"Be safe out there," Shelly says.
I shake Frank's hand again and head back outside. Blackjack snorts when he sees me, his breath fogging in the cold air. "Let's go home, boy."
The ride back is faster, maybe because I'm anxious, or maybe just because it's getting colder. My mind keeps circling back to Paisley. What if I get home and she's done something? What if leaving her was the biggest mistake I could've made? I don't know if I can handle finding her the way I did my wife.
"She's fine," I tell myself again, but my heart is pounding.
When the cabin finally comes into view, I'm almost lightheaded with relief. Smoke is still coming from the chimney. The lights are on. Everything looks normal.
I take care of Blackjack quickly, giving him extra food before heading to the house. My hand trembles as I reach for the door handle.
Please let her be okay. Please let this have been the right call.
I step inside, and the warmth of the cabin feels good. But I stop and listen. There's no sound at first, and my heart drops.
Then I hear it. The soft clicking of keys on the laptop. She'a alive, and she's here. I've never been so happy to come home in my life.
Nineteen
Paisley
The first hour after Chase left, I sat on the couch and stared at the door.
Not because I was planning anything. Not because I was thinking about ending it. But because for the first time in months, I was truly alone with my thoughts, and it scared the hell out of me.
Biscuit jumped up next to me, purring and kneading my thigh. I stroked the soft fur, trying to calm the racing of my heart. The cabin felt bigger without Chase in it. Emptier. The silence was loud, pressing in on me from all sides.
I closed my eyes and took a breath. Then another.
"I'm okay," I whispered to the cat. "I'm okay."
And the strange thing was, I realized I meant it.
I thought back to that day in the field. The rain, the gun, the thought that there was nothing left for me. I remembered the weight of that decision, how heavy it had been, how final. I remembered thinking that this was the only way out.
But sitting here now, in Chase's cabin with his cat purring in my lap, I understand something I hadn't before.
I never actually wanted to die.
What I wanted was out. Out of the situation with Stanley. Out of the betrayal and the lies and the loss of my baby. Out of feeling like I was drowning every single day with no one to pull me out of the deep end.
And I'd gotten out, hadn't I? Just not the way I planned.
Chase had pulled me out. He'd dragged me from that car, brought me to this cabin, and given me space to breathe. To heal. To remember who I was before Stanley destroyed everything.
I'm still devastated about losing the baby. That pain hasn't gone away, and I don't think it ever will completely. Some losses you carry forever. But I can look at that loss now without it crushing me entirely. I can hold the grief and the anger and the sadness, and still see that there's more to my life than this one terrible thing.
I'm in a better place. Literally and figuratively.
Mentally, I'm not where I was in that field. I'm finding my footing. And maybe I have been finding a little every single day. It's been building, brick by brick, until I didn't realize I'm standing on solid ground. But right now? It hits me right in the chest.
And living here with Chase? That's part of it too. This cabin has become a sanctuary. A place where I can just be, without judgment or expectations or having to pretend I'm okay when I'm not.
"He trusts me," I told Biscuit, scratching behind his ears. "He left me here alone because he trusts me."
That thought settles the nerves in my chest. Chase, who barely knew me, who had every reason to think I might try again, trusted me enough to leave. That means so much to me.
I stand up, dislodging the cat, and look around the cabin. The puzzle we started the other night is on the card table and almost complete. The dishes from breakfast are washed and drying by the sink. The fire is burning low, so I add another log, watching as the flames engulf the new addition.
