We made it to the door and onto the porch. The wind had picked up, driving rain sideways across the porch. I could hear it hitting the roof, the steps, the railing. The world was water.
We stepped off the porch and rain swept over us in hard, slanting lines, soaking through everything in seconds. My mother stopped halfway to the car, caught in the downpour like someone waking from a dream.
She turned back, looked at me, then at Elena standing in the doorway, her silhouette framed by the warm light behind her.
"Where's Elena?" Her voice went small, worried in a way that made my stomach drop. "Why isn't Elena coming with us?"
"She's staying here, Mom."
"But she should come." Tears filled her eyes. "There’s a storm. She needs to be home with my boy."
I looked up.
Elena had stepped off the porch now. Just a few feet, just enough for the rain to catch her hair, like she meant to come toward us, toward me, toward my mother’s voice. Before she could take another step, Caleb appeared behind her. He moved out into the storm with an umbrella in hand. He opened it with a snap and reached her in two strides, angling it over both of them.
Her shoulders relaxed beneath it and she stopped, close enough to him that their arms nearly brushed.
I stood in the rain. Water ran down my face, soaking through my clothes, pooling in my shoes. The distance between us might have been three feet. It might have been miles. It felt like watching something through glass. Through water. Through time itself.
Elena's eyes found mine.
She knew exactly what I was seeing. What I was understanding.
"Elena's safe now, Mom," I said.
The words came from somewhere deep. Some place I hadn't known existed until they surfaced.
My mother blinked. Her face cleared. She smiled. "Oh. Good. That's good then."
Dad helped her into his car, his hand steady on her elbow. Got her settled in the passenger seat and made sure her seatbelt clicked. Made sure she was warm enough, safe enough, protected from everything he could protect her from.
Dad gripped my shoulder. "You coming home?"
"Yeah. I'll be right behind you."
He studied my face for a moment. Seemed to understand something I hadn't said. He nodded and drove off. The taillights bled red through the rain until the storm erased them, and I turned back toward the house.
Elena stood at the edge of the porch light with Caleb holding the umbrella over both of them. The rain didn't touch her. It hit the ground around her in bright, shattering lines. She said something I couldn't hear, and Caleb leaned in, eyes on her.
I stood there a moment longer, water running into my eyes until everything blurred—the porch, the umbrella, the shape of her. Then I opened my truck door. The cabin was dark and cold, smelling of wet leather and old coffee. I sat there while the storm drummed on the roof.
I loved her—God, I loved her so much. And I’d hoped, prayed, for a second chance. But maybe this was it. Maybe the only way left to love her was to let her go.
CHAPTER 34: ELENA
Matt's truck sat in the driveway with the engine running, headlights cutting through the rain in two pale columns. I could see him through the windshield, hands on the wheel, head bowed. Just sitting there.
The rain was coming down so hard it blurred everything. The truck, the trees beyond, the shape of him inside. But I could still see enough. The way his shoulders curved forward, the way he wasn't moving.
I stood under the umbrella with Caleb's arm around me, and I couldn't look away.
This was it. Matt was leaving. Going home to his father, to his mother who didn't know his name half the time, to that house where he'd lie awake listening to her call for people who weren't there. Where he'd wake up alone and keep carrying all of it by himself.
And I'd go inside with Caleb. We'd dry off, finish dinner, and maybe he’d drive me home and stay the night. I'd wake up next to him tomorrow and the day after that and keep building this life I wanted.
But Matt would still be out there. And we'd still be doing this. Running into each other at the hardware store, the grocerystore, Joan Patterson's farm. Always careful and polite. Always pretending we were fine.
My chest felt too tight.
