Through the window, I could see the main house. The kitchen light was still on. Grace was still in there.
I didn’t go back.
I loaded the boxes into my truck. Took one last look at the B&B—the porch I’d fixed, the gutters the crew had replaced, the nursery window on the second floor where yellow walls waited for a baby that wasn’t mine.
The carriage house door closed behind me with a soft click.
I got in the truck. Started the engine. Pulled down the driveway, gravel crunching under my tires, the white Victorian shrinking in my rearview mirror.
Grace didn’t come after me.
I didn’t expect her to.
At the station, Cal took one look at my face and didn’t ask questions.
He just pointed toward the bunk room. “Take the one by the window. B-shift doesn’t come in until tomorrow.”
“Thanks.”
“You need anything?”
I shook my head. Couldn’t find the words for what I needed. Wasn’t sure words existed.
Cal nodded and walked away. That was the thing about the firehouse family—they knew when to push and when to leave you alone.
I lay on the bunk and stared at the ceiling. The station was quiet around me, filled with familiar sounds: equipment being checked, the distant murmur of the radio, the hum of the building that had been my second home since I was twenty-two.
My chest ached. A physical pain, like something had been torn out and left a hollow behind.
But underneath the pain, there was something else.
Relief.
For the first time in months, I wasn’t pretending. Wasn’t performing friendship while feeling something deeper. Wasn’t making myself small so Marcus could feel big. Wasn’t waiting for Grace to see what I couldn’t say.
For the first time in months, I wasn’t disappearing.
I’d told the truth. Finally.
I’d chosen myself.
Whatever happened next—whether she came to find me or chose Marcus or decided she needed neither of us—at least I’d done that. At least I’d stopped erasing myself.
The ceiling was the same industrial tile I’d stared at a thousand times. The same cracks, the same water stain in the corner, the same fluorescent light humming overhead.
Everything was the same, and yet everything felt different.
I closed my eyes and let the exhaustion take me. If I dreamed, I didn’t remember.
CHAPTER 15
Grace
Saturday morning,and my hands knew before my heart did.
I was setting the table when I caught myself. Two places. Two napkins, folded into triangles the way Gran taught me. Two mugs waiting by the coffee pot—one for coffee, one for tea. The cinnamon rolls sat cooling on the counter, their scent filling the kitchen the way it had every Saturday for sixteen years.
I stood there holding the second mug, staring at the empty chair across from mine.
