"I'm sure. It's time."
"I'll be there," he said. "I'll bring everything. Thank you, Emma. Thank you for letting me in."
"Thank you for being patient. For not giving up on me."
"Never," he said fiercely. "Not ever."
After I hung up, Cole came to stand beside me. He didn't say anything, just took my hand and squeezed.
"That was brave," he said quietly.
I looked at Sarah, who was trying to catch a falling leaf and failing spectacularly. Then back at Cole, this man who had waited for me, who had been patient when I pushed him away,who had taught me that the mountain could be both dangerous and beautiful.
"I'm learning from the best," I said.
We drove toward town as the sun began its descent, painting the peaks in shades of gold and rose. Sarah fell asleep in the backseat within minutes, exhausted and content.
I watched the mountain recede in the side mirror. The same mountain that had haunted my nightmares. The same wilderness that had taken Lily.
But now, with Cole's hand in mine and Sarah's soft breathing from the backseat, it didn't look like a monster anymore. It looked like what it was, just earth and rock and pine, dangerous and beautiful, full of risk and reward.
Just like love.
I thought of Lily. Not with the sharp, guilty grief that had defined the past year, but with something softer. Gratitude. Understanding.
I get it now,I told her silently.Why you kept going back. Why the risk was worth it.
She'd taught me, in her fierce, short life, to live fearlessly. To embrace the beautiful, risky, glorious mess of being alive. I'd spent fourteen months ignoring that lesson, hiding from it, building walls against it.
Not anymore.
The mountain didn't take Lily. Life did, in its random cruelty. But I was still here. Still capable of joy. Still surrounded by people who loved me.
And I was done, finally at last. I was done letting fear steal that.
"You're smiling," Cole observed.
"Am I?"
"It's a good look on you."
"I was just thinking about Lily."
He glanced at me, careful. "Good thoughts?"
"Yeah." I squeezed his hand. "Really good thoughts."
The road wound down the mountain, toward home, toward the life we were building together. In the backseat, Sarah stirred.
"Mom?" she mumbled, still half-asleep.
My heart swelled at the word. "Yeah, baby?"
"Are we almost there?"
"Almost."
"Good." She burrowed deeper into her seat. "'Cause I'm hungry."
