Avery reaches over and covers my hand with hers. It’s a small gesture, but it knocks the wind out of me.
“You’re not who I expected,” she says.
I huff a soft laugh. “Trust me, neither are you.”
She squeezes my fingers. “Thank you for telling me.”
I nod. “I should’ve done it sooner.”
Her eyes glisten, catching the last of the sunset. “You ever regret not leaving?”
I glance out at the wide expanse of land stretching beyond the fence line, glowing with golden promise. Then back to her.
“Not once.”
Avery shifts beside me, her body stiff, like she’s working up the courage to jump off a cliff she can’t see the bottom of. The porch swing creaks beneath us, but the air is thick with something unsaid, buzzing louder than the cicadas.
She takes a sip of lemonade, then sets her glass down on the wooden armrest. Her fingers toy with the condensation trail, not meeting my eyes.
“I was going to take an advertising job in Austin,” she says finally, voice low. “The one I’d been working toward for years.”
I nod, silent, waiting.
“I was ready to sign the contract the same week I got the call about my dad’s will. I hadn’t talked to him in months. Maybe a year. We’d fought the last time Emmy and I visited.”
She draws in a breath and presses her lips together like she’s trying to hold something in. But it still slips through, raw and honest.
“He wanted me to come back. I told him I couldn’t, wouldn’t. That I had a life, a plan. That Emmy didn’t belong in this dusty little town.” She laughs, but it’s brittle. “Guess I was wrong about a lot of things.”
I want to say something, but I can tell she’s not finished.
“I’ve always run,” she continues. “When things got hard, when people got close. I thought if I stayed detached, I couldn’t get hurt. It made me feel strong.” She finally turns to look at me. “But I wasn’t strong. I was scared.”
Her eyes glisten in the fading light. “Scared of failing. Of not being enough for Emmy. Of letting people in and losing them anyway. It was easier to throw myself into work than face what I didn’t want to admit.”
I nod slowly, the weight of her words settling over me like a blanket soaked in rain.
“I didn’t keep in touch with my dad because it hurt to be around him. Every time I saw him, he reminded me of what I gave up. And now that he’s gone, I’d give anything to have one more damn phone call.”
Her voice breaks on the last word, and she quickly wipes a tear away with the back of her hand. “He tried to leave me pieces of himself, letters, notes, memories. And I ignored all of it until now.”
I reach for her hand, threading my fingers through hers, grounding us both.
“You’re not the only one who’s scared, Avery,” I murmur. “But you don’t have to run anymore.”
She swallows hard, her shoulders trembling with the effort to stay composed. Then she squeezes my hand.
“I don’t want to,” she whispers. “Not from you. Not from this.”
We sit like that for a while, quiet, connected, wrapped in the kind of truth that doesn’t need fixing. Just feeling.
The air between us hums with everything we’ve just laid bare. No secrets. No bravado. Just raw, unvarnished truth hanging in the golden dusk like the last ember of a fire refusing to burn out.
Avery leans back against the porch swing, eyes on the horizon, but I can see her shoulders soften, see the way she’s let something go, even if just for now. It’s in the way her hand rests in mine without tension, like it belongs there.
Like maybe it always did.
“Sometimes I wonder,” she says, voice barely above a whisper, “what life would’ve looked like if I’d stayed. If I hadn’t left all those years ago.”
