My heart doesn’t race.
It drops.
Not panic. Not even relief yet. Just certainty—bone-deep and wordless—that he’s alright.
I’m in the water before my skiff fully stops, boots sinking into warm mud, balance shifting. My legs feel strange beneath me, too light and too heavy at once.
“Kieran.” His name comes out steadier than I feel.
Movement. He rises from near the bank, slow and controlled, pushing himself upright. Sand dusts his shoulders. His hair is mussed with it. Eyes squinting against the light.
For a moment, neither of us moves.
When his gaze locks on mine, something in my chest fractures and reseals at once.
He stayed.
He didn’t try to force his way out. Didn’t push. Didn’t guess and make it worse.
He stayed and trusted I’d come to him.
I reach him without running. Stop an arm’s length away. Momentum has never been the lesson here.
“You scared me, Starboy,” I say, handing him a bottle of water.
He drinks, long and steady, never breaking eye contact. “Wren,” he says slowly. “You found me.”
His voice lands in steel blue, rough edged but steady, violet soft underneath the exhaustion. The sound of it unlocks something in my chest I didn’t know I was holding.
“I knew you would,” he finishes.
I touch his forearm, grounding myself as much as him. Behind me, Mihai exhales. Radios come back to life. The world resumes its spin.
But here, between us, everything holds.
“You didn’t try to fix it,” I say quietly. “You didn’t push.”
His mouth curves—not a smile. Something humbler.
“I learned.” He hesitates, then adds, quietly, “One of the girls asked you something the other day. Used a different name.”
“Yeah,” I say after a beat.
He nods once. Doesn’t ask. Doesn’t say it.
Files it away the same way he did everything else that mattered.
“I figured,” he says, “it wasn’t mine yet.”
After three Romanianprotein bars that taste more like sand than chocolate and enough water to slosh when he moves, Kieran looks human again. Remarkably steady for someone who spent a night alone in the Delta dark. Youth helps. And years of hockey conditioning.
We head back in formation. Kieran pilots his skiff alone, posture easy but alert. His shoulders are sunburned, skin flushed and tight, hair still threaded with sand. From a distance, he looks pared down, sharpened. Like whatever didn’t matter got burned off overnight.
When we reach camp, the kids swarm the landing. Cristian reaches him first, silent and steady, dark eyes scanning Kieran with the same careful attention he gives everything. Ana hovers behind him, fingers twisting her field journal. Stefan and Andrei exchange a glance—the kind of silent communication that doesn’t need language.
“We thought—” Stefan starts in English, then stops. Swallows.
“I’m fine,” Kieran tells them, voice rough but solid. “Got turned around. Stayed put until morning. Smart thing to do.”
