Chapter Twenty-Five
THE SALTY OCEAN air smells fresh, like nothing I’ve ever smelt before. I stand there and look out at the vast expanse of it and feel small, but in a way that feels safe, not scary. The scale of it puts everything in its place—including me and my worries and fear.
Ryder’s truck is parked at the side of the road where I left it. I pulled over the moment the water came into view and walked across the sand just to stand here and see it with my own eyes.
The ocean is formidable. The sound of it surprises me, the waves rolling in with so much force behind them, the constant roar. The wind tugs at my jacket, whips my hair around my face, buffeted by the sheer power coming off the water.
For a while I just stand there breathing it in, staring at the horizon.
I used to think that seeing the ocean was a privileged experience that other people got. Vacation people. Normal people. People who were raised in the same house their whole life.
My dad used to talk about taking me one day. He loved “one day.” One day we’ll go. One day I’ll have time. One day I’ll make it up to you. One day I’ll be back.
The roar of the waves makes everything else small. It doesn’t erase my thoughts, but it changes the proportions. Makes the old memories feel farther away.
I’ve carried this image in my head for years: the idea of open water, the idea of nothing between me and the horizon, the dizzying concept that the water bends past the edge, over the other side of the world.
When I was younger, I thought the horizon meant freedom. Nothing in front of me. No walls. No locked doors. No rules that changed without warning.
But standing here, what I feel is something else. The horizon isn’t freedom. It’s time. It’s proof that the world goes on past whatever’s happened to me. Past the version of my life I thought I was stuck with.
I put a hand over my shoulder, brushing where the tattoo must be, although I can’t feel it anymore. Four snakes coiled around a dagger. “And you’re the dagger,” Damian had said, and Jake had clapped like this made perfect sense.
I’ve never really known permanence. Not before now. For most of my life, everything was short. Short plans. Short safety. Short mercy. Homes with expiration dates. Men with moods. Promises that turned into jokes the second I tried to collect.
But the ocean reminds me that the world is older and bigger than the damaged few who have disappointed me in my life.
My phone buzzes in my pocket and startles me. I’m still getting used to it. It still surprises me sometimes—this casual access to the world. This tiny, rectangular proof that I’m not cut off anymore.
I pull it out and read the text message on the screen.
Ryder: Take your time. Text me when you’re heading home.
For most of my life, “home” was a word people used to get something out of me.
Foster parents who wanted obedience. Men who wanted gratitude.
Billy, who wanted me trained into the shape that suited him best. I wanted a home so badly that I kept mistaking ownership for safety.
I kept letting people name a place “home” and then punish me for believing them.
With Ryder, it isn’t a word he uses to pull me closer. It’s not bait. It’s not a promise he’ll take back later. It’s not a reward I can lose for getting something wrong.
It’s where my things stay. Where there’s space for me without negotiation. Where nobody makes me prove I deserve to be there. It’s where I’m expected to come back to, because I belong.
I type back with cold fingers.
Me: Just looking out at the ocean, and it’s loud. I’ll be back soon xo
I stare at the message for a beat after it sends, then I tuck the phone away and keep walking.
The path down is uneven. The air grows wetter as I get closer to the water, and the sound grows louder.
I stop at the edge where the pebbles slope into the surf. The first wave creeps in and reaches for my shoes and I don’t move away. I stand there and let the next wave come in and retreat.
Billy shows up in my mind the way he always does—without invitation, without warning. An unwelcome hand on the small of my back. A voice in my ear that’s too familiar. A laugh that never had joy in it.
Sometimes, even now, I catch myself reacting to a memory like it’s happening. A sudden tightening in my ribs. A flicker of panic. A reflex to make myself small and agreeable.
Billy trained me like that. With attention and with praise. With little punishments that taught me what it cost to resist. With the constant reminder that I could be replaced.
I look out at the water and think about the last time I saw him alive. How I didn’t understand then that my life was already splitting into before and after.
He is gone.
That is a fact. There’s a strange peace in facts.
Hargrove is gone too, in his own way.
Not dead, but not a martyr. When I think of him now, I see the news footage—handcuffs, cameras, his face pinched with disbelief that the world didn’t bend for him. I see what it looks like when power is ripped away.
In the months since, his name has evaporated. The news cycle moves on. People get bored of monsters once they’re caged. There are always new monsters.
Sometimes I catch a banner on TV, some small mention of proceedings, another defendant, another plea. But the network he held has been dismantled so thoroughly it’s become a cautionary tale.
The wind gusts and I tuck my chin into my jacket. My eyes sting, and it’s hard to tell if it’s cold or something else.
I think of my mother. Not as a villain, but not as a saint. Just a woman who couldn’t hold on to herself long enough to hold on to me. My memory of her is a blur of need, hers and mine, and the way too much need can make a house unsafe.
I think of my father. The way he could make me feel chosen for a moment and then make me feel ridiculous for wanting more than that.
I think of all the foster homes. The constant measuring. The way you learn to take up less space, to want less, to apologize before anyone tells you to.
I think of the version of me Billy found. The one who would have accepted anything that looked like stability. He didn’t create my hunger for home, he just exploited it.
I close my eyes and let the ocean’s sound fill my skull. Let it push those memories to the edges, where they can’t swallow me whole.
That’s new too. Being able to stand inside these memories without being bowled over by them.
Somewhere along the way, I learned to feel safe.
Jake was my first real anchor. He taught me that support doesn’t have to come with strings. That help can be offered and not demanded back.
Damian came next, reckless and bold. He was heat and laughter and tenderness.
Wyatt was stability and love. The real thing. Always there for me, always fighting for me, and always protecting me.
And Ryder.
Always Ryder.
My gravity and my storm.
The man who used to set my teeth on edge and then became the reason I sleep.
He still has that possessiveness in him. I can feel it when he watches me laugh with another man, when he sees a stranger look at me too long, when I leave for the night and he has to claim me when I return.
But he’s learned that my freedom is part of loving me. That I can walk away and still come back. That choice is the only thing that makes “ours” worth saying.
Another wave slides in and the cold hits my shoes again.
I open my eyes and look at the horizon.
I bend and pick up a smooth pebble from the beach. It’s cold, gray and ordinary. I roll it between my fingers and think about how many years I spent believing ordinary was impossible. I tuck it into my pocket, a stupid little souvenir.
The wind pushes again, harder, and I take it as my cue, turning back toward the car.
I slide back into the driver’s seat and close the door. Start the engine. The road curves away from the water and back toward land. Back toward trees and lights and the normal world.
Back toward the men who let me choose them, and chose me right back.
The ocean disappears in my rearview mirror, shrinking to a line of dark water under a darker sky, but I don’t feel loss. I feel completion. Because the point was never the ocean. The point was that I could go to the edge of the world alone, and still have somewhere to come back to.
I glance at the road ahead, then at my phone sitting quietly in the console, and I smile.
Time to go home.