Page 71 of Mountain Void

The night air struck his face, sharp enough to make him inhale. Surely the cold would make it easier to breathe. Surely—

He walked without choosing a direction, because the direction didn’t matter, only the movement. He walked for a long time, his legs moving automatically while his mind focused on blocking all thoughts.

The cold helped. It worked its way inside his T-shirt, sharp and immediate.

He crossed the first street without looking up. Light glowed from behind some of the curtained windows. Farther down the road, a dog barked, eliciting an immediate response from two or three others.

He kept walking, matching his breathing to his steps, using the same rhythm he used in races.

He did not allow himself to think about Charlie. Or the tears in her eyes as he’d turned away.

Walk.

Keep moving.

His body knew how to do that. It had carried him through exhaustion, through injury, through pain.

This was different.

Tonight, he had no direction. No finish point.

He shoved his hands into his pockets, fingers already numb from the cold.

Eventually, he found himself back on the Floria bridge. He could have turned away, but he didn’t.

Dead leaves shifted under his boots. He adjusted his balance automatically. He hated that competence, the way his body continued to function as it always had. As if nothing had happened.

As if Charlie’s words hadn’t just unraveled the last six years of his life.

He stopped in the middle of the bridge, watching the river rushing below.

The thoughts he’d worked so hard to push away forced their way back into his mind. Unbearable facts.

She’d lied to him.

She’d lied to him for months.

Then for years.

She had taken a choice from him, deciding for both of them.

He tried to hold on to the anger, because the anger was clean and simple. What Charlie had done was wrong. She had taken a choice from him. She had kept the truth from him for years.

Something wet fell on his cheek, and he wiped angrily at it, but another followed, then another.

His chest tightened.

He wasn’t angry. Not really. He was grieving. For their unborn child, but also for the years they’d thrown away.

He slid down until he was sitting on the wooden planks, his back against the steel railing.

His mind replayed her words.

You still don’t understand, Lorenz. What I meant was, I can’t have more children. Ever.

Something pulled tight inside him—not at her actual words, but at the fact that she’d carried this weight alone, that she’d built her decision around it, that she’d walked away from them because of it.

And that she’d done it for him. Because she thought that was what he needed.