That's the problem, I think but don't say. The Emma they know isn't the real me. The real me came alive in Wyatt's cabin, in his arms, under his quiet, attentive gaze.
"What about law school?" my father asks from the driver's seat. "Your applications are due next month."
The mention of law school—that predetermined future I've been dreading—sends a fresh wave of pain through me. This is probably why they're worried. Not for my safety but because of my applications. Typical. "I don't want to talk about it right now."
"You've thrown away nine days of study time," he continues as if I hadn't spoken. "You'll need to work twice as hard now to catch up."
I turn toward the window, watching the trees thin out as we descend from the mountains. Each mile takes me farther from Wyatt, from the life I glimpsed in those nine perfect days.
"He has money," my mother says suddenly. "Is that it? Did he promise to take care of you?"
The memory of our interrupted breakfast conversation brings fresh tears to my eyes. I blink them back furiously.
"You don't understand anything," I whisper.
They continue to talk, but I tune them out. They won't notice anyway. In our household, nobody cared about what I thought or what I wanted. It was always about them. I never really had a voice.
Only Wyatt ever listened to me, ever cared about my opinion.
Now the miles grow between us, and the farther I get, the more my heart breaks.
My dorm roomfeels like a foreign country. So cold and suffocating compared to the cabin. The moment my parents leave—after extracting promises from me to call them twice daily and focus on my studies—I collapse onto my bed, the grief finally overwhelming me.
It comes in waves, physical in its intensity. My chest constricts until breathing becomes an active struggle. My stomach clenches with nausea. My skin feels wrong somehow, too tight, too cold without Wyatt's touch.
I curl into myself, clutching my camera bag. Inside are hundreds of photos—proof that those nine days weren't a dream, that Wyatt and his cabin exist in the real world.
After hours of crying, I drag myself to my desk and connect my camera to my laptop with trembling hands. The photos load slowly—majestic mountain vistas, delicate wildflowers, Cain and Abel, curious wildlife and a handsome Elk looking majestically and empowered right into my lens.
And Wyatt. Of course Wyatt. Wyatt working with focused concentration. Wyatt looking up at the stars with wonder on his face. Wyatt smiling that rare, transformative smile that he seemed to reserve just for me.
I select a dozen images and send them to print. As they emerge from my printer, I arrange them on the floor around me—creating a circle of memories, surrounding myself with all I've lost.
The last photo prints—Wyatt standing on his porch at sunrise, light gilding his profile as he looks out over the mountains. I took it yesterday morning, never imagining it would be my last full day with him.
Something breaks inside me. My legs give out and I collapse to the floor amid the photos, sobs tearing from my throat. I curl around the image of Wyatt, pressing it to my heart as if I could somehow absorb him into myself, keep him with me.
The pain is unbearable—physical, visceral. My perfect life with him feels simultaneously like a distant dream and more real than the room around me. The memory of his touch, his voice calling me "baby," the safety of his arms—it all crashes over me in waves of agonizing loss.
"I'll come back," I whisper to his photograph. "I'll come back to you."
But in this moment, surrounded by images of everything I've lost, those words feel hollow. Campus life stretches before me like a prison sentence, each day taking me further from the person I became in those nine precious days—the real Emma, the one Wyatt saw.
I don't know how to be that person here. I don't know how to exist without him. Not anymore.
6
WYATT
One Month Later
Her coffee mug haunts the kitchen counter. Unwashed. Untouched. Exactly where she left it thirty-one days ago, some kind of stain on the rim preserving the last physical trace of her presence.
The cabin feels wrong without her—too large, too empty, too silent. Like a body missing its heart, the spaces echo with absence instead of her laughter. Even the cats sense it, prowling restlessly through rooms that once vibrated with her presence.
Cain and Abel, usually at each other's throats, now move like ghosts themselves, occasionally pausing to stare expectantly at the door before resuming their uneasy circuits. They wind around my ankles more frequently now, purring with an urgency that feels like questions I can't answer.
Outside, summer edges toward fall, leaves beginning their inevitable surrender.
