“They're excellent listeners.”
“River.” Sarah's voice went soft, the way it did when she was genuinely worried. “I know you're still dealing with Dad's death. I get it. But you can't just disappear into that lab forever. It's been two years.”
“I'm not disappearing.”
“Then prove it. Come to dinner this weekend. Bring a friend. Hell, bring a date if you can remember how those work.”
River almost laughed. If only she knew about the love letter from a complete stranger who somehow knew his life better than he did. “I'm not ready for dating.”
“You're never going to be ready if you keep living like you're the only person left on earth.” Sarah sighed. “Dad wouldn't want this for you, River. He'd want you to be happy.”
There it was. The Dad card. The one thing guaranteed to make River's chest tighten up like he was trapped under thirty feet of water. “Don't.”
“Don't what? Tell you the truth?” Sarah's voice got firmer. “You think honoring his memory means punishing yourself for surviving? Because that's not grief, River. That's guilt, and it's eating you alive.”
River wanted to tell her about the letter, about impossible intimacy from someone who seemed to understand his isolation better than his own sister. But Sarah would want to analyze it, apply psychological training to something defying rational explanation.
“I'm not disappearing,” he said. “I'm just working through some things.”
“For two years? River, healthy grief has a timeline. What you're doing isn't healing, it's hiding.”
After Sarah hung up, River sat while the beacon continued its rotation, casting moving shadows across the letter's pages. His sister wasn't wrong about isolation or avoiding emotional connection. But she didn't understand that some wounds were too deep for conventional healing, that some guilt required ongoing penance.
The letter suggested someone else understood. Someone who knew about storm nightmares and dangerous diving and conversations with marine samples. Someone who saw isolation not as pathology but as protection.
River touched the watch face, feeling slight roughness where corrosion had begun pitting the crystal. The letter's writer understood that some destruction was worth accepting, that some connections were worth maintaining even when they caused ongoing damage.
He folded the letter carefully and returned it to the drawer, but words continued echoing as he prepared for bed. Someone named Finn claimed to love him, understand him, know details that should have been impossible to obtain.
Tomorrow, he would start looking for answers. Tonight, he would dream about voices that felt familiar despite being completely unknown.
River's research into the name “Finn” began before his morning coffee finished brewing. Local directories revealed one result: “Between the Lines,” an antiquarian bookshop in the historic waterfront district. Limited hours, no website—a business catering to serious collectors rather than casual browsers.
The coincidence felt too neat. A love letter from someone named Finn, and exactly one person by that name locally. River's scientific training made him suspicious of convenient explanations, but curiosity overrode skepticism.
The drive took him through neighborhoods he rarely visited, past Victorian houses converted to galleries and cafes. The historic district retained working fishing village charm—weathered docks and functional boats rather than decorative ones.
“Between the Lines” occupied a narrow three-story building between a pottery studio and wine bar, deep green facade with gold lettering suggesting old-world craftsmanship. The window displayed rare books and antique maps, arranged with careful attention by someone who understood their value.
River parked across the street and studied the building while debating his approach. He could walk in and ask about the letter, but that felt too direct, too potentially embarrassing if this was mistaken identity. Better to observe first, gather information before committing.
Through the window, he could see someone moving among tall bookshelves—a man with auburn hair catching afternoon light as he arranged volumes with careful, reverent movements. Something about his posture suggested deep familiarity with the space, comfortable navigation of someone who knew exactly where everything belonged.
River found himself studying the man's profile, noting vintage clothing that looked authentically worn rather than costume-like. Cardigan over oxford shirt, functional suspenders. Clothing suggesting someone living slightly outside contemporary fashion, choosing pieces for quality and comfort rather than trends.
The man looked up from his work and their eyes met through the window. River felt an unexpected jolt of recognition, as ifseeing someone familiar despite being certain they'd never met. The sensation was disorienting, intimate in a way that made him feel caught in impropriety.
Instead of entering the shop, River turned and walked back to his truck, heart racing with disproportionate adrenaline. The man in the bookshop was attractive, certainly, but River's reaction felt deeper than aesthetic appreciation. It felt like recognition, reunion, coming home to a place he'd never been.
The rational explanation was obvious: power of suggestion. He'd been thinking about someone named Finn for twenty-four hours, built up expectations and emotional investment around the mysterious letter writer. Seeing an attractive man in the right location had triggered false familiarity—a well-documented psychological phenomenon.
But as River drove toward the lighthouse cottage, the image lingered with disturbing persistence. Auburn hair catching light like burnished copper. Hands moving with the same careful reverence he brought to marine specimens. Eyes that had seemed to hold matching recognition.
The letter waited in his desk drawer, its impossible intimacy now connected to a face and place. River knew he would return to the bookshop, knew he would eventually work up courage to walk through that door and ask the questions building since he'd first read those elegant words.
But tonight, he would content himself knowing Finn Torres was real, that the bookshop existed, that the mystery had tangible anchor in the physical world. Tomorrow, he would begin understanding how a stranger could know him better than he knew himself.
The lighthouse beam swept through his windows in endless rhythm. River fell asleep with the letter's words echoing in his mind and auburn hair catching afternoon light burned behind his closed eyes.
