We’re going back to Luna Harbor this week with another heart-wrenching romance from Claudia Burgoa, and I have a sneak peek for you.
Excerpt
Keane
Luna Harbor lies nestled along the Dungeness River, framed by the towering shadows of the Olympic Mountains. It’s the kind of place people dream about when they’re looking for peace—clear skies, endless trees, and a lake so still it feels unnatural.
The lake is too quiet. Too perfect. Its surface stretches endlessly, a mirror to the world, untouched and pristine. It mocks me with its stillness, reflecting nothing of the turmoil roiling inside me.
The house is cold, and I haven’t bothered to turn on the furnace or light the fireplace. I could. I probably should. But the chill feels right burrowing into my skin, a discomfort I can’t shake and don’t want to. Comfort is for people who deserve it. People who haven’t wrecked everything they’ve ever held close.
I sit on the edge of the couch, my elbows digging into my knees, staring at the open guitar case like it’s a ghost from another life. The guitar gleams under the soft light, strings taut, waiting. It’s been waiting for years. I can’t stop looking at it. Even though every nerve in my body screams to shove it back in a closet, to bury it beneath old clothes and broken promises. Or better yet, burn it.
Burn it the same way I did the rest of my life.
The last time I played, I was on a stage. Thousands of faces blurred together in the darkness, but I could feel them, their energy humming through the air, electric and raw. The crowd chanted my name, over and over, louder and louder, like it was a prayer. They worshiped me—no, not me, the version of me I gave them. They loved the lyrics I wrote, the music I poured my soul into, the person I pretended to be.
The lights were blinding, the bass vibrating through the soles of my boots, and for a few fleeting hours, I was untouchable. I lived for those moments, for the applause that drowned out the voice in my head telling me I wasn’t enough.
But all of it is gone now. The lights, the music, the crowds, the man I used to be—gone. And so are Philly and our daughter.
My hands clench together, knuckles whitening under the strain. My fingers ache, but I don’t loosen my grip. Instead, I lean forward, my forehead pressing against my clasped hands.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, my voice scraping against the silence. The words feel hollow, too small to contain the depth of what I mean. I don’t even know who I’m saying it to. Her? Our baby? Myself? Or maybe some faceless force I’ve been cursing since the moment I woke up to this fractured version of my life.
Why does it seem like I’m having a setback? The last few days have been brutal. Counseling cracked me open, and now the pieces don’t fit back together the way they used to. Then there was the physical part of the day where I can’t do all the shit I want, but the therapists force me to work harder. Try. Once more. Give your hundred percent.
“Fuck you, this is all I have. I can’t give anything else,” I want to shout, but I remain quiet and try because that’s all I have.
Zeke warned me this would happen, that healing isn’t linear. That sometimes everything will get worse before it gets better. But knowing that doesn’t make it easier.
The sessions felt like being thrown into the ocean in the middle of a storm without a floating device to keep me going.
Maybe I should quit my new therapist. She pulled at wounds I thought I’d scabbed over, dragging memories to the surface that I’ve spent years trying to drown.
We talked about the accident. About how I wasn’t there when Philly needed me, how I didn’t get to hold my daughter, how I failed them both. Hadn’t I already grieved during the ninety days of hell I just came out of?
It seems like I didn’t as well as I thought.
I should call Zeke before I do something stupid, like go back to my old life.
Not that I can do it.
Seattle is gone for me. I can’t go back. The pitying glances, the whispered conversations that stop when I walk into a room—it’s suffocating. Coming back from a death that didn’t happen is a strange kind of purgatory. People mourned me, moved on, and now what am I supposed to do? Say that my mother was grieving during my coma and decided to bury me? That’s crazy, isn’t it?
I’m stuck between the life I had and the one I don’t know how to rebuild.
The ambiguity of being alive yet erased is strange and liberating. No one here knows me. No one expects anything from me. It should feel like freedom, but instead, it feels like I’m unraveling.
I glance back at the guitar, its strings glinting in the soft light. The urge to play is there, gnawing at the edges of my mind, but I can’t. Anything I try to play will sound as broken as me.
I lean back, dragging my hands through my hair. The cold seeps deeper, but I don’t move. I don’t deserve the warmth.
Maybe someday I’ll feel ready to pick it up again. To play, to live, to be something more than this. But not today.
Not today.
I pull myself up from the couch, pacing the room. The space is too small, too confining. The walls seem closer every time I move, the shadows shifting like they’re alive. The lake is there, visible through the window, serene and indifferent. It mocks me with its calmness.
“Get a grip,” I mutter, the words useless even as they leave my mouth.
I take a breath, do all those exercises to calm the fuck down. Nothing is helping. My eyes drift to the phone on the counter. The screen lights up, the name Rowan glaring at me.
I don’t answer. Let him leave another voicemail I won’t listen to until I can get a grip. Rowan wouldn’t understand. How could he? He just tells me to move forward, to try my best.
It’s all about my fucking best. But I’m at my worst, so how can I do it?
Then there’re the nightmares. The headlights swallowed the road, when the car spins out, when her voice breaks in the middle of begging me to save her . . . save our baby. Why am I having those nightmares? Why is that happening now?
I shove both hands into my pockets, pacing back to the couch. The open guitar case catches my eye again, and something inside me twists. I sink onto the floor, my back against the couch. The chill from the hardwood seeps into my skin, but I don’t move. My chest feels like it’s been ripped open and left raw.
The phone buzzes again. Another call. Another message. I don’t have the strength to look. Rowan can’t fix this. No one can. I curl my hands into fists, pressing them against my thighs, and let the quiet consume me again.
I stay there, unmoving, as the sky fades from gray to black. The shadows deepen, swallowing the room, and I let them. Tonight, the dark feels more honest than the light ever has.
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