12. Ani
Ani
M ae is on the floor with her stuffed fox next to her—bare feet tucked under her, with a puzzle spread out across the rug. She’s staring at it with intensity.
She doesn’t look up as I move through the room. Not even a glance. The girl has made an art out of completely ignoring my existence. And it's really starting to sting.
I crouch near the edge of the coffee table, far enough to give her space, close enough to let her know I’m still here.
“That corner area looks tricky,” I say, nodding toward the pieces she’s currently working on.
She doesn’t answer. Doesn’t even move.
I reach slowly toward the pile, careful not to touch the completed portion, and pick up one piece. Mae’s eyes flick toward me. Just for a second.
Then she takes the piece from my fingers and sets it aside, away from the puzzle. Her jaw tightens.
I nod and sit back on my heels.
“Okay.”
She resumes placing pieces. I stay quiet, watching the way her brow furrows as she rotates each shape, how she double-checks every edge before trying to fit one into place. When she realizes I’m not going anywhere, she deliberately adjusts her position so her body is between me and the puzzle.
She’s just a broken kid and this shouldn’t hurt.
I’ve only been here a few days. I’m a stranger in her world. But still, the rejection bites. I want her to let me in. Just a word, a glance, something .
Instead, I get this wall of silence.
I shift to the side, settling onto the floor with a book I grabbed from the shelf earlier. It’s one of those soft-edged picture books meant for younger kids. Simple story, bright colors. I don’t know if she’s too old for it, but I open it anyway and begin to read aloud.
I keep my voice quiet, but I animate the story as much as I can. I make up voices for the different characters and emphasize certain words when it feels like they need a little extra oomph.
But she pays me no attention.
I keep going, page after page, eyes flicking to her face between each one. She’s still working on the puzzle. Still ignoring me. But her head turns just slightly, and I catch the edge of her gaze.
She sees me. She just doesn’t want me to know.
I finish the book and close it slowly. I don’t ask if she liked it or if she wants another. I set it beside me and pretend I’m not watching her.
She leans forward and fits two pieces together in quick succession.
Later, I try again. This time with crayons. I spread them out on the table, pull a sheet of paper in front of me, and begin drawing little flowers with looping stems and wide petals.
I’m definitely not an artist. Mother found the arts to be a waste of time. Not all arts, of course—music was fine, as long as it was classical. Homemaking counted too, in her mind at least.
But drawing? Painting? Anything that didn’t serve a clear purpose or prepare me for the role I was supposed to fill? Frivolous.
She used to ask, “Why waste effort on something that won’t serve your future husband?”
And even now, fingers moving slowly over the page, I hear the question echo in my head. I hear her voice in the back of my mind, critical and disapproving.
I press the crayon harder than I mean to.
Why waste effort?
I don’t know, Mother. Maybe just because it’s enjoyable.
I freeze the moment the thought lands. My hand stills, crayon hovering in the air. I flinch instinctively, as if speaking inside my own head could conjure her. I wouldn’t be surprised if she developed the ability to pick up on my less-than-ladylike thoughts from miles away.
After a breath, I relax and return to my drawing.
Mae comes into the room shortly after. She pauses in the doorway and watches me for a minute. This time, I don’t acknowledge her. I just keep drawing.
But that doesn’t work either. She turns and walks away without engaging.
The ache in my chest tightens but I keep going. Flower after flower until the page is full.
I’ll try again tomorrow.
Warm air rolls across the backs of my legs as Finn pulls the towels out of the dryer and drops them into the basket between us. He hums under his breath—some tune I don’t recognize—while I fold a hand towel with slow precision.
I reach for another and glance up at him.
He’s still humming, still smiling, still being effortlessly Finn.
I don’t know how he does that. How he makes everything feel lighter without even trying.
My eyes drift past him, to the window. Jonah’s outside, working on something at the edge of the porch. He crouches near a toolbox, one knee braced, head bent. His sweatshirt is pushed to the elbows and his focus is absolute.
He doesn’t know I’m watching him.
Or maybe he does and just doesn’t care.
I look away quickly, heart beating fast as if I’ve been caught doing something I shouldn’t be.
It happens again a few minutes later. Boone walks down the hall without saying a word, his boots tracking mud across the floor. He doesn’t even look at me, but I feel the weight of him anyway.
Something twists low in my stomach.
And then I feel worse.
Because I’m standing in a laundry room with a man whose tongue has been inside of my lady bits, who touched me until I broke open—and I’m thinking about other men.
I fold another towel.
Maybe what happened didn’t mean as much to Finn as it did to me. Maybe this is just what he does. He smiles, he flirts, he touches gently and says all the right things. Maybe Finn makes women feel safe and seen and doesn’t realize the damage he leaves in his wake.
He’s the kind of man who pulls people in without realizing they’re orbiting him. Who tells you you're free and means it, but forgets what it feels like to be lost without someone to belong to.
He’s a bright light. I’m a moth. I’m drawn in without thinking, and convinced the warmth is mine to keep. It’s not his fault I don’t know where to land.
I’ve never been allowed to want anything for myself until now. Right now, every pull feels urgent. Every kindness feels deeply personal. Every glance feels too easily mistaken for a promise.
“You’re breathing weird. Are you okay?” he asks.
My hands still. “What?”
“You’ve got that look.”
I force a half-laugh. “What look?”
He shifts, leaning one hip against the dryer. “The one that says your thoughts are trying to take over again.”
I don’t answer.
He reaches for another towel and starts folding, the silence stretching between us.
“You don’t have to feel guilty,” he says, his voice low now, stripped of the usual shine. “This whole thing, all of it—it’s about figuring out what you want.”
My throat tightens.
“What you like. What kind of life you want to live.”
I swallow hard. “Even if that means someone else?”
He doesn’t look at me. “If that’s what you need to figure it out? Yeah.”
I flinch before I can stop myself, a quick recoil like his words burned me.
He notices.
His shoulders straighten, the easy calm in his posture falling away. I stare down at the towel in my hands, twisting it once, then again, trying to keep it from shaking.
“Ani…”
“Is this just about sex for you?” I ask. The words feel scary coming out. And I hate how small I feel asking the question.
Because if it is—if that’s all it was to him—then I don’t know what to do with the way he held me after, or the way I let myself believe it meant something.
“No,” he breathes. The word slips out quietly, as if he got hit with something that he didn’t see coming.
I want to believe him. But I can’t look at him.
He drops the towel he’s holding and closes the door. Then his hands are on me. One settles beneath my jaw, the other cupping the back of my head as his thumb traces across my cheekbone. He leans down just enough to meet my eyes.
“No,” he says again, voice low now. “It’s not just sex.”
I keep looking at him as my heart jackhammers in my chest.
“If I thought you were ready to belong to someone, Ani, I’d’ve already claimed you.” He doesn’t blink. “But you’re not. And I care too much about you to cage you after you fought so hard to get free.
“I want you to explore–to figure out what you want. You deserve to know what you like. Even if that means doing it with Jonah. Or Boone.”
I shake my head, or maybe I start to—some half-hearted protest already falling apart before it reaches my mouth.
“I’m not—That’s not—” I fumble, the heat climbing up my neck.
He just smiles and leans in, cutting off whatever other sad attempt at an excuse I might make with a kiss.
This kiss is like nothing I’ve felt before. His lips brush, then press, coaxing rather than claiming, deepening only when I tilt my chin up and meet him there. I melt into it before I can second-guess the motion, my breath catching at the seam of my lips.
His hand in my hair tightens and I whimper into his mouth.
When he pulls away, his forehead rests against mine. We’re both breathing harder than before. He doesn’t let go of me.
“It’s okay,” he tells me, pressing one more soft kiss against my lips. “Because they both want you too.”
I’ve felt uneasy since the conversation with Finn this morning. Not because of what he said, exactly. More because of what I heard in it. Or what I think I did. I haven’t quite figured that part out yet.
He kissed me like I mattered. Swore this was not just some physical thing. But then he told me to explore. With other people. I don’t know what to do with that. I’ve never had this kind of freedom. And I’m not convinced I know how to manage it.
The cabin is quiet. Mae’s taking a nap, and the guys are outside stacking firewood.
I hover near the corner desk, staring at the old laptop tucked beside a mug of pens and a few crumpled receipts.
I’ve never actually seen them use this dinosaur—which looks to be about twenty years old—but I’m hoping it works.
I flip it open. The casing is scuffed, the screen has a faint crack running along the top corner, and the cord looks a little frayed.
It boots up faster than I thought it would. There’s a satellite modem and a signal bar in the corner that flickers in and out. Still, it works.
I pull the chair back and sit slowly, half-expecting someone to interrupt before I even get started. Jonah had mentioned that I was free to use it, but I feel like I’m doing something wrong.
My fingers hover over the trackpad. It’s a little sticky, but it works well enough. I click the browser open. The search page loads slowly, and I hold my breath.
I log into one of my social media accounts and hit enter. It stalls, then loads in bursts. I wait for everything to load and then immediately regret doing this.
The first notification sound breaks the silence. A soft chime.
Then another. Drawn out and warbled like it forgot how to make the sound.
A third follows almost immediately, and then they start tumbling in. Ping. Ping. Ping. The sounds overlapping each other until it’s just a strange rumbling ring.
The notifications continue to come.
My inbox lights up with unread messages. Thirty-two. No—forty-four. More by the second. My name floods the message headers, stacked one after the other in bold, black letters. There are posts too. Public ones. Mentions. Photos.
Some from college friends. Some from family. Some from people I don’t know.
Where are you?
This isn’t funny anymore.
Your mother is worried sick.
If you need help, come home.
And then?—
What you’re doing is selfish.
You’ve embarrassed your family.
Your mother is a wreck.
You’re ruining your life.
There’s even a comment from one of my old classmates, under a reposted photo of me from college. She says she always knew I was high-strung. Says no one really thought my marriage would last. That girls like me don’t know how to be happy.
The more I read, the more I regret this decision. They’re not just painting me as ungrateful. They’re calling me unstable. There are even hints that I started the fire at the motel.
I don’t realize I’m shaking until the edge of the desk rattles under my forearms.
I close the tab, but it’s too late. The words are already rattling around in my brain.
I scroll to the settings, my fingers unsteady.
I manage to log out.
Then I clear the cache.
Then the history.
Then the autofill.
I close the laptop and press the lid shut until I hear the soft click of the latch. I press my hand flat against the top.
This place, this cabin, this quiet—it's felt removed from that world.
But that world has longer arms than I realized.
And people like me don’t get to escape their life without serious consequences.
I pray they never find me.