Discovery Bay

Chapter Four

Envi had learned to live with silence. The house had always carried it—between the tick of the kitchen clock, the creak of the floorboards when Corbin moved from room to room, the late-night hum of his records when he couldn’t sleep. But the silence after the phone call was different. It wasn’t the familiar quiet of her father working in his shed or dozing in his recliner. It was hollow. It was absence.

Her father was dead.

The words landed differently every time her mind circled back to them. Dead. Corbin. Her dad, who’d raised her on coffee and sarcasm and late-night grilled cheese. The man who’d driven her to school in muddy boots, who’d stood on the sidelines at her soccer games yelling too loud. Gone in an instant, some officer said over the phone. Car accident on the highway outside town. Nothing they could do.

She didn’t cry at first. She stood at the counter with the phone pressed to her ear, nodding at words she couldn’t fully absorb. Accident. Immediate. Nothing they could do. The woman on the line sounded kind, rehearsed, as if she’d said the same to dozens of families before. Envi thanked her—why did she thank her?—and hung up. Then she kept standing there, hands flat against the laminate, waiting for her body to catch up to what she knew.

It came in fragments. The casserole dishes arriving at the front door. Neighbors she barely knew filling the kitchen with whispered condolences. April’s mom holding her shoulder, murmuring about paperwork, about state guardianship, about how she was only seventeen and couldn’t stay here alone. Envi listened and nodded but her chest felt carved out, scraped raw. The house, her house, already didn’t belong to her.

By the third night she hadn’t slept more than an hour at a time. She sat on the living room floor with her knees pulled up, staring at the muted TV. That was when the knock came.

Not April. Not another neighbor.

Landon.

He stood on the porch with his hands shoved in his pockets, hair damp from the ferry ride, eyes locked on hers like he wasn’t sure she’d open the door.

“Envi,” he said, her name cracking in his throat.

The sight of him unraveled her. She hadn’t known he was coming—hadn’t dared hope—and suddenly she was folding against him, her face buried in his chest. His arms wrapped around her instantly, solid, steady, holding her together when she couldn’t anymore.

“I’m here,” he whispered into her hair. “I’ve got you.”

For the first time since the phone call, she let herself cry.

---

The days blurred after that, but not in the same empty way. Landon moved through the house with her, picking up where she faltered. He drove her to the funeral home, stood beside her when she signed forms she didn’t want to read. He cooked eggs she didn’t eat. He sat across from her at the kitchen table while April’s mom explained emancipation, her gentle voice reminding them both that the state wouldn’t let a seventeen-year-old live alone in her father’s house without a guardian. Unless the court granted her legal independence.

It felt cold, transactional. Her dad wasn’t even buried yet and already strangers wanted to decide where she belonged.

Envi stared down at the papers April’s mom spread out. “So that’s it? I lose the house unless I… go to court?”

April’s mom softened her tone. “It’s not losing. It’s proving to the state that you can take care of yourself. That you can make adult decisions, legally. And with your father gone… it’s the best option.”

Envi’s throat tightened. “He’s not just gone. He’s dead.” The word scraped on the way out.

“I know, honey. I know.”

“You can do it,” Landon said quietly when Envi shook her head at the pile of documents. “You’re stronger than you think.”

“I don’t want to be strong.” Her voice broke. “I just want him back.”

Landon reached across the table, covering her hand with his. He didn’t try to argue, didn’t tell her it would be okay. He just held on.

---

The court hearing came fast. A small courtroom, a judge in black robes peering down at her like she was something to measure. April’s mom testified on her behalf, explaining how Envi had always been responsible, how she had steady grades, a house left to her, and support in the community.

When the judge asked if she understood the responsibility of living on her own, Envi’s voice came out steadier than she expected. “I don’t have a choice.”

It wasn’t courage, not really. It was survival.

The ruling came in her favor. She was emancipated. Free, in the legal sense, though she didn’t feel free at all.

---

Graduation loomed in the middle of it all like something out of a different life. A week earlier she’d imagined Corbin in the bleachers, camera in his hands, a crooked grin on his face. Instead, she stood in her black gown with her cap pinned too tightly, staring out at the crowd until she found Landon. He lifted his hand, subtle, almost like he wasn’t sure if she wanted him there. But his eyes—steady, proud—anchored her.

She walked the stage without crying, diploma in hand, her chest heavy with everything unsaid.

---

The week after graduation blurred into a haze of well-wishers and condolences. Everyone in town seemed to know Envi’s name now, her loss whispered in the aisles of the grocery store, murmured with pity over café counters. She went through the motions—smiling when expected, answering questions she didn’t care about—but her chest ached constantly, a hollow space where her father should’ve been.

By the time the graduation party rolled around, she almost didn’t go. April begged her to. Landon said it might help to be around people her own age again, to feel normal, if only for a night.

Normal. The word felt foreign.

Still, she let April curl her hair and button her into a sundress, let herself be swept along in the tide of teens spilling into the Wilsons’ lakefront house. The place was packed—music vibrating the windows, strings of lights tangled through the trees, kids in every corner laughing too loud. The air smelled like beer, bonfire smoke, and summer grass.

Envi hugged her arms around herself, staying close to Landon as they wove through the crowd. She hadn’t been to a party in months, not since her world had split apart. The noise pressed in from all sides, dizzying, too much.

That was when she saw him.

Jeff Nelson.

He was leaning against the deck railing, red plastic cup in hand, watching her. His hair fell into his eyes, longer than last summer, and there was that same look on his face—the one she remembered from the hallways at school. Like he’d been awe-struck from the first time he’d seen her sophomore year, like she was something he couldn’t look away from.

Older by a year, new to town back then, Jeff had orbited her for months. Smiles in the hallways, questions in class, offers to walk her home. She’d always kept it friendly, polite. He was nice enough. Persistent. Maybe too persistent.

Tonight, his gaze was heavier.

“Want a drink?” Landon asked beside her, breaking her focus.

She shook her head quickly. “No. I’m good.”

But Jeff was already making his way over.

“Envi.” His voice was warm, eager, as if nothing had changed in the year since they’d really spoken. “Didn’t think I’d see you here.”

She forced a smile. “Yeah. Just—April dragged me out.”

“Good.” His eyes lingered on her, longer than was comfortable. “I’m glad you came.”

Landon shifted subtly closer, his hand brushing against hers in a silent tether. Jeff’s gaze flicked to him, then back to her, something sharp flickering in his expression.

The night unraveled slowly from there. Music thumped, people danced, the bonfire roared brighter outside. Envi tried to relax, tried to laugh when April pulled her toward the dance floor, tried to breathe through the ache of everything that had happened. But Jeff’s eyes kept finding her in the crowd.

Later, when she slipped down the hallway looking for the bathroom, he was waiting.

“Hey,” Jeff said softly, stepping into her path. “You okay? You looked… I don’t know, a little lost.”

“I’m fine.” She tried to step past, but he blocked the doorway with his arm.

“Come on. Just talk to me for a second. I’ve missed you.” His voice dropped lower, more insistent. “We don’t have to stay out there.”

The walls seemed to close in, the music muffled through them. Envi’s pulse kicked hard. “Jeff, I should—”

He leaned closer, too close, the smell of beer thick on his breath. “You don’t have to run off. You know I’ve always liked you.” His hand brushed her arm, then tightened as if to keep her there.

Her stomach turned. “Jeff, stop.”

Before she could push him back, a sharp voice cut through.

“Get your hands off her.”

Landon.

He stood at the end of the hallway, jaw tight, shoulders squared. The look on his face was enough to make Jeff drop his hand, though not without a scowl.

“We were just talking,” Jeff muttered, stepping back.

“Yeah?” Landon’s voice was low, dangerous. “Looked like more than that to me.”

Jeff’s eyes narrowed, anger flashing before he shoved past Landon and stormed out toward the noise of the party.

Silence crashed in after him. Envi’s breath came quick, her hands trembling as she hugged them to her chest.

“You okay?” Landon asked, softer now.

She nodded, though her throat was tight. “Yeah. I just—”

But the look on his face stopped her. The anger still simmering there wasn’t just protective. It was personal. Possessive. And it twisted something sharp in her chest, because he wasn’t hers. Not really.

Not with Sarah waiting for him back home.

---

The morning after the party smelled like salt and damp cedar. Sunlight cut across the porch where Envi sat with her knees pulled up, chin resting against them, staring out at the tide crawling back over the rocks.

Landon dropped into the chair beside her with a mug of coffee, his hair mussed from sleep, his expression more hesitant than she’d ever seen it.

“There’s something I should tell you,” he said finally, his voice quiet.

Her heart ticked faster, though she kept her eyes on the water.

He stared at the mug in his hands as though the steam might shape the words for him. “Back in New York… I was with someone. Her name’s Sarah.”

Envi blinked. The name lodged itself in her chest like a stone.

He went on, haltingly. “We’ve been—together—for a while. It hasn’t been good lately. We barely talk anymore. But she’s still… there.”

Her breath caught, but she didn’t let it show. She kept her chin pressed against her knees, eyes steady on the gray line of the horizon.

“Why are you telling me this?” she asked, her voice even.

“Because I didn’t want you to hear it some other way. Because I respect you. And because… after last night, it felt wrong to keep it to myself.”

She nodded once, tightly. “Okay.”

That was all she gave him.

Inside, though, the word echoed hollow. Okay. Okay. As if she could file the ache neatly into a box and tuck it away. As if she hadn’t been holding onto every glance, every small kindness, every late-night conversation like they meant something more.

She thought of Jeff’s hand on her arm, how she’d felt sick at the thought of being cornered. Landon’s voice had been the only thing grounding her, fierce and protective.

And now—Sarah.

The air between them felt different. Thinner.

When Landon shifted beside her, like he might say more, she pushed to her feet.

“I should go help April with breakfast.”

Her voice didn’t tremble. She didn’t let it.

And she walked inside before the cracks in her calm could show.

Landon stayed on the porch, staring at the mug cooling in his hands, the silence she left behind heavier than anything she could have said.