"I'll come with you," I said immediately.
"Your knee—"
"Is fine for walking short distances."
We stared at each other, another silent battle of wills.
"God, the tension is suffocating," Theo muttered. "Finn, want to build a snow fort while the adults pretend they're not desperately attracted to each other?"
"THEO!" Serena and I shouted together.
But Finn was already grabbing his coat, excited about snow fort construction. Within minutes, Theo had him outside, leaving Serena and me alone.
"We should—" I started.
"Don't." Serena set down the knife with deliberate control. "Just don't."
"You've been treating me like I'm radioactive since—"
"Since you pulled away from kissing me?" Her calm facade cracked. "Since you made it clear I'm a complication you don't need?"
"That's not what—"
"Isn't it?" She grabbed her coat. "I'm going to my cabin. Alone."
"Serena—"
She was already out the door.
I found her ten minutes later in what used to be her bedroom, standing beneath a skylight nobody had ordered. Snow fell through the cavity where the oak had split her roof like a wishbone, dusting her shoulders, catching in her eyelashes. She looked like something out of a snow globe—beautiful and trapped and shatterproof.
"Don't," she said without turning. "Whatever heroic platitude you're about to offer, just don't."
"Wasn't going to." I picked my way through the wreckage—splintered beams, books swollen with snowmelt, her life scattered like aftermath. "Your landlord's insurance is going to have a stroke."
She laughed, brittle as ice. "It's pathetic, right? Getting emotional over a rental. But it was supposed to be my fresh start. My proof that I could do this alone."
"You don't have to do everything alone."
"Says the man who's made isolation an art form."
I deserved that. "You're right. I'm a hypocrite."
She turned then, tears freezing on her cheeks. "Why did you pull away, Brad?"
"Because you scare the hell out of me." The words came out serrated. "Because you make me feel like I'm cheating on a ghost. Because Finn looks at you like you hung the moon andwhen you leave, he'll have another mother-shaped hole in his life."
"So you're what, preemptively destroying it? How very proactive."
"I don't know how to do this," I admitted. "How to want someone without feeling like I'm erasing Sarah. How to let you in without waiting for you to leave."
"I'm not asking for promises," she said. "I'm not asking you to forget Sarah or change your whole life. I'm here, Brad. And you keep pushing me away while pulling me closer and I don't know what you want."
"You." The word escaped before I could stop it. "I want you. And it terrifies me."
We stood there in her ruined bedroom, snow falling between us like a metaphor for everything broken and beautiful about this moment.
"I should hate you a little," she said quietly. "For making me want something I'd sworn off. For making me care about you and Finn when I promised myself I wouldn't need anyone."
