"You all right?" she said softly.
"Yeah," I lied, the word automatic. "You?"
"I think so." She hesitated, biting her lip. "Thank you. For listening. For not running."
"I'm not going anywhere."
She leaned in and kissed me—soft, brief, enough to remind me what we'd started but not demanding anything more tonight. When she pulled back, she smiled faintly, her hand lingering on my arm like she needed the contact to ground herself.
"Goodnight, Wyatt."
"Goodnight, Soph."
She climbed out, and I watched her walk into the hotel with Beth and Natasha, the three of them disappearing through the glass doors into the warm lobby light before I told the driver to take me to Mama P's.
The drive was short. Silent except for the hum of the engine and the occasional crackle of the dispatcher's radio cutting through the quiet. My mind wouldn't stop turning, circling back to the same thought over and over.
Sophie had told me everything. Her brother. The accident she'd witnessed, helpless and frozen. The guilt she'd carried for years like a stone in her chest, getting heavier instead of lighter with time. The way her mother had tried to erase Jonesy like forgetting would make the pain stop, like pretending he'd never existed would heal what was broken instead of making it worse.
And what had I told her?
Nothing.
Not about my father disappearing, leaving seven sons behind with expectations we couldn't meet no matter how hard we tried. Not about my mother sitting in a facility in Marfa, her mind slipping further away every day, forgetting my name butremembering flowers with perfect clarity like nature was safer than family. Not about the ranch I couldn't visit or the guilt I carried for leaving my brothers behind to deal with it all while I ran toward something I thought would fix me.
What kind of man does that?
A coward, I thought.
The word settled in my chest like ice, cold and sharp and undeniable.
The cab pulled up to Mama P's, and I paid the driver, stepping out into the warm Charleston night. The vacancy sign flickered above the door, casting strange shadows across the porch, the light unsteady like it couldn't decide whether to stay on or give up.
I was in a mood. Dark. Heavy. The kind that settled into your bones and made everything feel harder than it should, made breathing feel like work you had to remember to do.
Mama P was awake when I walked in.
She sat in her chair by the window, working on her yarn, needles clicking softly in the quiet like a metronome counting time that refused to stop. She glanced up as I entered, her sharp eyes taking me in instantly—the slump of my shoulders, the tightness in my jaw, the way I was carrying weight I hadn't walked in with.
"You're wearing the weight of the world on your shoulders," she said matter-of-factly, like it was obvious to anyone who bothered to look.
I stopped in the doorway. "I'm going to bed."
"Have a seat."
It wasn't a request. It was a command delivered gently but with absolute authority, the kind you didn't question.
Mama P wasn't someone you said no to.
I sat.
She set her needles and yarn down carefully, arranging them in her lap like she was preparing for something serious, something that required her full attention. Then she looked at me, direct and unflinching, the kind of look that saw past whatever mask you were wearing straight down to the parts you tried to hide.
"Is it PTSD?" she asked abruptly.
I blinked. "What?"
"PTSD," she repeated, her mouth twisting slightly like the word tasted bad. "Though I hate that term. Makes it sound like a tribe. Like a club you join and get a membership card for. Everyone's out for a label these days, like naming it makes it cool. Call it what it is—trauma. Repressed memories of youth. The weight you carry because you don't know how to put it down. All of it."
