“Don’t rush,” Sandy insisted. “Festival prep can wait.”
“I’d rather keep busy,” Harmony countered.
Elyna hugged her. “You’re family now. That means brunch too, not just work.”
But Harmony’s eyes flicked toward the window Noah had stared through. She hid it well; most people wouldn’t notice but I did. Something twisted in my chest. Even after all these years I could read her. As she reached for another plate, something clicked inside me. It was a memory I hadn’t thought about in years. The look she’d had just now, that tightness and guarded edge, was the same one she’d worn the night she showed up at Maple Valley covered in snow and shaking.
A different night. Different fear. But the same expression.
Snow had fallen thick that night, softening every sound. I’d just finished a late practice and was locking up the shed when her car rolled up beside the fence. Harmony stepped out, breath puffing in quick, uneven bursts, eyes rimmed red.
“He’s losing it,” she said before I could ask. “Nico saw me talking to you after school. He said I embarrassed him. Called me Harm, like it’s a curse.”
Her voice broke. I felt it like splinters under my ribs.
“He said everyone sees me the same way. Like I’m my father’s shadow.”
She wrapped her arms around herself. “Maybe he’s right.”
“You’re not your father,” I said immediately.
“You don’t get it.” She let out a broken laugh. “I’ll always be a Bellerose.”
She kicked snow off her boot. “Harm means trouble. That’s what he thinks I am.”
I stepped closer, the cold sharp between us.
“He’s wrong.”
She looked up, eyes too bright under the floodlight. “Yeah? What would you call me then?”
“Sunshine.”
The word hung in the air like a confession.
“Sunshine?” she whispered.
“Because you walk into places that have forgotten the light and make people remember.”
Something in her face softened, like the idea of being more than what the world expected was almost too much to believe.
“You shouldn’t say things like that,” she whispered.
“Why not?”
“Because I might believe you,” she said, her green eyes were filled with warmth and happiness in that moment, and it sucked me under the spell that was Harmony.
Back in the present, Harmony moved toward the porch with Dad. I followed her out under the excuse of getting firewood.
“You shouldn’t walk alone,” I said as we reached the gravel path.
She stopped, the morning light turning her eyes a deep gold. “Eric… I can’t hide every time something scares me.”
“That’s not what this is,” I tried to assure her.
“Isn’t it?” she whispered. “You told me yourself. Olivier and Nico want to shake me. I can’t give them that.”
“I don’t want to find another note on your doorstep,” I said.
