“Of course, it is. I built it.”
She smiles. “Then absolutely. Let’s go big or gourd home.”
I groan. “Do not put that in your article.”
“No promises.”
I check the harnesses, hands steady because I make them be. I talk her through the clip-in, the stance, the lean. She trusts me without needing to say it, and that does more damage than any old memory.
“Wait. I have a one more question,” she says.
“Okay?”
“Off the record,” she says again, softer. “Did we… mess this up back then?”
A beat. Two. The line hums slightly in the wind. I could lie. I could deflect. I’ve been doing both for years.
“It was a long time ago,” I say, and it’s both true and not really an answer.
We stand there with the ghosts for a minute. The wind threads through the spruce.
I could move closer. I could tell her the truth. I could ask the question I didn’t ask at seventeen. I could take a risk in daylight on a platform with a view of every bad decision I’ve ever made.
I don’t.
“On three,” I say, stepping back to give her space. “One… two…”
She launches on two, whooping, hair streaming like a banner. The line sings. The pulley whirs. She flies over the land in a clean, bright glide that fills my heart with a mix of pleasure for what is and grief for what never was.
When I meet her at the bottom she’s breathless and flushed and gorgeous and absolutely, definitely off-limits in all the ways that matter if I’m going to stay useful to this family and this place.
FOUR
TAEGEN
The cable hums under our boots, a silver thread stretching out above the pumpkin fields like something out of a dream.
“Ready?” Dylan asks, voice low enough that I feel it more than hear it. He’s already clipped our harnesses, double-checked every buckle, tested every knot. I swear he checked mine twice.
“Define ready,” I say.
“Willing to scream in public.”
“Then yes,” I tell him, and he grins—that slow, sideways grin I’d forgotten could exist outside teenage memory.
“On three,” he says. “One, two?—”
He sets me sailing.
The world drops away.
Wind rips the breath from my lungs, cold and bright and alive. The line sings. The pumpkins below blur into an orange river. For a heartbeat we’re flying side by side, the valley wide open beneath us.
Dylan’s whoop joins mine, deeper, rougher, pure joy.
When we hit the brake pad at the bottom, the jolt throws me forward into him. He catches me easily, solid arms, scent of sawdust and soap. My pulse is still screaming in my ears.
“Exhilarating, right?” he says.
