My entire body goes still.
“What did you hear exactly?” I keep my voice low and controlled. Not gentle because gentle can sound like pity, and she’d rather bleed than accept pity.
She lifts her chin, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “I heard you tell Tank you didn’t know what to do with me. That you’re out of your depth.”
My heartbeat stumbles. “That part’s true.”
Her mouth twists. “So I figured I should try harder.”
Try harder.
The room shrinks. The fire crackles like a gunshot. The air feels heavy.
I see it like a film rewinding. Her leaving the cabin too bright, too cheerful. The set of her shoulders and the way she wouldn’t meet my eyes. How she didn’t argue when I offered the scarf.
I thought she just needed space. I didn’t realize she was bleeding out internally.
She tried to transform herself into what she thought I wanted.
Her hair falls in soft waves, intentionally styled. Her makeup is light yet deliberate, the kind that takes effort to seem effortless. The gloss on her lips catches the porch light.
Then my gaze drops.
Mud. Manure. Snowmelt smeared across her coat and skirt. Brown streaks on her hands. The sharp, earthy smell hits a moment later.
I see the hurt turned to armor, then into something brittle in her expression, as if she’s holding herself together with sheer force of will, and one wrong word will shatter her.
“Jane—”
She flinches as if she expects impact. That flinch hits harder than any accusation.
“What you heard was real. And I’m sorry you heard it that way. That must have felt terrible.”
Her eyes flicker with surprise that I’m not immediately defending myself. Her laugh is still broken, a crack in the armor. “Yeah. It did.”
“But you didn’t hear the end,” I continue, taking another careful step. “Tank asked me what I was doing. If I were sure. If I understood the woman I brought home.”
Her eyes tell me that she’s unsure whether to believe anything I say.
“And I said I didn’t. I said I was out of my depth.”
Her breath catches. “And then you said it.”
“I said part of it,” I correct. “And you walked away before I finished.”
Jane’s eyes flicker with hope, only to be slammed down by fear.
I take a breath to steady myself. “I said you’re everything I didn’t want.”
Her face tightens.
“And then I said,” I press on, lowering my voice, “but she’s everything I need. Everything I never knew I wanted until she stepped onto that stage.”
The words land heavily in the cabin.
Jane goes very still. I can see her trying to process it, see her brain rifling through every memory of being too much, too loud, too wild, unable to find a place to file this new information:Everything I need. Everything I never knew I wanted…
Her throat bobs. “You... said that?”
