“Don’t.” There was something broken in the way he said it, making my hands still. “Don’t go quiet on me. Not now.”
The click of the bedside lamp made me flinch. Soft yellow lightflooded the room, chasing away the shadows but somehow making everything feel more exposed. More raw.
I kept my back to him, continuing to adjust the already-perfect pillows. “You were just having a nightmare. It’s—it happens. I can make some tea or get you a glass of?—”
“Kelsey,” he pleaded. “Baby, look at me.”
I couldn’t. If I looked at him, if I saw what I knew would be written across his face, the careful control I’d managed to maintain for the past three days would shatter. And once it broke, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to piece it back together again.
His hand caught my wrist as I reached for another pillow, gentle but insistent. “Please.”
The contact sent electricity shooting up my arm, not desire but something closer to panic. I jerked away, the movement too sharp, too telling.
“Christ,” he muttered, dragging both hands down his face. “We’re right back there, aren’t we? Back to you shutting down, and me not knowing how to reach you.”
Twelve seconds of silence.
Then twelve more.
The distance between us was growing with every breath I didn’t take, every word I didn’t say.
Twelve seconds would stretch into twelve minutes and then twelve miles—the same progression that had destroyed us the first time around.
The terrible arithmetic of loss, multiplying the space between us until we were strangers again. Maybe we were doomed to fall back into the same patterns as before, cursed to drift apart, no matter how hard we tried to hold it together.
“I’m not shutting down,” I said in a monotone. My hands had resumed their nervous movements, straightening things that didn’t need straightening, creating order where none existed.
“Then what do you call this? Because from where I’m sitting, looks like every other time you’ve?—”
“Every other time I’ve what?” The words came outsharper than intended, defensive. “Every other time I’ve tried to help? Tried to make things better?”
“Every other time you’ve disappeared on me while being right fucking here.”
The accusation was too accurate to deny. I was falling back into old habits, retreating behind tasks and efficiency, using motion as armor against feeling. But knowing it and stopping it were two different things.
“Don’t shut me out,” he said, quieter now but no less desperate. “Not tonight. Not after everything we’ve—please, Kels. Just... sit. Talk to me. Anything but this.”
My throat closed around whatever response I might have made. Because what could I say? That watching him relive our son’s death had triggered every carefully buried instinct to run? That I was drowning in guilt and shame so thick I could taste it? That if I stopped moving, stopped fixing, stopped pretending to be useful, he’d realize that the real Kelsey was just like that reindeer with the wonky antler back at the other cabin?
Not worth repairing. Not worth saving. Not worth loving.
The sheets were perfect now—corners sharp enough to please a drill sergeant.
“I’ll get you some water,” I said, already turning toward the door, desperate for even a thirty-second reprieve from the weight of his gaze.
I made it approximately two steps before he was up, his hands catching my shoulders, spinning me back to face him. Not rough, but insistent. Determined.
“No,” he said, and there was something wild in his eyes now, pain manifesting as frustration. “Watched you run this exact same play a hundred fucking times before, and I’m not letting you run away. We’re gonna stand right here and actually talk for once in our goddamn lives.”
“Let go of me,” I croaked, my stomach churning with dread.
“Not until you tell me why you do this. Why you always—” He stopped, jaw clenching like he was trying to crush the words intosomething less devastating. “After Levi died, you wouldn’t even look at me.”
“That’s not?—”
“It is,” he cut me off, years of hurt finally spilling over. “You stopped saying his name! Our son’s name, Kels. Like, if we didn’t talk about him, it wouldn’t be real. And when I tried—Christ, when I tried to bring him up, you’d shut down. Go reorganize the pantry or scrub the baseboards or bake another fucking casserole nobody wanted to eat.”
My shoulders tensed beneath his hands because once again, Teddy was right. I had done all those things. Was still doing them.
