What if Richard said something to make her believe that this was the only way out?
What if she’s sitting alone right now, crying, blaming herself for all of it?
The thought alone makes my hands clench.
Dean’s voice cuts through the silence from the other room. “This is bullshit.”
A few seconds later, Callum says, “She’s scared. She thinks she’s protecting us.”
Protecting us…
Yeah, that sounds like her. Always taking on the weight of everyone else’s pain even when it breaks her in the process.
I stare at my phone again, thumb hovering over her name even though the number’s useless now.
The message thread is still there, filled with weeks’ worth of conversations since we arrived in town.
Some funny, some light-hearted, most of them small pieces of a connection that never should’ve existed but somehow became the most important thing in my life.
I scroll through the old messages anyway to torture myself.
Her sending a picture of Eli baking cookies.
Me teasing her about burning the next batch.
The way she’d text late at night when she couldn’t sleep, asking how we all were, if we were staying warm…
It’s all so painfully normal.
Dean finally appears in the doorway between the rooms, his hair disheveled. “We need to go see her. We can’t let her cut us off like this.”
I stand, restless, crossing over to the window.
Outside, the town looks peaceful.
My reflection stares back at me in the glass, tired eyes, a clenched jaw, and the haunted expression of a man who’s lost something he can’t even admit out loud how much he cares about.
Dean speaks again. “Listen. I’m going over there to talk to her. You guys can come with me or stay here, I don’t care. But I’m going over there.”
“You really think that’s a good idea?” Callum asks.
I catch Dean’s reflection moving in the glass. His arms raise in exasperation, slapping against his thighs with a sharpclap.“Who cares? I’m not letting her flee town without talking to her. I’m not letting her slip through my fingers again.”
It’s raw and impulsive and exactly Dean.
He’s always been the one who moves first and apologizes later when it comes to the people he cares about.
That part of him is infuriating and necessary in equal measure.
Callum sighs, the sound full of resignation but he doesn’t argue.
Frankly, neither do I.
Part of me wants to make plans, rationalize the trip over there, call ahead and check that Richard isn’t around before we arrive.
To do every sensible thing we should before we go into this blindly.
Another part of me just wants to get in the car and drive until the town is behind us and Noelle is just a figment of my memory.
