Chapter 10 Carter
CARTER
After dinner in the cabin, we hang out on the sofa by the fireplace.
It’s warm. Rhi is snuggled up in the corner with a blanket tightly wrapped around her.
“So,” Rhi says. “Carter?” Her voice is quiet.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. For telling me about Dominic. For being honest about how hard it is. I know that wasn’t easy.”
“Thank you for listening.” I set the plate down. “And for not trying to fix it. Or tell me it gets better. Or any of that stuff people usually say that makes me want to set things on fire.”
“Does it? Get better?”
The question is gentle but direct. Very Rhi.
“I don’t know yet.” I turn to face her. “But being here helps. Not having to pretend helps.”
She nods slowly. “Yeah. It does.”
We sit— the fire crackling in front of us.
“I should probably head up,” she says, breaking the moment. “Early morning tomorrow. Big day of water sample collection ahead.”
“Right. Yeah. Me too.”
Neither of us moves.
Then she does—turns and heads for the ladder, and I watch her climb up to the loft, hyperaware of how small this cabin is. How there’s only a curtain between us up there. How I can already hear her moving around, the rustle of her sleeping bag, the soft sound of a zipper.
I’m in so much trouble here.
I stay downstairs for a while longer, feeding the fire because that’s concrete and manageable and doesn’t require me to think about the fact that I’m developing feelings for someone I’ve known for three days.
Through the window, I can see stars.
So many stars.
More stars than I’ve ever seen in my life, sharp and bright against the black sky, like someone poked holes in construction paper and shined a light through from behind.
Dominic would have loved this. Would have known all the constellations. Would have pointed them out while I pretended to pay attention and actually just enjoyed listening to him talk.
The thought doesn’t hurt as much as it usually does.
Maybe Rhi’s right. Maybe being here helps.
My phone is in my backpack, dead and useless—a brick of glass and metal that can’t connect to anything.
My family is hundreds of miles away, probably sitting around the table right now, the empty chair between them.
It’s nearly Christmas and I’ll spend it collecting samples with a girl who organizes her field notes and makes delicious pasta sauce from canned goods.
It should feel lonely.
It doesn’t.
When I finally climb up to the loft—after banking the fire and checking the door and generally procrastinating as long as humanly possible—Rhi’s already in her sleeping bag.
The curtain is pulled mostly closed between our spaces, but not all the way. I can see the glow of her flashlight on her side, casting shadows on the sloped ceiling. I can hear the soft sound of pages turning.
She’s reading.
Of course, she brought books. Of course, she did. My little nerd.
I settle into my own sleeping bag as quietly as possible—which is not very quiet because sleeping bags are loud, the floorboards creak, and I’m about as graceful as a baby giraffe.
“Sorry,” I whisper. “I’m trying to be quiet.”
“It’s okay.” Her voice drifts over from behind the curtain. “I’m still awake.”
“What are you reading?”
“Something trashy. Romance novel. Very not academic.”
I smile in the darkness. “Scandalous.”
“I know. Don’t tell anyone. My reputation as a serious scientist would be ruined.”
“Your secret’s safe with me.”
The pages start turning again. I lie there, staring at the ceiling, listening to her breathe.
This is intimate in a way I wasn’t prepared for.
Not physically intimate—there’s a curtain between us, we’re both fully clothed in our separate sleeping bags—but emotionally intimate. Like we’re in this little bubble together, separate from the rest of the world.
“Carter?” Her voice is soft.
“Yeah?”
“I’m glad you’re here. I mean, I’m glad we’re doing this together. The research. This whole thing.”
My heart does something complicated. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. I think... I think I needed this.”
“Me too,” I say quietly. “Me too.”
I lie in my sleeping bag, listening to Rhi settle in on the other side of the curtain. The cabin creaks and settles. Outside, I can hear the wind in the trees, but it’s gentle tonight. Peaceful.
I should sleep. We have an early start tomorrow.
“Rhi?” I say into the darkness, keeping my voice quiet. “You still awake?”
“Yeah.”
Relief floods through me. I wasn’t sure if she’d answer.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
I stare at the sloped ceiling, trying to figure out how to word this. “What do you really want to do? After graduation, I mean. With geology. Are you confident in it?”
There’s no hesitation in her answer. “Graduate school, hopefully. Maybe a postdoc after that. Research positions, fieldwork. I love this”—I hear rustling, like she’s gesturing even though I can’t see her—“all of this. Being outside, collecting data, figuring out how the earth works. I want to do this forever.”
The certainty in her voice makes my palms sweat.
Because I don’t have that. Have never had that.
“That’s really cool,” I say. “That you know.”
“What about you?” she asks. “What do you want to do?”
And there it is. The question everyone keeps asking. The one I never have a good answer for.
I could deflect. Make a joke. Change the subject.
But it’s dark, and she can’t see my face, and something about this trip has made me tired of performing.
“I don’t know,” I admit.
“At all?”
“Not even a little bit.” I laugh, but it sounds hollow even to my own ears. “Everyone keeps asking me that. My parents, my advisors, my friends. And I never have a good answer.”
“But you’re almost done with your degree.”
“Yeah. Which makes it worse, doesn’t it?” I shift in my sleeping bag, suddenly restless. “I’ve spent three years studying something I’m not even sure I like.”
There’s a pause. When she speaks again, her voice is gentle. “Do you like it? Geology?”
I think about lectures. About feeling like I’m suffocating inside four walls.
“I like this part,” I say slowly. “Being outside. Working with my hands. Solving problems in real-time. But the rest of it? The research papers and data analysis and academic stuff?” I shake my head even though she can’t see it.
“I hate being inside. I hate desks. I hate feeling like I’m slowly dying in a fluorescent-lit room. ”
“Then why geology?”
The question is simple. The answer is complicated.
“Dominic,” I say finally. “I picked it because Dominic did. He loved it—genuinely loved it. And I thought... I don’t know. I thought maybe if I followed his path, I’d figure out what mine was. That it would just click eventually.”
“Has it?”
“No,” I answer more easily than I would have expected.
“I’ve been waiting three years for it to make sense.
For me to suddenly love it the way he did.
But it hasn’t happened. And now I’m almost done, and I still don’t know what I want, and everyone’s asking about grad school and career plans and I just—”
I stop, realizing I’m rambling. That I’m dumping all of this on her in the middle of the night.
“Sorry,” I say.
“Don’t apologize.” I can hear her shifting, like she’s propped herself up. “So what would you do if you could do anything?”
No one’s ever asked me that before.
I think about it. Really think about it.
“Something outside,” I say. “Something where I’m actually helping people, not just... staring at spreadsheets. Something that matters in the moment, you know? Not in five years when the research paper gets published. Basically, I don’t know.”
“That’s not nothing,” she says softly. “That’s actually pretty specific.”
“It’s not a career plan though, is it? ‘I want to help people and be outside’ doesn’t exactly translate to a job description.”
“It’s a start.” There’s something warm in her voice. “You don’t have to have it all figured out, Carter. You’re allowed to not know.”
“Everyone else seems to know.”
“I bet they don’t. They’re just better at pretending.” She pauses. “And for what it’s worth? I think you’d be amazing at whatever you choose. As long as it’s what you actually want, not what you think you’re supposed to want.”
“Thanks, Rhi,” I say quietly. “For not making me feel like an idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot. You’re just figuring it out.” Another rustle, like she’s settling back down. “We all are, really. I just happen to be one of those annoying people who knew what they wanted since they were twelve.”
I offer a small smile. “What did twelve-year-old Rhi want?”
“To be a volcanologist. I was obsessed with volcanoes. Had posters on my wall and everything.”
The image makes me grin wider. “That’s adorable.”
“It was deeply nerdy.”
“Still adorable.”
There’s a pause, and I swear I can see her blushing through the curtain.
“Well, now I’m into geothermal systems,” she says. “So I guess I stayed on brand.”
“You did.” I settle deeper into my sleeping bag, feeling more relaxed than I have in months. “Rhi?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad it’s you I’m doing this with.”
The silence that follows feels significant. Full.
“Me too,” she says finally, and her voice is so soft, I almost miss it.
“Good night. For real this time.”
“Good night, Carter.”
I lie there in the darkness, listening to her breath slowly even out. And for the first time since Dominic died, I let myself imagine a future that isn’t just “get through college and figure it out later.”
What if I don’t finish the geology degree and go to grad school because that’s what Dominic would have done?
What if I actually start thinking about what I want?
The following morning, we quickly clean up together—in this weirdly domestic, comfortable rhythm we’ve somehow built. She washes, I dry. My hands ache from the cold water, even though we warmed it on the stove, but it feels grounding.
When the last pot is done, she hands it to me, and our fingers brush under the water. Not a dramatic brush—just a little unexpected spark that neither of us knows how to handle.