The beach house was quiet in the morning, the kind of quiet that made everything feel sharper, more vivid. Laura sat cross-legged on the floor, an old sketchbook open on her lap.

It smelled faintly of pencil and eraser dust, a scent that carried years of whispered thoughts and hidden feelings.

She had pulled it out from the bottom of a box that Cole hadn’t touched—one he had left for her, but wisely let her own space remain intact.

Page after page, she turned through memories frozen in graphite and color. There was the first sketch she had made of him, months before their fake dating began—careless lines capturing the...