The porch light is on.
The cabin feels different.
Too quiet.
I step inside, shrugging out of my jacket, calling out, “Tess?”
No answer.
Lacee’s bedroom door is cracked open, light off. Good. She’s asleep.
Then I hear it. A soft sob upstairs.
My pulse spikes.
I take the stairs two at a time. Her door is open and she’s folding clothes into a suitcase on the bed.
The sight detonates something inside my chest.
“What are you doing?”
She doesn’t jump. Doesn’t scramble.
Just smooths a sweater flat and lays it inside her suitcase like this is any other night.
“Packing.”
The word hits harder than a punch.
“For what?”
She looks up at me then.
Calm. Composed.
And it scares me more than if she were crying.
“I know where I’m not wanted,” she says quietly. “And I don’t want to be a complication for you. Not after everything you said yesterday.”
The air leaves my lungs. “You’re not fired.”
“I know.”
“Then what is this?”
She zips one side of the suitcase and meets my eyes.
“This is me refusing to be your almost.”
My jaw tightens.
“You think that’s what you are?”
“I think you care about me. I think you feel something you’re trying to cage.” Her voice doesn’t rise. “And I think,” she continues, “that if I stay much longer without you deciding, I’ll start shrinking to make it easier for you and that will hurt both of us.”
The words slice clean.
“I would never ask you to shrink.”
