“Yeah,” I confirmed. He studied me the way he had earlier, like he was searching for the space between my words instead of the words themselves. He knew there was more there. He just didn’t push.
“How did you find it?” he asked, and something about his tone made me pause. He wasn’t filling silence. He was waiting for the truth.
I hesitated, weighing both the answer and how much of it belonged to him. “Have you ever been to the mountains?” I asked instead. Austin looked like he had expected almost any response but that one. Still, he nodded. “I have too,” I continued, the memory rising easily. “Just once. It was after Holden overdosed for the first time, and honestly, I wasn’t doing very well.”
I stopped there. I did not tell him how my mind had turned into something I barely recognized. How everything had become numbers and rules and control. How my parents had finally noticed, finally said the words out loud, finally taken mesomewhere I could not argue my way out of. I had heard them. I just had not believed them yet. When we drove toward the mountains in that small car, my mind was still fighting itself, and I was losing more battles than I was winning.
“So,” I continued, aware of the silence I had left behind, aware that Austin had not interrupted it. “We got there. And I swear, there’s no feeling quite like standing in front of something that big. You can’t imagine it until you’re actually there.”
“I know what you mean,” Austin said quietly.
“I was looking up at them,” I said, “and for the first time in a long time, I realized how small I was. I was nothing compared to them. Compared to these worlds that just kept stretching higher and higher.”
“And that helped you?” Austin asked. He looked at me the same way he had when I talked about fate. Like I was speaking in a language he wanted to understand but hadn’t learned yet.
“It did,” I said, surprising myself with how sure I felt. “Because when I realized how small I was, I realized how small my problems might be too. Not unimportant. Just… not all-consuming.” I took a breath. “And if my problems were smaller than I thought, then maybe I could fight them. Maybe I didn’t have to be crushed by them. Maybe I could be stronger than them.” I looked back toward the waterfall, then added softly, “Maybe I could be the mountain.”
“Wow,” Austin said, shaking his head, something unreadable passing through his expression. I didn’t know what he meant by it. So I kept going.
“So I started to remember all the things my mom had told me before,” I said. “All the hope she had given me growing up. I’dforgotten it for a while, but standing there, I remembered it again.”
“Your mom sounds amazing,” Austin said. There was something in his voice I couldn’t quite name. Not jealousy. Not bitterness. Something quieter. “She sounds nothing like mine.”
A pang hit my chest, something close to pity, something I didn’t want to assume but couldn’t ignore. “No?” I asked gently. “What’s she like?”
“Uninvolved,” he said. Just the one word. But it carried weight, like an entire story pressed flat into a single sentence.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I didn’t try to pull more from him, but I meant it.
“Don’t be,” Austin replied quickly. He smiled, but it felt practiced, like he’d said those words more times than he could count. “We all get what we get.”
“It’s what you do with it that matters,” I said, offering the words back to him. “And you seem to be doing pretty well.”
He didn’t respond right away. Instead, I noticed the sky for the first time. The sun had slipped beneath the horizon, leaving behind that lingering summer glow, the kind that made everything look softer than it really was. Not dark yet. Just changing. I opened my mouth, already knowing what I was going to say.
“I’m not taking you home yet,” Austin said firmly, beating me to it.
I laughed, the sound surprising even me. “I didn’t realize I was being held captive.”
“Not captive,” he said, standing quickly. “Just… temporarily detained.”
“I’m kidding,” I smiled. And I meant it. I didn’t want to leave yet.
“I have one more thing to show you,” he added, offering me his hand. “Then I’ll take you home. I don’t want to jeopardize my good standing with Sean and Jane.”
I took his hand without thinking. “I have a feeling you don’t need to worry about that,” I muttered, remembering the amusement in my father’s eyes.
“Stay here,” Austin ordered, already turning away from me.
“You’re going to leave me alone in a dark forest?” I called after him, pulling my legs closer to my body. Though I was joking… maybe I wasn’t.
Austin glanced back, a flicker of glee dancing in his eyes. “Do you think it’s fate for you to be eaten by a bear tonight, Yellow?”
I rolled my eyes. “No.”
“Then you’re fine.”
My laughter followed him as he disappeared, and to my surprise, I realized I wasn’t nervous at all. Not about the darkness closing in around me. Not about being alone. I was too focused on the joy lifting me from the inside out. I felt like I was floating, suspended somewhere far above the ground, and I didn’t want to come back down. Something about being around Austin felt effortless. Natural. Like this was exactly where I was meant to be.
