He looked out at the treetops for a long moment. “You know the story I told you about the woman I was with? The baby we lost?”
“Yes.”
“I left some things out.”
The fire crackled, casting shifting shadows across his face.
“We didn’t just lose the baby,” he said. “We lost everything in one long, unraveling stretch. I didn’t know how to grieve. But she did. She cried, she screamed, she mourned. I watched it all and couldn’t make sense of any of it. And instead of standing beside her, I shut down. I built walls so high, even I couldn’t see over them.”
Natalie listened without interrupting.
“One night, she came home late. She looked different. Worn out. I asked her where she’d been. She said she needed space. That someone else understood what she was feeling. She didn’tsay it, but I knew. There was someone else. And I didn’t blame her.”
His voice was tight. “The thing is, I didn’t fight. I let her go. I thought I was sparing us both. I told myself that if I stayed, I’d do more harm than good. So, I packed my things and disappeared.”
He looked down into his mug. “That’s how I ended up here. Olivia took me in and gave me a place to stay, and even then, after she was kind, I was carrying so much anger I still messed up and left. I think maybe the whole town cheered. And then when I came back she gave me a second chance but most of all, she let me be me, left me alone to work it all out.”
Natalie reached for his hand again. He let her take it, his fingers wrapping over hers.
“I’ve spent years convincing myself I’m better alone. That I wasn’t meant to be anyone’s husband, or father, or anything else that asks for more than I know how to give. But then you showed up. And every day since, I’ve been questioning everything I used to believe about myself.”
He glanced at her, his expression unguarded. “You make me want things I’d stopped letting myself want.”
She touched his cheek, her thumb brushing gently over his skin. “That’s not weakness, Mason.”
“I’m afraid of breaking it,” he whispered. “Of breaking us. But I want us more than I’ve wanting anything before.”
“You won’t break us, Mason. I won’t let that happen.”
They sat in silence, the fire’s glow warming their faces, the stars overhead bearing witness to a confession long overdue. And when Mason finally rested his head against Natalie’s shoulder, it was not with the weight of shame, but with the relief and release of truth.
The night closed gently around them, blanketing the deck in quiet reverence. They weren’t just holding hands anymore. Theywere holding history. And they were no longer afraid of what came next. Not together.
The morning after the campfire, Natalie rose before dawn, the firelight of the night still burning in her chest. She wandered the sanctuary trails alone for a while, letting the stillness of the woods speak to the questions moving through her.
Mason had shared his pain, the edges of a past she could feel still marked him. She’d felt it in the way he hesitated, the moments his hand tightened slightly around hers, like he still feared the collapse of what they were building. But as much as it brought them closer, it stirred something in her, too, a quiet ache she’d kept carefully hidden.
She’d spent so much of her adult life strong, capable, determined not to need anyone. She had become the woman others could lean on, while quietly locking away her own need for reassurance, for safety, for love she could trust not to unravel. And trust, she’d learned, came at a cost.
Later that morning, she joined Olivia on the back deck of the lodge. The older woman was already there, her cane laid across her lap, a mug of tea warming her hands.
“You look like you didn’t sleep,” Olivia said, not unkindly.
Natalie gave a small laugh. “I slept. Just not peacefully.”
They sat in companionable silence for a while, watching the forest slowly come to life.
“Can I ask you something?” Natalie said at last.
Olivia nodded, sipping her tea.
“It’s about Davey.”
Olivia stiffened slightly but nodded again. “Alright.”
“I’ve heard whispers. From town. I haven’t asked because I didn’t think it was my place. But now... I think it might help him if someone else knew. If it wasn’t a secret.”
Olivia didn’t respond immediately. Her gaze was fixed on the horizon, where the mist rolled gently through the pines.
