"There's work to hide behind, you mean."
Before I can respond, footsteps approach outside. Liam appears, his expression a mixture of concern and determination.
"Intervention time?" I ask bitterly.
"If that's what you want to call it." He leans against the doorframe, blocking my escape route.
"I'm fine."
"You're miserable," Mom counters gently. "And too stubborn to admit you made a mistake."
"The mistake would have been letting it go further." I turn away, unable to bear the sympathy in her eyes. "She has her book launch, her career taking off. Everything she's worked for."
"So you decided for her," Liam says. "Without even giving her a choice."
"There was no choice to make." I run a hand through my hair, frustration building. "We're from different worlds. She needs?—"
"What exactly do you think she needs?" Mom interrupts. "Because from where I'm sitting, what she needed was someone who saw her magic and didn't try to change it. Someone who built her spaces to create instead of telling her to be more practical."
Her words hit too close to the conversation with Daisy, to the hurt in her eyes when I pushed her away.
"It wouldn't have worked."
"You mean you were too afraid to try." Liam's voice lacks its usual judgment, replaced by something like understanding.
"I was being realistic." The defense sounds weaker each time I use it.
"No, sweetheart." Mom reaches into her bag, pulling out a bound manuscript. "You were being afraid."
I recognize it immediately. It’s a copy of Daisy's book draft, the pages she'd been working on during her stay. The cover shows a small rabbit and a bear standing at a fork in a trail.
"She left this behind," Mom says, holding it out to me. "Or maybe she left it for you. I'm not sure."
Reluctantly, I take it, opening to a random page. The illustrations punch the air from my lungs. There’s the bear teaching the rabbit to read trail markers, to find safety in the forest, to trust that some paths, though difficult, are worth taking.
"Read the dedication," Mom says softly.
I flip to the front page, where Daisy's handwriting flows across the paper:
For the forest guardian who taught me that the most magical trails are the ones we're brave enough to follow, even when we can't see where they lead.
Something cracks inside me, a wall I've built so carefully finally beginning to crumble.
"You became the very thing you feared most," Liam says quietly. "The one who leaves."
"I didn't—" But I did. Not physically, but in every way that mattered. I closed the door before she could walk through it. I abandoned what we might have had because I was too afraid to risk the pain of losing it later.
"She was never just another guest, son." Mom touches my arm gently. "And you know it."
The truth I've been fighting crashes through my defenses. "I’ve been falling for her." The words, finally spoken aloud, hang in the small space.
"We know." Liam's smile holds no triumph, only relief. "The question is, what are you going to do about it?"
"It's too late." Even as I say it, something rebellious stirs in my chest. "She's gone."
"Gone, not vanished." Mom stands, taking the manuscript from my hands and opening it to the last page—an illustration of the bear standing alone at a crossroads, looking lost. "Some stories aren't finished yet."
"She's meeting with her publisher tomorrow," Liam adds. "Some big planning session for the BookWorld promotion in Manhattan."
