Chapter 9 #2
If I closed my eyes, I could almost smell the different scents of the seasons that had passed here: woodsmoke and damp leaves in the fall, cold earth and pine in the winter, wildflowers and fresh sawdust in the spring, and honeysuckle and sun-warmed wood in the summer…like now.
Once, this space had been our hideout, our shared little universe. We’d spent entire summers here, pretending the rest of the world didn’t exist.
We sat like we used to, side by side, our backs against the familiar plywood wall, staring through the opening at the soft pink and orange spilling across the early morning sky.
The quiet between us stretched long and full, charged with everything we hadn’t said. I could feel the heat of him radiating toward me, and I barely resisted scooting closer to absorb some of it for myself. But I knew that if I touched him, I’d forget why we couldn’t go back to what we’d been.
Not that anyone could ever go back.
Only forward.
But here in this tree house, time felt like it had curled in on itself. Maybe we hadn’t moved forward as much as we thought.
I risked a glance. His thigh brushed mine, warm and solid.
His chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm.
His jaw was shadowed, and his eyes—those damn hazel eyes—were already on me, pure longing in them as he scanned up my legs, my breasts, before finally reaching my eyes.
Given the intensity of the look, I had to assume I was gobbling him up as well.
That look—like I was still someone who meant something to him—shattered me a little.
“Why are you still here?” I asked softly.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“No, I mean…you always wanted to leave Star Falls. But I’m the only one who did.”
His chest rose and fell with a deep breath. “No one’s more surprised than I am, but…” He shrugged. “I’m happy here.”
After his childhood, I wasn’t sure how that could be possible, but every line in his body told me it was the truth.
“Kiera stayed,” he said. “Ryder came back to start Colburn Restorations. Caleb came home after the hockey injury. My family’s here.
My work at the station, it’s the job of my dreams, and I’m working toward the next phase.
I’m almost there. My life’s here.” The corners of his mouth tipped up.
“What about you, Haze? What are you still looking for?”
Such a simple question. Easy. But nothing in my life had ever felt either one of those things. The answer cracked something in me. I stood so abruptly, I nearly slipped.
He was up just as fast, hands on my arms, eyes searching mine like he could read the mess happening behind them. “Hey. You okay?”
“No.” I laughed, except it wasn’t funny. His words were kind. Gentle. But they cut right through me. “Look, I love that you know who you are. What you want. It suits you.”
“But…” he prompted gently, dipping his head to look into my eyes. “What’s going on in that beautiful mind of yours?”
“But…” I lifted my hands. “I don’t know who I am here.
I thought I’d figured it out, but now…” I shook my head.
“Being here feels like slipping into a version of myself I don’t recognize.
” Like I’d stepped back into a life I wasn’t sure I deserved anymore.
My throat tightened painfully, but if I cried, I was going to be furious at myself.
“Being here,” I echoed softly, “feels like the past is living under my skin. Every street, every sound, every breath—it’s all reminding me of who I used to be.
And everything I never became.” My voice broke.
“I’ve spent my whole life running. From this place. From you. From myself.”
“You could stop.” He cupped my face, thumbs brushing beneath my eyes where I’d let a few tears slip. “Just for one second, stop.”
I wanted to. God, I wanted to. “It’s not that easy. Being back here, I feel a little lost.”
Even worse? The feelings I’d buried so deep, they’d fossilized—every single one of them for this man, this impossible man—were back. Loud. Bright. Crashing into me like they’d never left.
Like a storm I’d never really outrun. My chest physically ached from the weight of it, like my heart had outgrown its rib cage and was clawing to get out.
I didn’t want him to see that I was still her. The girl who ran. Who bolted before anyone could tell her she wasn’t worth sticking around for. The one who always chose surviving over staying.
Once, this tree house had been a hideout. Now it felt like a mirror. I pulled back, ducked from under his touch. “Gotta go.”
“You promised you wouldn’t run off again.”
I flinched halfway down the ladder, heart pounding, because yeah, he had every right to throw that at me.
He wasn’t wrong.
I’d always been better at moving forward rather than standing still. Easier to keep moving than plant roots I wasn’t sure I deserved. And somewhere along the line, I’d decided that if I stayed too long, people would see the cracks and wonder why they’d ever wanted me around in the first place.
I wasn’t just running from the emotions.
I was running from me—the version of me that had never quite figured out how to stay.
“I’m not vanishing,” I called up, voice flat. “It’s called work.” I climbed down too fast, scraping my palms and knees, but I didn’t care.
“Sure about that?”
I glanced up to meet his stony, hard gaze, realizing he’d climbed down and stood before me. There was a tension to his gaze now and in every line of his body. “What does that mean?”
“It means that it seems to me, you’re staying true to yourself. Keeping one foot out the door.”
I nearly staggered as that hit its mark, sharp and unflinching right in my chest, calling out my worst fear, nailed in one casual sentence.
Heat rose in my chest—not anger exactly, but something close. Something raw and tired and just…done. “Maybe that’s true,” I said. “But if it is, it’s because no one ever gave me a reason to believe I was worth staying for.”
His face shifted into surprise and then regret. And something far deeper flickered behind his eyes. He opened his mouth, but I shook my head.
“I wasn’t running from you, Tucker. I was running from the version of me who was never enough for anyone. Not my dad. Not this town. Not even you.”
He made a sound like he wanted to take the words back, soften them somehow, but I shook my head again and took a step back.
“Don’t.”
Silence stretched. Just the two of us in the charged space between the past and everything we still hadn’t said.
Then, finally, he blew out a breath, low and shaky. “I never wanted you to go, Hazel. I just didn’t know how to ask you to stay—and believe you would.”
And that?
That ruined me.
Because I didn’t know how to stay either.
Or if I could even learn how.