He looked up at the sound of the crutch on gravel, took one look at my face, and set the leather down.
"Maggie—"
"You talked to my father." My voice was low. "About me. About us."
Jack didn't flinch. Didn't look away. "He asked. I wasn't going to lie to him."
"He asked because you gave him something to ask about!" My voice rose despite my best efforts to keep it contained. "What happened to following my lead? What happened to letting me set the pace?"
"I did follow your lead." Jack's voice was steady, but I could see something shifting in his eyes—not anger, exactly. Determination. "Right up until I put three bullets in three hogs to keep them from killing you. Things changed yesterday, Maggie. You know they did."
"That doesn't give you the right to?—"
"To what?" He stood up, not advancing toward me, just rising to his full height. "To be honest with a man who asked me a direct question? Your father came to me, Maggie. Not the other way around. He brought beer and sat down beside me and asked about us, and I wasn't going to stand there and lie about what you mean to me."
My chest tightened. The words hit me somewhere deep, somewhere I didn't want to examine.
"What I mean to you?" My voice cracked, and I hated myself for it. "Jack, we've been—this is—you can't just?—"
I was spiraling. I knew I was spiraling. Was I angry because he'd talked to Daddy? Or was I angry because talking to Daddy made this real in a way I'd been desperately avoiding?
Was I angry at him at all?
Or was I just terrified?
"You had no right," I managed. "This was supposed to stay?—"
"What? Secret?" There was an edge in Jack's voice now, cutting through his calm. "Hidden? Something we only acknowledge in the dark?"
"That's not?—"
"Because I'll do that if that's what you need." He stepped closer, not crowding, just present. "I told you, Maggie. You set the pace. You want to keep hiding? Fine. We'll keep hiding. But I won't lie about how I feel. Not to your father. Not to anyone. And I won't pretend yesterday didn't happen."
I opened my mouth to argue. Nothing came out.
Because he was right. God help me, he was right, and I hated that almost as much as I hated being wrong.
The fight drained out of me faster than I expected. One moment I was furious—righteous, justified, ready to burn down everything rather than admit I was scared—and the next I was just… empty. Hollow. The anger faltered and crumbled, leaving behind something raw and frightening in its wake.
"I don't—" My voice cracked again. "I don't know how to do this."
Jack was quiet. Waiting.
"Do what?" he asked finally.
"This. Being…" I swallowed hard. The word felt like it was being pulled from somewhere I'd locked up years ago and thrown away the key. "Chosen."
The word came out like it cost me something. Because it did.
"People need me, Jack. That's how it works. That's how it's always worked. And as long as people need me, they stay. Theydon't leave someone who's useful." The words were coming now, and I couldn't stop them. The dam had cracked, and everything behind it was pouring through. "But you're not asking me to be useful. You're asking me to just… be. To step out where you can actually see me." My voice broke on the last word. "And I am terrified, Jack. I am absolutely terrified that if I do that—if I stop being the person everyone needs me to be—you'll see what's actually underneath all of it and you'll…"
I couldn't finish. My throat closed around the rest of the sentence like it was trying to protect me from saying it out loud.
Jack waited. He didn't fill the silence. Didn't rush me.
"That's the voice in my head every single day. Too much. Too rigid. Too intense. Every time I show up as the full unfiltered version of myself, there's this voice telling me that this is the moment people figure it out and leave." I finally looked at him. Really looked. "So I stay where I'm needed, because needed is something I understand. Needed I can control. But you're asking me to come out into the open with you, and if I do that and you see all of it—the too much, the too everything—and you decide Daniel was right…" I swallowed hard. "I won't survive it a second time. Not from you."
The silence stretched between us. Jack didn't rush to fill it. He just looked at me with an expression that stripped me down to the bones—not pity, not concern, something deeper than both. Like he was seeing every wall I'd ever built and wasn't intimidated by a single one.
