A hundred years, five generations, and now a hashtag with a few hundred thousand views and counting.
Is this what survival looks like?
But there’s no answer. Just the crackle of the fire and the distant sound of someone yelling “MOUNTAIN DADDY” like it's a battle cry.
Grammie Bea would laugh, tell me to stop moping, and make her a hot toddy.
But Grammie Bea's gone.
And I'm standing here alone, trying to figure out if saving the lodge means losing everything it was supposed to be.
But at least I’m still standing, I guess, even if I'm not sure what I'm standing for anymore.
Chapter Fourteen
Sierra
I don't startwith Shred Shack intentions.
That's what I tell myself, anyway. That my feet just carry me here while my brain is busy cataloging the seventeen different ways this day has been a catastrophe.
But that's bullshit, and I know it.
I came here on purpose.
Not to wallow. Not to reminisce. Not to torture myself with ghosts I should've exorcised years ago.
I came here to prove I could.
Stand in this room. Breathe this air. Remember what happened here and not shatter into a thousand pathetic pieces.
If I can do that—if I can face the place where I gave him everything and still walk out whole—then maybe I'm finally past it.
Maybe the last eleven years of careful distance actually worked.
Maybe I'm healed.
The door creaks as I open to the lingering scent ofwood smoke and the ghost of a cologne he stopped wearing years ago.
Okay, that part might have been my imagination, but fuck, it’s a good memory.
God, I used to love that cologne. I used to bury my face in his neck just to breathe it in.
My lungs squeeze tight.
Okay. Not healed. Noted.
But I'm here now. I'm not running. I'm standing in the exact spot where seventeen-year-old Sierra Barrett made the most reckless decision of her life, and I'm going to breathe through it until it doesn't hurt anymore.
That's the plan.
That's all I've got.
Until it doesn’t hurt anymore… hmmmm.
How long can humans go without food again?
Or water? Water buys us time.
