And right now, choice feels dangerous.
I step back first, the loss of his warmth hitting hard.
Caleb exhales slowly, nodding once, steadying himself too.
“Goodnight,” he says.
“Goodnight,” I echo.
I go to bed restless, staring at the ceiling, every nerve lit up and unsatisfied.
My past feels loud. My present feels complicated. My future is a question I don’t know how to answer.
I curl onto my side, pressing my face into the pillow.
I did the right thing.
I know I did.
That doesn’t make it hurt any less.
And as sleep finally drags me under, one thought loops through me, stubborn and unresolved:
How do you protect yourself without closing your heart completely?
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Boone
Morning comeswrong in the woods.
Too quiet. No fences creaking. No animals shifting in their stalls. No soft thud of hooves or impatient nickers reminding me the world’s moving whether I am or not. Just trees and wind and a stillness that’s listening.
I wake up already braced.
The cabin smells of pine sap and cold air, and the faint ghost of last night’s fire burned down to ash. The quiet presses in from all sides, and there’s nowhere to outrun it.
Sadie should be here.
That’s the first wrong thing my brain latches onto.
She should be padding down the hall in mismatched socks, asking for cereal before she’s fully awake. She should be humming nonsense songs while she waits for toast. She should be asking if today is a school day, even though she knows the answer.
Instead, she’s two hours away.
In a classroom full of kids who’ve learned exactly where her soft spots live.
My chest tightens.
I picture her at her little desk, shoulders drawn in, listening harder than she should have to. Wondering if today’s the day someone says something sharp again. Wondering if it’ll be loud or whispered, accidental or mean on purpose.
Kids don’t always mean to be cruel. They just repeat what they hear.
And someone’s been teaching them.
I see it every time Sadie comes home quieter than she left. Every time she shrugs and saysit’s finewith that too quick smile. Every time she changes the subject when I ask about school.
She’s learning how to carry it alone.
