The voice hits me like a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.
I turn.
And she’s there.
Evie.
Exactly the way I remember her.
Warm eyes. Knowing smile. The kind of presence that feels like home before you even touch it.
“Hi,” I whisper.
She steps closer, cupping my face in her hands like she used to, like she never stopped.
“Oh, sweetheart,” she murmurs. “You made it.”
“I didn’t do it right,” I say immediately, because apparently even in dreams I cannot stop over-explaining my life. “This wasn’t… I was supposed to come here and…. and leave, and I didn’t, and now everything’s complicated, and I don’t know what I’m doing and…”
“Good,” she says gently.
I blink. “Good?”
Her smile widens just slightly. “It means you’re living.”
I stare at her. “That’s not helpful.”
“It’s not supposed to be easy,” she replies. “It’s supposed to be yours.”
I glance past her, toward the town below. Coyote Glen shines softly in the distance.
“I don’t know if I belong here,” I admit.
Evie follows my gaze. “Do you feel like you can breathe here?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Then why are you arguing with it?”
I open my mouth.
Close it.
Because I don’t have a good answer.
“I thought I was supposed to find myself,” I say instead.
She laughs softly. “And you think that happens far away from everything that matters?”
“I don’t know what matters yet.”
She tilts her head. “Don’t you?”
And then they’re there.
Ryder, watching everything like it could disappear if he looked away.
Zane, quieter, closer, like he’s already part of the space around me.
