then I add, "I assume the stories were more interesting than the boy who wrote them."

Her fingers stop moving around the glass.

For a moment, she says nothing. The teasing expression fades from her face, replaced by something more uncertain.

"No," she says at last. "Not entirely."

I wait.

She glances down at the table, then back at me. For once, she seems to be choosing her words carefully.

"Honestly, I had a crush on you back in our school days."

I don't move.

Of all the things I expected Camille to tell me tonight, that wasn't one of them.