Finally, I said, “I used to think if I stayed in one place too long, people would start to expect things from me. Things I couldn’t give.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m starting to wonder if I left too soon to ever find out what I could’ve given.”
He just said, “Then maybe it’s time to stay a little longer.”
And I didn’t say no.
That night,I lay in bed with the window cracked and the sketchbook open on my chest.
The page I’d drawn earlier was still there. That woman. That stillness. That moment I hadn’t realized was mine until it was already down in ink.
I flipped the page and started again.
This time, I drew three hands—mine, June’s, Harper’s—tangled but still touching. Holding on. Holdingin.
And just beneath that, I wrote one line in the corner, as small as it could be and still exist:
I don’t want to run anymore.
I stared at it for a long time.
Then I closed the book and turned out the light.
10
HARPER
Daniel didn’t say what he wanted.
Not really.
His message had been vague—half apology, half attempt to reset something that had already flatlined.I’ve been thinking. I miss talking to you. I don’t know if it’s too late.He’d left it open-ended, like he was waiting for me to solve the part he didn’t want to say.
That was always his specialty. Leaving the hard parts in a pile like laundry he didn’t want to fold.
I didn’t respond. I’d spent too many years talking to someone who only heard what he wanted.
I went downto the harbor without telling anyone. I needed the wind. The distance. The illusion that walking away from the house meant walking away from everything I hadn’t dealt with yet.
Nate was there, of course.
He had this uncanny timing. Like he could sense the second I needed someone and hated myself for it.
He spotted me from the docks and met me halfway.
“You look like you haven’t slept,” he said.
“I haven’t.”
“Want company or space?”
I hesitated. “Company.”
We walked along the edge of the harbor in silence.
“I heard from Daniel,” I said eventually.
