"There's always something broken somewhere."
The words came out heavier than I'd intended. Her expression shifted subtly, knowing eyes flickering, deep understanding. She knew instinctively that I wasn't really talking about porches and railings anymore.
"Sometimes broken things don't actually need fixing right away," she said quietly, holding my gaze. "Sometimes they just need time. And patience. And someone willing to sit with them while they heal."
The air between us thickened palpably. I should have said something light and deflecting, made a self-deprecating joke, broken the tension somehow. Instead, I just looked at her, gazing at this remarkable woman who saw the cracks and fractures in people and didn't flinch away.
"I'm not very good at patience," I admitted honestly.
"You're better at it than you think." She smiled gently. "You just waited on this porch for over an hour without complaint."
"I wasn't waiting. I was productively working."
"You were waitingandworking simultaneously. Impressive multitasking." Her eyes sparkled with gentle teasing. "Very efficient use of your time."
Before I could formulate any response, Tommy's indignant voice shattered the moment. "Ms. Reed! Chloe took my juice box right out of my hand!"
"I did not! He dropped it and I picked it up!"
"That's still taking!"
Emma sighed, but the warm smile remained on her face. "Duty calls, unfortunately." She touched my arm briefly, just a brush of her fingers against my sleeve, there and gone, still sent tingles up my shoulders. "We've got about twenty minutes left to finish up. Stay?"
"I'll be right here."
She gave me one last warm, lingering look, then turned to referee the juice box dispute with practiced patience. The door closed softly behind her.
I sank down onto the step. The silent, solid, non-squeaking step.
The hammer and drill lay beside me like evidence of something I couldn't quite articulate. My heart was pounding a slow, heavy rhythm against my ribs. I looked at the sturdy railing, the secure floorboards beneath my boots. I'd successfully fixed all the obvious physical dangers.
But I'd created something far more terrifying for myself in the process.
Through the window, I heard Emma's patient voice resume the lesson. "Okay everyone, let's finish our very last story for today. Chloe, would you like to start us off?"
"The little frog was brave," Chloe read slowly, carefully pronouncing each word. "Even when he was really scared."
I stared out at the mountains rising beyond Emma's small clearing, their peaks sharp against the endless blue sky. Fifteen years I'd lived up in those mountains, building walls both physical and emotional, keeping my careful distance, needing no one and nothing but myself and the wilderness. Safety existed only in solitude. Control existed only in isolation.
Now I was sitting on a schoolteacher's sunlit porch, covered in sawdust and contentment, listening to my niece read about brave frogs, and feeling things I'd spent my entire adult life systematically avoiding.
Emma was no longer just Sarah's kind, dedicated teacher. She wasn't just an intriguing woman with beautifully sad eyes and a warm laugh.
She was becoming necessary.
The thought should have terrified me completely. It did terrify me, more than any bear I'd encountered, any blizzard I'd survived, any treacherous mountain trail I'd navigated. Those dangers were external and manageable. You could prepare for them, navigate around them, and fight against them directly.
This was entirely different. This was internal and uncontrollable. The danger of wanting. Of needing. Of letting someone matter so profoundly that their absence would leave a wound that might never properly heal.
I sat on the now-silent steps and realized with absolute certainty that I was in serious trouble. Emma Reed was becoming a necessary part of my life, and that terrified me more than any mountain trail ever could.
6.Emma
Itold myself Saturdays were about lesson plans. I was an excellent liar.
"The seed is scared," Sarah announced, frowning at the picture book spread across my coffee table. "But why? Doesn't it know it's going to become a flower?"
The question landed somewhere deeper than a children's story should reach. I paused, feeling the unexpected weight of it settle in my chest.
