But as I get closer, ready to send them back to the group with a few loud words, I realize it’s not a kid.
It’s a woman.
A familiar tingle whispers at the back of my neck. There’s something about the way she wanders dreamily through a row of trees. Ones that have perked up since I walked through them this morning.
She looks almost exactly like the woman who plagues my dreams at night, but there’s no way she’d be here. She’s in Texas.
She flips her hair, her side profile coming into view, and my heart stammers in my chest. If this were one of the stories Mom used to read us, this would be the part where the girl wanders into the cursed forest and stumbles.
And she’s rescued by a handsome prince.
Which I’m pretty far from.
In an effort of desperation, I rub my eyes, expecting her to disappear as soon as I finish. But she doesn’t. My heart rate climbs, its cadence so loud in my head that it’s deafening.
I’m pulled toward her while simultaneously wanting to run in the other direction. Unfortunately, I can’t do either, since my boots feel cemented to the ground. Even the branches seem to hold still, needles barely shivering, like the whole farm is waiting to see what I’ll do. Again.
The surprise I’m battling is reflected on her face when she fully turns, her green eyes wide.
“Aiden?”
Her voice unleashes a torrent of memories, moments that feel like they’re from another lifetime ago. Whispered sighs, belly laughs, late-night Christmas movie marathons, and snowball fights. As quickly as the panic peaks, it subsides.
Even now, when my world is crumbling around me, she’s home.
I don’t know how I ever doubted it, or how I ever let her go.
“Aiden?” She takes a tentative step closer. “Is that you?”
“It’s me,” I manage, my voice cracking with emotion.
She’s directly in the tree line, the winter breeze whipping her dark strands around, a dark purple fuzzy cap pulled down over her ears. It’s a direct copy-and-paste of a day like this, years before, seeing her there. The past overlays the present so cleanly it hurts.
Same girl, same trees, but a completely different man.
Only, she isn’t the love of my life anymore.
She’s a stranger.
And she’s the one person who could complicate every promise I’ve made to myself, and every plan I’ve tried to hold myself to.
four
CHLOE
Aiden Wheeler is standing rightin front of me.
As if the second I stepped into these trees, I activated an internal homing device that said, "Come find me.”
I don’t let myself near real trees anymore." But they called to me like a siren’s song. I let myself disappear, for just a moment, in the intoxicating pine scent and memories.
Every once in a while, I imagine running back into him—but those scenarios didn’t look like this. There are one or two where I’m wildly successful. Maybe I’m a renowned National Geographic photographer or someone who creates coveted photographic art.
And I certainly would look more put-together than a frazzled studio owner–mom who stayed upwaytoo late last night editing mini-sessions. Granted, I put in a lot more effort today than usual, taking more care with my makeup, curling my hair on a whim.
But wanting to impress him feels like betraying the life I’ve built without him.
I know I’ve got nothing to prove to Aiden. Our relationship never had that dynamic. But my old patterns, the ones where I’m so eager to prove myself and make everyone proud, flare like an old wound.
