I freeze, halfway to standing. "Fine."
"Did you get your yarn?"
"Yeah."
"From Mountain Treasures?"
Fuck."Yeah."
"Isla's a sweet girl. Struggling a bit since her grandmother passed, but she's trying."
"Seems like it." I don't turn around. If I do, she'll see too much. Birdie always sees too much.
"Pretty, isn't she? Those big brown eyes and all that curly hair."
Fuck."Didn't notice."
Birdie laughs, that knowing sound that means I'm not fooling her for a second. "Of course you didn't, darling. Just like you didn't notice she's exactly your type: smart, creative, kind."
"Don't." The word comes out in a snap. I force myself to breathe, to gentle my tone. "Don't, Birdie. I'm not... I can't."
"Why not?"
I finally turn to face this woman who's become the closest thing to family I have. "You know why. You know what I am. What I've done. The things I still deal with."
"I know you're a good man who's been through hell and came out the other side." She sets the yarn down and crosses to me, her hand warm on my arm. "I know you've built a life here, a quiet one, and that's okay. But Mac, honey, there's a difference between choosing solitude and hiding from living."
"I'm not hiding."
"You order yarn online instead of walking into a shop on Main Street. You park at the far end of town. You work jobs that keep you away from people." Her voice is gentle, no judgment in it. Just truth. "You're hiding, and that's been okay. You needed time. But maybe it's time to stop?"
I think of Isla's smile. The way her fingers brushed mine. The heat that shot through me at that simple contact.
"She's too young," I say finally. "Too bright. She deserves someone whole."
"She's twenty-five. And you're more whole than you think." Birdie squeezes my arm. "I'm not saying marry the girl tomorrow. I'm saying don't run from a connection just because you're scared."
"I'm not scared."
"Alright." She doesn't push. That's one of the things I love about Birdie, she knows when to let something go. Instead, Birdie pats my arm. "The craft show is Saturday at the church. I'll need your help setting up."
I nod, grateful for the change in subject. "What time?"
"Eight. And Mac? That new afghan. The gray one? Bring it. I have a feeling it'll sell fast."
I leave before she can say anything else, trudging through the snow to my truck. The drive to my cabin takes five minutes, winding through trees until I reach the clearing where my place sits.
It's not much. One bedroom, a main room with a kitchen at one end, a bathroom I renovated myself. But it's mine. Quiet. Safe.
Inside, I shed my jacket and boots, build up the fire, and sink into my chair by the window. The chair where I spend most of my nights, knitting while the darkness presses against the glass.
I pull out my current project from the basket beside the chair. The afghan I started last week, the one I bought the yarn to finish. My hands move automatically, the needles clicking in the silence, the repetitive motion smoothing out the rough edges in my head.
This is what the therapist taught me, in that hospital, after the last deployment went to shit. When the nightmares were so bad I couldn't sleep, when my hands shook so hard I couldn't hold a gun anymore—which is probably what saved my life.
"Find something repetitive," she'd said. "Something that requires focus but becomes meditative. Something that creates instead of destroys."
So I found knitting. It helped. Slowly, painfully, but it did.
