I didn’t answer. He held me tighter, and I felt him take a breath like he was going to say something else. The pause stretched—long enough that I tensed, waiting. But whatever he’d been about to say stayed trapped behind his teeth.
“I need you to trust me,” he said finally. “That’s all I’m asking. Just trust that I know what I want.”
I should tell him I did. Should give him the reassurance he was asking for. But the words stuck in my throat, and all I could do was grip his arm where it lay across my chest.
“I’m trying,” I whispered.
“I know.” His voice had gone rough, and I heard something underneath it—disappointment maybe, or resignation. “I know you are.”
The silence that followed felt heavier than before. His breath was warm against my neck, his body solid behind mine, but the space between what he needed and what I could give felt insurmountable.
I turned in his arms, found his mouth in the dark. The kiss was desperate, an apology for all the things I couldn’t say. He responded, but there was something careful in it now—like he was holding part of himself back.
“We’ll figure it out,” he said when we broke apart.
It sounded more like a question than a promise.
I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe that love was enough, that his promises would hold, that the future we’d imagined was still waiting for us on the other side of the season.
But the doubt had settled into my bones, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was coming. Something neither of us could see yet.
I fell asleep with his arms around me and woke up three hours later from a dream I couldn’t remember, my heart pounding, his name on my lips.
He was still there. Still holding on.
I pressed closer and tried to convince myself that it would be enough.
14
SETH
I’d been ignoring my phone for three days now—silencing calls, deleting notifications without reading them, pretending the growing number beside my mother’s name was just a glitch in the system. But ignoring something didn’t make it disappear. I’d learned that lesson a long time ago.
Tanner was in the shower. I heard the water running, the muffled thud of a bottle being set down, the same sequence of sounds I’d memorized over months of mornings like this. He’d been quiet this morning—quiet in a way that had become common over the past few days, like he was somewhere I couldn’t reach.
I picked up the phone. Twenty-three missed calls from home. Fourteen voicemails. And one text from my sister that sat at the top of my messages.
Mom’s losing it. She says you’re ignoring her. Are you coming for Thanksgiving or not? I need to know for the seating chart.
The seating chart. Like that was what mattered. But that was Emily—always focused on the logistics, the appearances, the things she could control while pretending the dysfunction underneath didn’t exist. She’d perfected the art of being the good daughter by never challenging anything, and some part of me resented her for it even as I understood the survival instinct.
Still figuring it out.
Her response was immediate.
It’s in four days, Seth. Figure faster. And call Mom. I’m tired of being the middleman.
The bathroom door opened. I shoved my phone under the pillow like a teenager hiding contraband, which was ridiculous— Tanner knew about my family, knew the broad strokes of why I dreaded going home. But there was a difference between knowing and seeing the evidence piling up in real time.
Tanner emerged with a towel around his waist, hair dripping onto his shoulders. He moved to his dresser without looking at me, pulling out clothes with the efficiency of someone who’d rather be anywhere else.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Fine.”
The word landed flat. He’d been saying it a lot lately—fine, good, yeah—like he was reading from a script he’d memorized but didn’t believe.
“Tanner.”
