One o’clock ticked by. Still, nothing. And for the first time since she died, I didn’t know how to fix anything. Not myself. Not David. Not him. Not the way the world tilted just slightly off its axis, always threatening to throw me off.
Then, just when I started thinking he wasn’t coming, I saw it—a light. Flickering at the edge of the yard, out where the path disappeared toward the cliffs.
I looked up, heart tightening.
It was him.
Elliot moved through the tall grass like a shadow, hunched over his phone, the glow painting his face in pale streaks. When his gaze lifted and landed on me, he froze. Just for a heartbeat.The furrow between his brows, the slight tilt of his head, it was as if my very presence startled him, like he couldn’t place it.
And then he kept moving.
Each step toward me sharpened his silhouette, moonlight carving out the hard edges, the tired lines of someone weighed down by regret and memory. My chest tightened. Seeing him like this—wounded, wary, yet still moving toward me—lit something fierce inside me.
I wanted to reach out. Wanted to tell him he didn’t have to carry all of it alone. But I stayed still, letting the moon witness us first. Every hesitant step he took pulled me a little closer, tethered me to him in a way that was quiet, unspoken, and already permanent.
“I thought you’d left,” he muttered, voice low and ragged.
“I didn’t.” My throat tightened. “Didn’t know if I should have. But I stayed.”
His throat worked like he was swallowing something sharp. His eyes flicked to the vodka bottle, then to the cigarettes beside it.
“You waiting for someone?”
“Yeah.” I took a long swig. “You.”
He blinked once. Just once. But it was enough. A flicker passed over his face—something like disbelief, or confusion, or a crack in whatever armor he’d been wearing since her funeral. A twitch at the corner of his mouth. A muscle clenched in his jaw.
He moved closer, each step measured like he wasn’t sure the floor would hold—or if I would. He finally lowered himself onto the swing beside me. No words. No glance in my direction. Just silence thick enough to drown in as I rocked us slowly, toe rolling against wood.
It wasn’t a comfortable silence. But it wasn’t suffocating either. Just full. Heavy with all the things neither of us knew how to say.
“I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing,” he said finally, jaw tight. “But I’m not some project you can fix.”
“I know that.”
“You don’t know shit.”
I nodded, accepting it. “I’m not here to fix you.”
A breath left him—half a laugh, half a warning. “Then what the fuckareyou here for?”
I stared out toward the cliffs, the ocean crashing against the rocks far below. “I’m just trying to be here. For your dad. For you. Even if I get it wrong.”
“Everyonetries,” he muttered. “That’s the problem.”
“No,” I said quietly. “Everyone gives up.”
He stilled beside me. Not startled, more like a held breath. Just like something under his skin cracked, so small I almost missed it.
“No one stays,” he said after a long moment. A fact. A curse. A universal truth etched into bone.
“I’m not everyone.”
He looked at me then. Really looked. Hazel eyes catching in the moonlight, gold flecks shimmering like dying embers. All his grief and rage lived right there, behind his gaze, barely restrained. Like he was about to break the surface after years of drowning.
“You will be.” It was barely a whisper. “Eventually.”
His words gutted me. “Maybe,” I rasped. “But I’m still here. And I don’t plan on going anywhere.”
