Chapter 25 Elliot
ELLIOT
The rain started just as we pulled away.
Not a storm. Not yet. Just a steady, insistent drizzle that darkened the road and softened the edges of everything beyond the windshield. Beacon Ridge disappeared behind us in gray streaks, Anthony’s driveway swallowed by distance and wet asphalt.
I watched it vanish like I’d watched so many things vanish in my life—quietly, without ceremony. Mia didn’t turn the radio on. She never did when something mattered.
The wipers moved in a slow, metronomic rhythm. Back and forth. Back and forth. Like breathing for me when I forgot how.
I lasted maybe five minutes before the dam cracked. “I didn’t plan to go there,” I said, staring at my hands. They were shaking again with the small, constant tremors I’d learned to live with. “I just… couldn’t stay in that house after he left.”
Mia nodded once, eyes on the road. She didn’t interrupt. Just kept one hand on the wheel, the other twirled her now purple hair around her fingers.
The last few weeks fell out of me like a confession.
I told her about how Dad showed up yesterday out of nowhere.
About the way his grief had curdled into something sharp and poisonous.
How every sentence felt designed to peel me apart layer by layer—how he’d said he only ever loved me because my mom wanted him to.
How looking at me made him sick. How he wished I’d died instead of her.
My throat closed around the words as I said them, my chest tightening like it had forgotten how to expand fully.
“And then Anthony left,” I whispered. “Not because he wanted to. Because he had to.”
Mia’s breathing changed. Shallow. Uneven. She felt things like weather—took them into her body whether she wanted to or not.
“I followed him,” I continued. “I kissed him like it might be the last time. And he still let me go. Not because he didn’t love me, but because he does.”
Her hand reached across the console and found mine, squeezing hard enough to ground me. “That’s not abandonment,” she said thickly. “That’s restraint.”
“I know,” I said. “But it still hurts.”
“That it does,” she agreed. “But just think about how far you’ve both come from that day we met on the beach?”
“Yeah,” I said sullenly. “Things have changed so much but I feel like we’re right back at the start again.”
“But it's not the same story, Elliot." She smiled at me then, bubblegum pink lips wide. “This one will have a happy ending.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I feel it in here.” She laced her palm over her chest with a certainty I wish I felt. “The way that mountain man looked at you when you left him today told me everything I needed to know.”
“What do you mean?”
“He looked at you like you hung the moon and every star in the sky. He looked at you like he’d take on the world just to be in your presence.”
A hollow laugh came from somewhere inside me. “I think you’re good at making one plus one equal happiness.”
She snorted. “I might only be a few years older than you El, but I’ve seen the best and worst humanity has to offer.” She squeezed my hand again and shot me a wink before flicking the blinkers on. “Plus, I have a very reliable gut.”
“Oh sure, let's go with your gut then.”
She hummed to herself for a second then continued. “It’s in your eyes, you know.”
I looked over at her confused. “What is?”
“That you love him that much too. That’s why you’re here with me right now isn't it?”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t explain what you meant.”
“True,” she tutted and huffed out a breath. “You have hazel eyes right?”
“Yeah, so?”
She smiled like she knew something I didn’t. “Have you ever noticed how they change like the weather?”
“No?”
“Oh, they do. They show your true emotions. They are beautiful and so expressive. They darken, turning almost brown when you’re hurting.
They take on a sea-glass quality when you’re happy.
But that day we found you comatose in bed…
they were black. Blank. Just empty pools of agony.
But right now they’re shining bright like you know you’ve got something worth fighting for. ”
I let that thought sit with me as she drove. The silence between us wasn’t suffocating, it was contemplative. Did Anthony see what she did? Did he know I believed that we might really have a chance this time?
By the time we reached the house—the one Mia shared with the guys—the rain had turned heavier, louder.
It drummed against the windshield like it had something to prove, the road was slick and shining under the headlights.
The place sat a little back from the street, weathered cedar siding softened by years of salt air and storms, the kind of house that had been loved hard and repaired often.
The porch light glowed warm and amber against the rain, casting a soft circle over the steps. Wind chimes clinked gently under the eaves, off-beat but comforting. For the first time since I’d left Anthony’s, my shoulders dropped an inch without me telling them to.
Inside, the house felt alive. Not tidy—but cared for. Comforting in a way my house hadn’t for far too long.
The air smelled like coffee grounds and clean laundry, with something sweet baking underneath it all—vanilla, maybe, or cinnamon.
The walls were a mismatched gallery of surf photos, old concert posters, candid Polaroids taped crookedly at eye level.
A long couch sagged in the middle of the room we walked into like it had held too many bodies and secrets.
Blankets were thrown everywhere, each one clearly claimed by habit rather than rule.
Shoes lined the doorway in chaotic pairs.
“I’m home,” Mia said softly, toeing hers off. “I brought home a stray too. Think he’ll make a great pet.”
My eyes narrowed in her direction. In retaliation she stuck her hand out and waved to where my—Anthony’s—sneakers should go.
The sound of voices carried from the kitchen before we even had time to settle—deep laughter, a sharp bark of protest, the clatter of a pan. That sounded more like it had been used to hit someone than for the purpose of cooking.
Drax appeared first, broad-shouldered and barefoot, holding a beer like it was an extension of his hand. His gaze softened the second it landed on me. “Well shit,” he said gently. “Look what the tide dragged in.”
“So I’m a cat now?” Mia huffed as she stomped into the kitchen muttering under her breath something I didn’t catch.
Jet followed close behind, all easy grin and observant eyes. “You good, man?”
I nodded, throat thick. “I think I will be.”
Dix swept in last like a force of nature—bright hoodie, eyeliner already half-smudged from the day, energy buzzing even through the exhaustion that seemed to linger in the lines of her face. Her eyes lit up when she saw me.
“Oh my god,” she said, clapping her hands once. “Another pretty face in this house? Finally. Balance is restored.”
I laughed before I could stop myself. It felt strange—rusty—but good.
She leaned in conspiratorially. “And just so you know, I will be doing your makeup one day. I don’t care what anyone says. That bone structure is begging for it.”
Jet groaned. “Don’t encourage her.”
“Too late,” Dix shot back. “He’s already one of us.”
They handed me a drink—something warm and sweet and spiked just enough to take the edge off—and for a while, I just… sat. Listened to them bicker and talk all over each other. It was complete chaos, but I let the noise wash over me.
The argument about dinner started after about an hour when I was curled up on the corner of the couch. Anthony’s hoodie pulled over my legs that were folded against my chest. Chin resting on my knees when my stomach decided that was the opportune moment to silence the room with a growl.
“Well that settles it,” Mia said. “Who's cooking dinner? Not it!”
“Nah, let’s get takeout,” Drax insisted.
“We had takeout yesterday,” Jet countered.
“I’m not cooking,” Dix declared.
Mia raised an eyebrow. “You literally cooked this morning.”
“That was emotional support cooking. This is survival cooking.”
“What do you want?” Jet asked me.
I blinked, startled by the sincerity of the question. “I-I don’t mind,” I said. “Anything’s fine.”
Dix shook her head. “Wrong answer. You’re new. You get a vote.”
I thought for a second. “Something warm?”
Mia smiled like I’d said something important. “Pasta it is,” she declared. “Drax you can order.”
He groaned and theatrically threw his hands in the air. “Why me?”
Mia threw herself on his lap, wrapped her arms around his neck and fluttered her lashes. “Beacuse.” She bopped him on the nose. “Whenever you call up we always get a discount because the girl who answers the phone has a crush on you.”
“Thats not true,” he whined.
“It so is,” Dix and Jett said together before making kissy faces at him.
“Fine! Mia get the menu and find out what everyone wants and I’ll order it. I suppose you’ll want me to go and collect it too?”
“Why do you ask such stupid questions man?” Jett rolled his eyes. Messed up Drax’s hair which led to them roughhousing it on the sofa until they fell on the floor and Mia whacked them on the head with the menu.
Later once I’d eaten more than I had in weeks, mainly because the girls took it upon themselves to shove a forkful of pasta in my mouth when I was distracted Mia showed me to their spare room.
It was small but thoughtfully decorated—the kind of space someone had prepared without knowing who it would hold.
A neatly made bed with mismatched pillows.
A dresser with one drawer that stuck. A lamp that hummed faintly when she turned it on, casting a soft pool of light that didn’t demand anything of me.
“You can stay as long as you need,” she said. “No pressure. No timeline.”
I sat on the edge of the bed, exhaustion finally settling into my bones now that I wasn’t holding myself upright by will alone.
“What do you want to do next?” she asked gently.