Fallon
Chapter forty-one
Brutal Honesty
Sunshine clashes with the cluster of clouds rolling in, another summer storm approaching.
Mountain life is anything but what can be expected.
Bright, cheerful days followed by fierce evening storms. Our town, perched around two stunning rivers, and only thriving by the grace of a dam, faces nature’s fury often enough.
A few inches of rain, causes the water to rise.
Flash floods, mudslides due to erosion, especially around coal mines; roads collapsing; sinkholes; you get the picture. What a time to be alive.
Everyone’s slice of heaven comes with a price. This is ours.
“Do you need to grab any last-minute provisions before the storm hits?” Cyrus’s question pulls me from my thoughts.
I shift in my seat, a twinge of discomfort reminding me that sex on a rock in the river was not the best idea.
Yet, I regret nothing. Truly, it was the best sex I’ve ever had.
A flush stains my cheeks, as I remember all the ways he worshipped me.
“No, thanks. My paranoia keeps us stocked on all the essentials.”
His fingers flex on the steering wheel. Heat licks up my thighs.
I clench them tight, hoping he can’t tell.
I want him again. Does that mean I’m pathetic?
Or does that mean I’m realistic? After all, how many guys can give a woman multiple orgasms on a freaking rock smack dab in the middle of the river?
“Well, that’s…good. Dare I call you a survivalist?”
His question brings me back from my dirty thoughts. I laugh, leaning my head back. “Not at all. I can’t afford to get stuck in a storm with a kid. Taking Billy out for eggs or batteries when the weather’s bad never sat right with me. I’m a single mom. I have to be prepared.”
Cyrus is quiet. My words stir a war of emotions inside me.
Is it his fault that I’m a single mother?
If I’d tried harder back then, ’Hey, I’m pregnant, you don’t get to walk away,’ would things be different?
Is he to blame for leaving? Or are we both responsible?
We were two kids who thought they knew how the world worked.
Strands of hair escape my topknot as I slant my head, pushing away the what-ifs.
Cyrus’s here now. He’s here. He’s trying. If he can try, so can I.
“You don’t have to be a single parent, Fallon.
” His words are soft, but firm. Panic grips me: the thought of us not together, him being incapable of loving us enough to stay, of having to string my child along as I pick up the broken pieces again; it’s all so much.
Am I willing to give him a chance to prove that we can make this work?
I don’t know if I’m ready for anything else.
Jesus, moments ago I had mind-blowing sex with this man.
“Is that a bridge you’d want to cross down the road… with me?”
“I’m not ready to cross that bridge yet.”
He goes quiet, eyes distant, then reaches for the A/C. Cold air hits my damp skin, sharp and welcome. The warmth is everywhere—in the air, in the space between us, mulling over thoughts I can’t shut down. Relief comes in short, fragile waves.
Darker clouds drift sullenly across the lake as we pass over the bridge, the structure a double innuendo for the storm brewing inside me. The darkening sky mirrors my uncertainty, each gust of wind nudging at the fragile boundaries I’ve built around my heart.
It’s the little things about him that unravel my resolve—the way he laughs at my jokes, even the bad ones, or how he remembers the tiny details I let slip about my day, the brand of coffee I prefer or the color of nail polish Billy prefers to wear.
Those memories flicker through me now, warming the chill in the air.
When he’s near, logic dissolves, replaced by longing and doubt braided tightly together.
If my heart could heed the warnings as easily as I prepare for storms I wouldn’t be in this mess.
I fucked up. I did exactly what I promised myself I wouldn’t do.
I slept with Cyrus. Further intertwining myself with him. This is a colossal clusterfuck.
“In all these years apart, Fallon, there’s never been a moment I didn’t love you.”
He falls silent; we both realize he spoke too soon.
That word has shown itself in every embrace, every kiss, in every thrust in the river, but he didn’t intend to say it aloud yet.
Now it’s out, and there’s no taking it back.
That four-letter word that holds the power to shatter our fragile truce.
That fucking four-letter word that has haunted me.
Tears well as his words echo through my chest, stirring the seventeen-year-old girl he left behind.
How she would have died to hear that. I’m no longer that seventeen-year-old though, I’m a mother to a special little girl, one who watches my every move.
His words taste bitter on my tongue. Pretty words in my world have masked some ugly truths.
My voice cracks as my pain floods to the surface.
The heartbreak, shame, confusion, anger—impaling me to the spot where I watched him drive off without me.
Leaving me to fight for my survival, our daughter’s survival, alone.
The torrent of emotions colliding with my conflicting desires is too much.
It’s too much, he’s too much, our love is too much.
It all comes rushing back—sharp and immediate— my feelings never left. They were beaten down, held beneath the surface, struggling to come up for air. Eating me alive. Right here. Right now. Every memory is intact. Every scar still tender beneath my skin. Leaving me cut, bleeding, and raw.
That kind of loneliness hollowed me out.
The pain didn’t come in the silence after he left.
It came before that—from knowing what warmth felt like first. From learning what it meant to be his.
Held. Chosen. Loved. And then one day, waking up to an empty space beside me.
That kind of loss changes you. Alters your chemistry.
Teaches you attachment always comes with a price.
That love can vanish without warning. It fucking hurts. It was too much.
I know solitude the way some people know comfort.
I’ve walked it.
Lived it.
Found comfort in it.
Carried it through every version of myself.
Hollowness wasn’t a phase. It was my childhood.
Isolation wasn’t temporary—it was permanent.
There were nights I learned how to be quiet enough not to be noticed, days I learned how to live without leaving evidence of my existence.
I barely made it out of that life. Barely survived being invisible, untouched, unwanted.
Now Cyrus is here—steady, consistent, saying all the right things, doing all the right things—and it would be so easy to allow him to carve out that hollowness inside of me. For him to quiet that ache, be the reason the world feels brighter.
But he isn’t my savior.
Because I had already fought my way out of the dark alone. I had already stitched myself back together with shaking hands. I learned how to stand on my own without anyone holding me up. Cyrus didn’t save me. I did.
This time, love doesn’t get to be a lifeline. It gets to be a choice.
Tears leak from the corners of my eyes as I realize that my hesitancy isn’t from not loving him.
I don’t have it in me to save myself again if he wakes up and decides one day that he doesn’t love me.
And that is my soul, fucking shattering—slicing—through me with every shard of broken promises. My lips tremble.
“You left, Cyrus. You left us when we needed you most. One stupid rumor, and you ran. Love is not meant to be unyielding.”
His voice is hoarse, broken.
“That choice will haunt me every day, Fal.”
I watch the water surge through the dam’s openings.
The river rising, a promise of damage and destruction.
Dread coils within me at the thought of prepping the house for the storm.
Not exactly how I imagined spending my evening—no, a hot bath, letting the warmth wash over me while I wrestle with the epiphany, of me loving him was my plan.
We aren’t love-sick teenagers anymore. We have children to consider.
My heart sinks. We are going to mess this up.
We’re going to drag our children down with us.
We round the final bend pulling up at a fork in the road.
Two paths stretch into the unknown, each shrouded in shadow and possibility.
The curve hides what lies ahead, leaving the possibility of choices pressing between us.
I grip the seat, heart hammering, aware that this isn’t just a road—it’s us, our future hanging in the balance.
There are too many turns, too much of the unknown stripping away any comfort.
Does this moment strike him the way it strikes me?
One path could lead us forward together, the kind of life I’ve imagined in quiet, stolen moments.
The other…a detour, solitary and safe, where I don’t exist. The muggy air presses down, with the scent of rain, thick as the storm clouds curling overhead.
I hold my breath, waiting, hoping he’ll turn toward me, toward us.
His head turns to peer out the opposite window, and my heart sinks. He won’t look my way.
“Being the one who had to live with what you did isn’t the same as living with what you did to me.
The person who causes the pain rarely knows the depth of damage it leaves behind.
” My voice trembles, echoing the turbulence inside me.
Memories flood back—late nights spent fighting sleep to stave off loneliness, the ache of watching him leave, the way I pieced myself back together after he shattered our world.
I still sense the emptiness he created, the pain that never truly left, only softened by the passage of time and determination.