My voice is low, the kind of low that happens only when I’m admitting something I’d rather swallow. The quarry absorbs the words, unhurried. As if it’s been waiting years for me to say them.
Above me, a hawk circles in a lazy pattern, riding the warm thermals. Stones crack under the sun’s heat. A single leaf skates across the water’s surface, drifting aimlessly, but free.
It’s absurdly peaceful here. Wrongly peaceful. Peace like this shouldn’t coexist with the things I’ve buried in this place—the grief, the guilt, the fear that loving again is the same as inviting disaster.
But maybe that’s precisely why I’m here.
I rub my thumb against the scar on my palm—old habit, old comfort. A tether to the version of myself who needed something to hold onto. “I loved you,” I say quietly. “I always will.” My throat tightens, but the words keep coming. “But I’m not supposed to stay frozen with you.”
The breeze picks up. Warm, this time. Less bite. More… permission.
My voice drops lower. “She’s… different.” A huff leaves me—something almost like a laugh. “Loud. Chaotic. Terrible at closing kitchen drawers and cooking.”
I shake my head once, staring at the water like it might offer some kind of answer. “And she’s the first person who’s made me feel something human in years.”
Years.
The last time I’d felt anything this bright…
Silence settles back in. Not judgmental. Not heavy. Just there, like moss growing over old stone.
I let my shoulders drop. Slowly. Carefully. As if my body’s forgotten how. The tension has been a living thing inside me since the kidnapping—since the moment I found the tire marks, since the sedan in the woods, since hearing Sheifer’s voice echo through the trees. Since I nearly lost Lucky before I was even brave enough to tell her how much she mattered.
“I’m not replacing you,” I say, almost a whisper. “I’m letting myself live.”
The wind shifts direction, brushing past me. Just a subtle change in pressure. But something in me recognizes it for what it is: a nod. A release.
A benediction.
My chest expands, and the air goes in easier than before. Not perfectly smooth. Not painless. But freer.
I take one last look at the quarry—the grave of old things, the keeper of my shame, the quiet witness to everything I wasn’t ready to face. The water glints back at me, blue and bright and unmoved.
I’ve said enough.
I step back from the edge, my boots grinding against the dirt. Then I turn. The path up the ridge is marked by years of my footsteps, carved into the earth the same way the quarry is carved into me.
But this time… it feels different.
It feels like leaving something behind instead of dodging it.
The trees rustle as I step into their shade. The air shifts, warmer and smelling faintly of sap and sun-warmed pine. Homeward air. Living air.
Lucky’s waiting. Probably pacing and pretending she’s not.
And for the first time in a very, very long time—
I’m ready to be someone worth waiting for.
The engine hums beneath me as I take the long road back from the quarry, dust rising behind the truck in soft spirals. The sun hangs low, warm through the windshield. My chest still feels cracked open from what I left behind in that clearing of stone and ghosts—but lighter too. Like something finally unclenched.
Home is ten minutes ahead.
My phone vibrates in the cup holder. Lily’s name flashes across the screen.
I hit the speaker. “Hey, bug.”
“Daddy!” Her voice fills the cab—bright, loud, exactly what I need. “Is everything good at home?”
