We pass the Welcome to Evervale sign, same chipped paint, same half-dead lights.Christmas town frozen in time.I want to hate it.Instead, I ache.
When the road curves toward the outskirts, he stops at the fork.The baby shifts, a flutter low and certain.I press my palm to the bump.
I say, “Don’t take me to the clubhouse yet.”
He glances over his shoulder, brows drawn.“You got somewhere else in mind?”
“Sugar,” I say.“I just… I need to see her first.”
He hesitates, then nods once.“Yeah.Okay.”
She opens the door before we knock, robe half-tied, hair a halo of red curls.Sugar’s trailer smells like hazelnut candles and cotton candy vape, same as always.
“Lord have mercy,” she breathes.“You two look like ghosts.”
Humbug hangs back, awkward, while she wraps me in a hug that hurts in all the right ways.I start crying before I can stop myself.
“It’s gone,” I whisper against her shoulder.“Everything.”
“I heard,” she says, shutting the door in the biker’s face.“Pine City news travels fast.Sit down before you fall down.”
She makes cocoa like it’s medicine.I drink it, even though the sweetness makes my stomach lurch.She listens while I spill everything, the fire, the cops, the ride.Her face goes from soft to stone.“Humbug said it was Trina.His wife.She was trying to kill me.Just like she promised.”
“That woman’s been poison since the day she learned what eyeliner was,” Sugar says.“You sure you’re okay with him here?”
I glance toward the window.Humbug’s outside, smoking, snow gathering on his shoulders.“I don’t know what I’m okay with anymore.”
“You still love him.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It never is,” she says.“But you’re carryin’ his kid, and he came runnin’ through fire to pull you out.That’s worth somethin’, honey.”
I shake my head.“He lied.About everything.”
“Men like him don’t know truth till it burns ’em,” she says.“Question is, what’re you gonna do now?”
I stare at the mug in my hands.“Rest.Breathe.Figure out if forgiveness is survival or suicide.”
“Then you stay here.”
“Help me break the news to him,” I say, jutting my chin toward the biker.
He doesn’t take it well.“It’s not safe,” he starts, but finishes with, “I’ll be back.”
That night, I dream in smoke.When I wake, the trailer’s dark, Sugar snorin’ in her chair, and Humbug’s sittin’ outside in a truck.I pull on her coat and step into the cold.
He startles when I tap the window.“Can we talk?”
“Yeah,” he says, and rubs his face with both hands.From the looks of it, he’s been staying awake, guarding me from his crazy wife.
Inside, the cab is as cold as the outside.He starts the truck and blasts the heat.“Didn’t wanna crowd you.”
“You didn’t,” I say.“You just look miserable.”
He huffs out a laugh that’s more pain than humor.“That’s fair.”
We sit in silence till the windshield fogs.Then I say, “Why’d you come?To Pine City?”
