But running wasn't an option. Callahans didn't run, according to Dad. Callahans stood their ground and faced whatever tried to break them, even when what tried to break them lived inside their own skin.
Especially then.
The soundof waves crashing against rocks pulled me through the forest like a lifeline. After spending another day feeling like my skin was trying to crawl off my bones, after navigating the suffocating halls and forced conversations that came with being sixteen and expected to care about things that felt meaningless, I needed somewhere that felt bigger than Hollow Pines High.
The coast had always been my refuge when the wolf got too restless, when the weight of expectations pressed down until breathing felt like drowning. Something about the endlessexpanse of dark water made the problems in my head feel smaller, more manageable.
What I hadn't expected was to find someone else already there.
Nate sat on the rocky outcropping that jutted into the Pacific, legs dangling over the edge like he was dangling over the edge of the world. His camera lay beside him, forgotten for once, while he stared out at waves that caught moonlight and threw it back in patterns too beautiful for human words.
I almost turned around. This was supposed to be my place, my sanctuary, and sharing it felt like exposing something too raw to survive daylight. But something in the way he held himself, shoulders curved inward like he was trying to make himself smaller, kept my feet planted on the rocky shore.
He looked lost. More than lost. He looked like someone drowning in plain sight.
The sound of my approach made him turn, and even in the dim light I could see his eyes were red-rimmed, like he'd been crying or trying not to cry or fighting a war with tears that he was slowly losing.
“Hey,” he said, voice rough around the edges. “Didn't think anyone else knew about this place.”
I settled beside him on the rocks, careful to leave space between us that felt safe rather than crowded. The ocean stretched out below us, vast and dark and indifferent to whatever human dramas played out on its shores.
“Been coming here since I was little,” I said, the words scraping against a throat that still felt raw from holding back everything I wanted to say but couldn't find voice for. “When things get too loud.”
Nate nodded like he understood exactly what kind of loud I meant. “I needed to think somewhere that felt bigger than my problems.”
The honest way he said it, like admitting weakness was just another fact about the weather, made something cold settle in my chest. Because I recognized that tone, the careful neutrality that came from trying to hold yourself together when everything felt like it was falling apart.
“What makes you feel like that?”
Nate laughed, but there was no humor in it. Just bitter recognition of truths he'd probably been carrying alone for too long. “Where do I start? I'm the weird kid with the camera who talks to teachers like they're people and doesn't understand why that's apparently social suicide. I'd rather spend lunch in the darkroom than the cafeteria. I read photography magazines for fun, Evan. What kind of sixteen-year-old does that?”
“The kind who's passionate about something that matters to them.”
“The kind who's never going to fit in anywhere.” He threw the driftwood toward the waves, watching it disappear into darkness. “My parents thought moving here would help, but you can't start fresh when the problem is you. When you're just fundamentally wrong for whatever environment you're trying to survive in.”
The pain in his voice was raw and familiar, the sound of someone who'd spent too many nights wondering why they couldn't be what other people expected them to be. I wanted to tell him he was wrong, that belonging wasn't about fitting into spaces that were never designed for people like us. But words felt clumsy, inadequate for the kind of hurt that lived in dark places and fed on isolation.
Instead, I moved closer. Not close enough to crowd him, but close enough that our shoulders almost touched, that he could feel the warmth radiating from my skin.
“I know what it's like,” I said quietly. “Feeling like you don't fit anywhere. Like there's something fundamentally wrong with the way you're wired.”
Nate went very still beside me, like he was afraid that sudden movements might spook me back into silence.
“I don't talk much,” I continued, the words feeling strange and vulnerable in my mouth. “People notice. Teachers, other kids. They think I'm rude or stuck-up or just weird.”
“Are you?”
“Weird? Probably.” I managed a small smile. “But not the way they think. Doctors call it selective mutism. Started after my mom died when I was twelve. They think it's trauma-related, my brain's way of protecting itself from having to process things too big to understand.”
Nate's hand found mine in the darkness, fingers intertwining with careful gentleness. “I'm sorry.”
“The thing is,” I said, staring out at waves that kept coming no matter what human catastrophes played out on shore, “I can talk. Obviously. But most of the time it feels like there's this wall between what I'm thinking and what comes out of my mouth. Like the words get stuck somewhere between my brain and my voice.”
“But not with me.”
It wasn't a question, but I nodded anyway. “Not with you. I don't know why. Maybe because you don't expect me to be anything other than what I am. Maybe because you understand what it's like to feel like an outsider.”
We sat in comfortable silence for a while, listening to the rhythm of waves against rock, breathing salt air that tasted like freedom and endless spaces. Nate's hand was warm in mine, anchor-steady and entirely human in ways that made my wolf settle into something approaching peace.
