Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
TUCKER
It was past midnight when I got home. I already knew—because yes, I’d been obsessively checking my damn security cameras—that Hazel had not gone inside my house. And I’d lay down money, or my own life if it came to it, that she hadn’t gone inside her childhood home either.
I might have figured she was out in Star Falls somewhere, restoring something with fury in her fingers, but her van was parked on the street. Lights off. Silent. Empty.
Worry gathered in my gut like storm clouds, thick and pressurized. Guilt came right behind it, relentless and cold.
I stood in the middle of my front yard, right where Hazel had stood a few hours ago, and closed my eyes, trying to feel her.
She’d been brave enough to come here. Brave enough to face down the memories, the loss, the rumors. She hadn’t flinched, hadn’t run. It seemed she’d truly wanted to face it all, to look that past straight in the eyes and say, I can do better.
But me? I’d considered myself someone who would do the same, face my shit head-on as well. Coming from the kind of childhood I’d buried, I hadn’t had the luxury of avoidance.
Except that’s exactly what I’d done. I’d buried the hard stuff so deep that when Hazel stood in front of me, practically holding her heart out in both hands, I’d…dodged.
I hated what that said about me. Hated more the idea that I might lose her because of it.
Where would she go?
Just the question hit me with a memory—of the days when it was me looking for a place to disappear, to catch my breath. To seek comfort.
She’d always been that place.
And just like that, I knew where she was.
It took five minutes to walk through the inky-dark woods, where little starlight reached past the three-hundred-foot-tall trees swaying like ghosts. The air was thick with pine and eucalyptus. The night surrounded me, and I squinted into it, letting my eyes adjust.
I stopped beneath the tree house. Our tree house.
“Hazel.” My voice sounded loud in the hush of the trees, the words bouncing off the branches, hanging in the air between us like a fragile thread.
As I had not too long ago, she’d pulled up the ladder. A sign she wanted to be alone. But she hadn’t let me get lost in what had been haunting me, and I wasn’t about to let her either.
I drew a deep breath and climbed the tree. At the top, I pulled the penlight from my pocket and swept the beam over the cavernous dark, over the old crates, the big beanbag, and the various supplies that had long ago been left behind, until I caught—
A pair of eyes staring back at me.
She was tucked in a corner between a crate and the beanbag, curled up tight, arms around her knees, eyes a little too shiny.
My heart nearly lurched out of my chest. “Hey, Tough Girl. You hiding out from anything in particular?”
Her eyes flashed, the first real spark of life in them since I’d entered. “I’m not hiding. I’m thinking.”
“About me?” I quipped, hoping to tease her into telling me what was wrong.
“Oh, I’m definitely thinking about you. For instance, I’m thinking about tossing you out of this tree house.”
“Fair.” I crossed the creaky floor and squatted in front of her. Assessing her was second nature. She looked pale, tired, guarded.
But she also looked at me like I was unshakable. If only she knew how hard I worked to pretend. “So what are you doing here instead of sleeping?” I asked softly.
“Eating your expired snacks.” She held up a sad bag of trail mix. “I’m pretending the dust is flavoring. I’m also cultivating a bad attitude. Don’t you worry. It’s going great.”
“Aw, cute, you’ve got a new hobby.”
She let out a rough laugh as I sat down opposite her, my back against the rickety wall.
“I’d like to join your club,” I said. “Dues up front, or can I pay in sarcasm?”
“It’s a closed club.”
I nodded. Gave some thought to what I wanted to say. “I left out something I was thinking when I stupidly told my brother we’re just friends.”
She looked at me warily.
“First, we’ve never been just friends. Not once. Not even when we were teens. And second, I know if I admit out loud that we’re so much more than that, then I also have to admit I might not get to keep any of this. You. Us.”
She flinched, her eyes full of heartbreak and fire. “You could’ve just said that. I’m not seventeen anymore. You don’t have to protect me from my own feelings, or from anything. I told my dad that too.”
“You talked to your dad? Like really talked?”
“Yeah, and it turns out he’s chosen to leave out some facts about his health. Such as that he doesn’t have to wear the heart monitor anymore, but he chose to keep it so I’d see him trying to take care of himself after his medical scare.”
To remind her of what he’d been through. To up her guilt factor so she’d stay longer… Shit. “And you said…?”
“That from here on out, he has to be honest with me. Same goes for you. And if it can’t be done, I’m gone.”
“So, what, you’ll run again?”
She shot to her feet. “We made rules, remember? One”—she put up a finger, and not the one I deserved—“maintain a safe distance. Two”—another finger—“no running. Three, leave the past in the past.” She had her hands on her hips now.
“And I’ve honored that. I’m tired of paying for my teenage sins, Tucker.
No one ever lets me forget them, even though I’ve done the work. I’ve shown up. I’ve stayed.”
She paused just long enough to pull on her boots. Then she stomped past me and shoved the ladder out the opening. “And for the record, this isn’t me running,” she called over her shoulder. “It’s called going to sleep. Alone.”
I looked up at the stars, searching for something… Hope, maybe? Whatever it was, I didn’t find it. But I made a wish anyway, even if it was too late. Even if she didn’t believe. Because I did.
I always had.
Hazel
By the time I reached the edge of the woods, my anger had burned off, leaving something rawer in its place—hurt, bone-deep and humiliatingly familiar.
I didn’t bother with a door at my dad’s house. I went straight for the window of my childhood bedroom and climbed in like a raccoon with trust issues.
Which was fitting, as I felt feral. Unraveled. Unmoored.
I threw myself down onto the ancient twin bed, sheets still smelling like lavender and old grief.
After slipping Tucker’s pilfered hoodie from my backpack, I slipped it on and pulled the covers over my head.
I’d faced down a graveyard of old ghosts tonight.
But this—letting him in—might still be the scariest thing.
A soft knock on the window made me sit up.
Tucker’s dark gaze met my own through the glass. He cocked his head, silently asking if I was going to let him in.
I hesitated for a single beat—not because I didn’t want to, but because I was terrified by how much I did.
When I didn’t answer, he slid the window open and eased inside. Quiet. Careful, like he was giving me plenty of time to hurl something at his head or call the police.
I heard the soft thump of feet on the hardwood floor. Then: “Can I come in?”
“You’re already in.”
He stayed by the window, hands loose at his sides. He’d moved so quietly, the way he always did when sleep had been scarce and his head was loud.
“I’m not talking about just this bedroom,” he said. He looked at me like he meant it. “I’m talking about everything else.”
Something in me cracked open as the memories of our past collided with the present. All those times he’d climbed in this very window… I grabbed my spare pillow and then the extra blanket folded at the foot of my bed, before tossing both to him.
The pillow hit him in the face.
There was a beat of quiet shared laughter—because how many times had I done that to him to lighten the mood?—and then, as he had so many, many times before, he made a nest on the floor beside the bed.
But this time he wasn’t bruised, or bleeding, or barely holding on.
And neither was I. My heart caught at the memories, and I blinked them away.
He was safe. I was safe.
Nothing else mattered.
No running. I’d said it like a dare. Now I had to mean it.
“I missed this,” he said softly.
I closed my eyes at the rough timbre of his voice, at the memories battering at my defenses like this was a game of Minecraft. Except the stakes were way higher.
“Did you bring snacks?” I asked.
“Too busy chasing my own idiocy.”
That made me smile in spite of myself. “You used to be able to multitask. Since when can’t you spiral and snack at the same time?”
A quiet laugh. “I realized something on the walk here.”
“That I still haven’t returned your sweatshirt and it’s mine now?”
“No.” There was amusement in that one word, but it faded when he said, “I’ve been hoarding feelings like they’re mine alone to carry.
But you…you wear yours like armor. Even when it hurts.
You’re always clear on where you are emotionally, even when it’s you wanting to throttle me.
” He smiled at my soft laugh. “You’ve always been braver than me, Haze. ”
Something twisted in my gut. Guilt. “You’re wrong about that.” My voice shook. “There are things…things that happened all those years ago that you don’t know. Things I’ve kept buried so deep, I wasn’t sure I’d ever say them out loud.”
I heard him shift and knew he’d turned on his side, head propped with his hand, looking at me in the dark. His voice was soft when he said, “When you’re ready to share, I’d love to hear them.”
And just like that, the pressure eased. My eyes burned as I nodded, even though I wasn’t sure he could see me. But this was what I always got with Tucker. Acceptance. Patience…
I hadn’t done a very good job of returning the favor. But I would. He deserved better.
I don’t know how long we lay there with the sounds of the night as our only company.
“Haze?”
I peered over the edge of the bed.
“In the name of honesty…” His voice, low and rumbling, resonated with truth. “What I said about us being friends, it wasn’t just for my brothers. In my head, I needed to believe it, because otherwise I’m falling for someone who might leave again.”
The words hit me like a defibrillator.
I didn’t answer. Not out loud. But my hand dropped off the side of the bed and found his.
He entwined our fingers and gave a gentle squeeze, and I knew that for now, this was enough.