how of her life; all he knew was that he loved her. She was all that he needed. He loved that she was so serious. Making Gracie laugh made him feel like he had conquered Everest and Denali both on a single day.
He called Gracie at Penn State a few times a week. Her voice, her laughter, carried him through. He would have chucked everything—school and family and all of his dreams—to be with her in Philly if she'd given him the slightest encouragement, but she never did. Not his Gracie.
He blew off his studies and spent much of his time skiing or surfing out on the Cape. He couldn't remember the last time he'd handed in a paper or shown up for a test. The stack of letters from various department heads were probably meant to enlighten him on that score. He didn't know why he kept fucking up, what made him throw roadblocks in his own way. A counselor had told Noah that it was his way of striking out at Simon, that denying his father's dreams was Noah's way of gaining control, but the whole idea had made Noah angry and he'd walked out with twenty minutes left in the session. He was good at walking out on conversations that got under his skin. Why the hell did they believe that his every move reflected his relationship with Simon? He was more than his father's son. A hell of a lot more.
Gracie was the only one who never made him feel angry or unsettled. Her dreams for him were even better than his own. She believed he could do anything he set his mind to doing and when he was with her, he believed it too. What she thought about him mattered more than he'd ever realized. He wanted to be her hero in every way.
The sound of Noah's voice on the phone filled Gracie's heart with a kind of happiness unknown to her before that first blissful summer. She couldn't afford to phone him very often, but she wrote to him every day, long stream-of-consciousness letters that touched on everything from the injured dog she had been unable to save, to how many children they would have after they married. They weren't officially engaged yet—that would mean coming clean to their families and neither one of them was ready for that—but the commitment was rock-solid, just the same.
Gracie applied herself to her schoolwork with the kind of intense dedication she brought to every endeavor. Nothing in her life came easy; she accepted that fact as one of the givens. In a way she was glad that Noah was far away in Boston because she would never have been able to concentrate with him close at hand. Noah was one of the lucky ones. He learned quickly with little effort. Gracie had to bite her tongue on more than one occasion when he talked about blowing off the whole thing and getting a job down there in Philadelphia. "Rich boy talk," she'd called it once. After seeing the look on Noah's face, she never said that again but the thought lingered.
Still she knew she was right. Only someone born into privilege could toss aside his education, secure in the knowledge that he could pick it up again any time he liked. When you were on scholarship you didn't have that luxury.
Sometimes Noah drove down from Boston for the weekend and Gracie found herself torn between her love for him and her need to work. She'd set herself a rigorous schedule which included starting her pre-med courses a year early but that all depended upon her ability to maintain top-notch grades. And since even full scholarships didn't cover every need, she worked part-time as a waitress at a nearby coffee shop.
Noah teased her about her work ethic. She tried not to look askance at his casual attitude toward education but she couldn't help herself. He'd been given so many gifts. Parents who loved him. A beautiful home. Every opportunity money and privilege could buy. She couldn't be blamed for feeling the tiniest bit jealous every now and again, could she? Sometimes it seemed to Gracie as if he had turned his back on everything she'd ever dreamed of.
They saw the world through very different eyes, yet back home in the shadow of the lighthouse, their differences fell away. Lying together in the sand in a wash of moonlight, they understood each other in a way impossible for anyone