Page 53 of The Lumberjack and the City Slicker

Whatever happens tomorrow.

Tonight, I chose this.

And I don’t regret it.

Chapter 9

Greyson

Last night is the first night I dream in a long time.

Not the usual half-sleep, half-restless blankness I’ve lived in for years—the kind where you close your eyes and wake up hours later like someone hit a switch.

Nope.

This is a real dream.

The kind that leaves you disoriented when you open your eyes. The kind that makes your chest ache with something you can’t name.

I dream of springtime on the mountain.

Not the brutal, endless white of winter.

Not the dirty slush season where everything looks tired and half-dead.

Real spring—soft mud, bright green buds, sun warming the bark, air that smells like wet earth and possibility.

I dream of my grandfather.

He’s younger in the dream, the way he was when I was a kid, his hands strong and steady, his laugh low and real.

He’s sitting on the porch steps of this cabin with a mug in his hand, watching me work like he always did—quiet approval, no judgment.

I dream of Scar.

The old grizzly with the torn ear, lumbering through the trees like he owns them, stopping just long enough to huff at me like I’m an idiot before wandering off again.

I dream of turning wood into art.

Of willow branches etched into leather and iron, of sunsets burned into grain, of the satisfying bite of blade against material, the way my mind locks in when I’m creating, the way the world narrows until there’s only the work and my hands and the truth of it.

And I dream of thunderstorms that last for days.

Of the cabin wrapped in wind and rain like the world is trying to tear it apart.

Of Clara stuck here with me on my mountain.

Not panicked, not miserable, not counting the minutes until she can run back to the city.

In the dream she’s barefoot, wearing one of my shirts like it belongs to her.

Laughing at something I say.

Sitting at my table and arguing about what kind of tea is best like she’s done it a hundred times.

She looks at home.

She looks like mine.