"Oh, Cole."
"I dream about it every night. Every single night. Sometimes it's exactly how it happened. Sometimes my brain makes up new ways they could have died. New ways I could have saved them and didn't."
"That wasn't your fault."
"I know that logically. But logic doesn't matter at four in the morning when I'm watching them die again."
She's quiet for a moment, just holding me, and then she says, "What do you need? When this happens, what helps?"
No one has ever asked me that before.
"This," I say quietly. "Having someone here. Someone real. It helps."
"Then I'll be here," she says simply. "Every time. For as long as you need me."
"Chloe—"
"I mean it." She takes my face in her hands, forces me to look at her. "I'm not going anywhere. You protected me tonight. Let me protect you too. Even if it's just from the nightmares."
Something breaks in my chest. Something that's been locked down tight for eleven years suddenly cracks open, and I pull her against me, holding her so tight I'm probably hurting her but I can't stop.
"I promise," she whispers against my neck. "I'll always be here for you."
"I promise too," I say. "I'll always be here for you. Always protect you. Always keep you safe."
We stay like that on the floor, wrapped around each other, naked and vulnerable and making promises we both intend to keep.
And for the first time since I came home from the desert, I think maybe I've found something worth staying alive for.
Maybe I've found someone worth fighting for.
Maybe I've found home.
Epilogue - Chloe
Two Years Later
The house is chaos when I pull into the driveway.
I can hear it before I even open the car door. Archie yowling from somewhere inside, probably upset that dinner is five minutes late, and the sound of Cole's deep voice saying something I can't quite make out through the walls. There's a crash, followed by delighted squealing, and I grab the grocery bags from the backseat and hurry toward the front door.
Home.
Two years ago, I never could have imagined this would be my life. That I'd be coming home to a sprawling three-bedroom house on the outskirts of Blackwater Falls with enough land that Archie can actually go outside without me worrying he'll disappear into town.
That I'd be carrying groceries into a kitchen that's three times the size of my old apartment. That I'd hear my daughter's laughter and my husband's voice and feel this overwhelming sense of rightness about everything.
I push open the door.
"I'm home!" I call out.
"Mama!"
Olivia comes barreling around the corner at full speed—as full speed as an eighteen-month-old can manage anyway. Her dark hair is sticking up in about fifteen different directions, her face is sticky with something I can't identify, and she's wearing one sock. Just one. The other is presumably lost somewhere in the house along with the dozens of other single socks that have vanished over the past year.
I set the groceries down just in time to scoop her up.
"Hi, baby girl," I say, kissing her cheek and immediately regretting it when I taste what I'm pretty sure is mashed banana. "Where's Daddy?"
