The man didn’t argue.
He named one—not as certainty, but as a possibility. A place where the land fell away and the water took over. A place a man could sit without being watched and let the world go quiet enough to survive his own thoughts.
Hope flared sharp and sudden.
I didn’t explain myself. I just turned and left—before doubt could catch up, before anyone could ask if I was sure.
Because I didn’t need certainty.
I just needed direction.
The drive felt unreal—my heart pounding so hard it made my hands shake on the steering wheel. I didn’t think about danger. Or propriety. Or what any of this meant for my carefully built life.
I thought about Micah.
Alone. Broken open. Running the way wounded men did when staying hurt too much.
I found him where his father said I might. A small miracle, really. Or proof of our synchronicity.
He was at the end of a narrow road that gave way to marsh and sky, far from the lit charm of downtown and the curated beauty tourists came for. The kind of place locals passed without noticing—a forgotten stretch of planks and pilings where the land simply stopped and the water took over.
The pier jutted out into the Ashley River, weathered and narrow, its boards silvered with age and salt. No boats tied up. No lights strung overhead. Just water and wind and the soft slap of the tide against the posts below.
He was sitting alone on the edge, shoulders hunched, elbows braced on his knees, staring out at the water stretching in front of him.
There wasn’t another soul in sight.
No cars. No voices. No glow from nearby houses. Just the marsh breathing around us and the distant hum of the city, muted enough to feel like another world.
I didn’t call his name.
I just walked out onto the pier, each step deliberate, letting the boards creak softly under my weight.
Because this felt like a place you entered carefully.
And he felt like a man who needed to know he wasn’t being chased—only found.
He flinched, anyway.
“Go away,” he said hoarsely.
“No.”
Silence stretched between us, thick with unsaid things.
“I know,” I said softly. “About your father.”
His breath hitched.
“I know some of it,” I continued. “Enough.”
He shook his head. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I know,” I said again. “But I am.”
He finally turned toward me. His face was drawn, raw in a way that stripped away all the armor I’d sensed from the beginning.
“I’m not safe,” he said.
