THE STORM THAT TESTED GREYHAVEN
Chapter 12
That evening, Greyhaven held no celebration.
There was no music.
No festival.
No bonfire.
Instead, people gathered around the harbor simply to eat.
Someone brought grilled meat.
Someone brought fruit.
Someone brought bread.
June brought coffee.
Walter brought beer.
They sat together on overturned crates and repaired benches.
The town was still damaged.
But nobody seemed to care for that moment.
Ethan looked around.
He recognized the faces.
The same people who had stood beside him during the storm.
The same people who had worked beside him for three days.
He realized something.
The festival had shown him Greyhaven at its happiest.
The storm had shown him Greyhaven at its strongest.
He had thought belonging meant sharing good memories.
He was beginning to understand that it meant sharing the difficult ones too.
Walter raised his bottle.
“To surviving.”
Sam lifted his.
“To rebuilding.”
June raised hers.
“To not doing this again.”
Everyone laughed.
Ethan lifted his bottle.
“To Greyhaven.”
The bottles touched.
And for the first time, nobody looked at Ethan like the newcomer.
He was simply one of them.
