“Finally.” Her voice is sharp with relief and frustration. “I’ve been worried sick. What happened? You go radio silent for three days and then?—”
“I screwed up.”
Silence. Then: “How badly?”
The whole story comes out in fragments. The wrong cabin. The storm. Three days of falling for a woman I had no businessfalling for. And then the ending—the brutal, efficient way I pushed her away because I was too scared to do anything else.
Moira is quiet for a long moment after I finish.
“So let me get this straight,” she says slowly. “A beautiful woman showed up at your door on Valentine’s Day, saw past all your walls, made you actually feel something for the first time in four years... and you told her to leave.”
“It’s more complicated than?—”
“No, it isn’t.” Her voice hardens. “It’s exactly that simple, and you know it. You got scared, and instead of dealing with your fear like an adult, you pushed away the best thing that’s happened to you since you came home.”
“She deserves better than?—”
“Stop.” The word cracks like a whip. “Stop with the martyr bullshit, Finn. I’ve been listening to it for four years, and I’m done. You’re not protecting her by pushing her away. You’re protecting yourself.”
I don’t have a response.
“Your team died,” she continues, softer now. “And that’s a tragedy. It’s an unspeakable, horrible tragedy, and you have every right to grieve them for the rest of your life. But they wouldn’t want this, Finn. They wouldn’t want you hiding in the woods, refusing to let anyone in because you’re afraid of losing them.”
“You don’t know what they’d want.”
“I know what Jimmy told me. At your welcome-home party, before everything went wrong. He pulled me aside and said,‘Your brother is the best man I know, but he’s going to try to disappear when we get back. Don’t let him. Make sure he actually lives.’”
My chest constricts. “He said that?”
“Word for word. I’ve been trying to honor that for four years, and you keep shutting me out. But this woman—Marcella—she got through. In three days, she did what I couldn’t do in four years. And you’re going to let her walk away?”
“She’s probably already back in Denver.”
“Then go to Denver.”
“I can’t—” The words stick. “Cities. Crowds. You know I can’t.”
“You can’t? Or you won’t?” Moira’s voice gentles. “Finn, you survived an IED. You survived losing your team. You survived four years of isolation. You can survive Denver traffic if it means getting her back.”
I think about Marcella standing in my kitchen, telling me she’d rather be scared with me than safe alone. I think about the way she touched my scars like they were precious. The way she said my name.
“What if I mess it up?”
“Then you try again. That’s what love is—trying again, even when it’s hard.” Moira exhales. “You spent eight years putting yourself in danger for people you’d never meet. You can’t find the courage to fight for someone you actually love?”
The question hangs in the air.
And something in me finally cracks open. Not the careful walls I’ve built to keep people out. Something deeper. Something that’s been frozen for four years.
Permission. Permission to want something. Permission to reach for happiness even though I don’t deserve it. Permission to honor my team not by hiding, but by actually living the life they didn’t get to have.
“I have to go,” I tell Moira.
“Go where?”
“Denver. Tomorrow. No—tonight. I have to tell her. Show her. I can’t just call, I need to?—”
“Finn.” Moira’s voice is warm now. “Good. Finally. Do you need her address?”
