Hours later, Nettie sat cross-legged in her usual spot on the couch—the old, sagging cushions dipping just enough to cradle her hips and legs as though the piece of furniture had memorized her shape over the years. The faded floral fabric had long since lost its color, but to her, it was perfect. Familiar. Home.
This was her place. Not just the couch, but the feeling of belonging it carried. After her parents died, she had come here—to her grandmother’s small, humble house—and learned to find contentment in simple things.
Her grandmother had taught her that peace didn’t come from what you wanted, but from what you cherished, from a well within you. A chipped teacup that always held her favorite peppermint tea. A creaky floorboard she knew to avoid if she wanted to sneak a midnight snack. And this couch was her safe harbor after the storm.
Her own personal storm…
Hurricane Tate.
Category six – evacuate and run.
Nettie’s knitting needles clicked together in a steady rhythm, the faint metallic sound tapping into the quiet hush of the room. Knitting was her favorite of all her hobbies. Cross-stitching was neat, crochet was clever, but knitting?
Knitting was her soul’s music.
Her happiness.
Her fingers moved with muscle memory, counting silently, yarn looping through and around, building something useful and soft out of nothing more than string. Sometimes she hummed along to the radio, sometimes she sang out loud, but always the needles brought comfort. Knitting never judged her. Never told her she wasn’t enough. Never made her feel small.
She created… not destroyed or tore down things.
Not like Tate did.
The thought stabbed, sudden and sharp. She exhaled, dropping her gaze to her lap. The yarn slipped slightly, pulling too tight on the stitch, and she had to unravel it, correcting her mistake with practiced hands. Tate had been the thorn in her side from the very beginning. His careless looks, his deliberate obstacles, the way he always seemed to know just how to unnerve her. Even now, just the memory of him made her stomach knot.
She remembered the M&M’s. He thought he was being clever, sneaky, leaving them where she’d find them, teasing her, mocking her sweet tooth. She ate them anyway. Because for one silly, desperate moment, she had told herself it meant he thought of her. Even if it was to laugh at her expense.
And then she’d gone and told him he was cute, that she liked him.
Her needles stilled in her lap.
The memory rose, unbidden, vivid as the day it happened.
She had been fourteen, brimming with restless nerves, her heart drumming with the certainty that Tate's leaving for college would change everything. He was eighteen, on the cusp of the world—handsome in that careless, infuriating way that made him seem untouchable. She had feared he would disappear, or worse, return with someone else on his arm. So she had done the unthinkable.
She had waited until Gina disappeared to the bathroom, then crept down the hall to Tate’s room. He was packing, boxing up his life into brown cardboard for California and that full-ride scholarship everyone bragged about. She remembered the smell of his cologne, the faint dust of cardboard in the air, the way her hand shook on the doorknob before she pushed it open, allowing it to close behind her.
Tate had straightened, lifting his head. His eyes—dark and sharp, always unreadable—landed on her. His face shuttered instantly, a mask snapping into place.
“No,” he said. One word. Flat. Final.
“I just wanted to?—”
“Nettie,” he cut her off, his tone clipped. “Whatever you’re going to say—just no.”
Her throat went dry. Her fragile heart aching with longing and hope. Still, she whispered bravely, “But I think you’re cute…”
The silence afterward had burned hotter than fire. His expression hardened, his voice cool as ice. “And you’re not. You need to get out of my room before my parents see you in here. We’re not doing this. I’m leaving for college, and you’re still a teenager. Gina’s friend. A kid.”
She had tried again, trembling, “But?—”
“Get. Out.” His voice had risen, heat spilling into the words. He stepped closer, tall, lanky, broad-shouldered in a way that was almost too much for his frame. His fierce eyes cut through her, the sharp edge of rejection piercing deeper than anything she’d ever felt.
The memory played in her mind like it was happening again, and she could feel the sting behind her eyes, the drop in her chest. She had left his room that night with her heart crushed into a thousand fragile shards. Later, she had cried herself empty in her grandmother’s lap.
She had never told anyone—not Gina, not Shannon. It became her own private scar, hidden deep but always there. A mark on her soul, the everlasting sting of rejection. Her first crush -crushed. After that, she never really dated. Not that many people asked anyway…
She buried herself in books, in hobbies, in her studies. Child development, because she wanted to help kids, to be the kind of anchor she herself had needed once. But the irony was cruel—working with children also isolated her from other adults. The men who came around were married fathers. The women became her circle of friends. Gina. Shannon. Her grandmother. Safe. Familiar. Not threatening.
