Chapter 20
Blakelyn
I feel it before I even open my eyes.
Something in the air has shifted. The skin of the world is tighter than it was yesterday.. like everything’s just waiting to snap.
The sheet is tangled around my legs. Gruene’s arm is heavy across my waist. His breath is warm against the back of my neck, steady and real.
For a second, I pretend nothing’s changed. I don’t want to move for fear that that I’ll break the spell we’re under.
Things are different.
H e stayed.
Gruene isn’t a man who stays.
He shows up. He saves. He leaves.
But not last night.
Last night, he kissed me like I was oxygen. Held me like I was the only tether to a world he doesn’t know how to live in anymore.
He didn’t just touch me.
He let me touch him back.
And this morning, he’s still here.
His fingers twitch against my ribs, and I know he’s awake before he says a word. “You sleep?” he murmurs, his voice low and gravel-rough.
“Some.” I answer. His palm flattens, splaying over my belly like he needs to feel that I’m still real.
“You?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer right away, then, he says, “Yeah. I did.”
It feels like something sacred.
We don’t talk much as we get dressed for the day.
He pulls on his jeans but doesn’t button them right away.
Pulling his shirt over my head, I wrap it around me like it’s armor.
I don’t know what today is. I don’t know what we are now.
But I know it’s different.
And I’m terrified of wanting it too much.
“Got a delivery this morning,” he says, grabbing his keys off the counter. “Float tubes. Was supposed to come next week.”
“You need help? I’m off today.” I ask before I can think it through.
He meets my eyes for the first time since we got out of bed. The answer is in the flicker behind his stare. The way his jaw clenches, just a little, and then, it relaxes. “Yeah,” he says, voice low. “Yeah, I could use some help.”
We leave the cabin together and walk down the road to the shop. Reece is already there. He doesn’t say anything as we walk up. He doesn’t look surprised to see me. He just waves and says, “Mornin,” then, starts sorting lifejackets.
Gruene and I don’t talk about what happened as we work on unloading the truck. Not directly but everything’s different.
He moves around me like I’m not just the woman living next door.
He doesn’t flinch when I brush past him to grab a cooler from the truck bed.
He catches my wrist once when I nearly trip, and holds it longer than necessary while muttering, “Careful, there. You okay?” There’s an energy in the air between us now, crackling and dangerous and alive .
And still, we don’t talk because if we do, maybe we’ll break it.
Or maybe we’ll become it.
By the time the last of the float tubes are stacked, the sun’s high and I’m sweating through his shirt. My shorts are riding up and my thighs are sticking to the truck bed.
“You wanna come up to the ridge?” he asks suddenly.
I blink. “The ridge?”
He nods, wiping sweat from his brow with the hem of his shirt. “Water’s running strong. Good view after the rain.”
My stomach twists.
He’s not inviting me to cool off. He’s inviting me back to his place.
The place he goes to when the weight of the world is too heavy to carry on flat land.
“I’d like that,” I say softly, understanding what he’s offering.
It’s the second time he’s brought me here.
The air is cooler, but it’s more open. The wind whispers through the mesquites. The river shimmers below the hill, winding lazy and strong around the bend.
He doesn’t say much as he sets down the cooler. He just pulls two beers from inside, pops the tops on both, and hands me one.
We sit side by side on the old log that overlooks the drop with his shoulder brushing mine.
“Aubree loved it here. She said it was her ‘magic place,’” he whispers and my breath catches.
“She liked to yell down at the river. She said the rocks echoed back like the trees were talking to her.” I swallow hard but I don’t interrupt him.
“I hear her sometimes. Even now. Especially up here. Her voice will just echo on the wind. It’s like she never left.
I reach for his hand and he lets me take it. “I’m scared,” he admits.
“Of what?” I ask quietly, my thumb rubbing over the top of the jagged scar along his thumb.
He sighs as he stares down at the moving water. “Of forgetting. Of moving on. Of what it means if I stop hurting.”
My heart cracks but I exhale. “You won’t forget them, Gruene,” I whisper. “Living your life is what they would want you to do. If it had happened opposite… if you’d died while they lived, would you want their lives to just stall?”
He looks at me then, and something inside his eyes shifts. Maybe he actually hears me. He shakes his head. “No. I would hate if they stopped living because I died.”
I smile sadly and sigh. “So, why do you think they’d want the opposite for you?”
He stares at me for a long time, and then, he whispers, “They wouldn’t…”
He doesn’t kiss me. I don’t kiss him. We just sit . Together.
The weight of the realization he just made is heavy… but it’s also light.
So, we sit, and somehow, it’s more intimate than anything we’ve done.
After we head back to the cabins, he walks me to my door. He doesn’t come in. He doesn’t stay but he doesn’t leave like he used to, either.
He holds my face in his hands, cupping my cheeks as his thumbs move along my jaw.
Looking down at me, he leans in and kisses my forehead.
As his lips leave my skin, he pulls back and looks at me like he’s memorizing my face.
“Goodnight, Blakelyn,” he murmurs before walking across the gravel back to his place.
I stand there in the dark long after he’s gone, holding the ghost of his touch in my palms.
My heart is lighter than it has been.
Today meant something and I think Gruene might finally be ready to let go of some of his guilt over the accident.
I’m standing in the hallway at school, checking my inbox between classes, when my phone buzzes. I look down, expecting Gruene. But it’s an unknown number.
Maybe it’s just a wrong number. Calm down.
I stare at the screen, my heart immediately thudding in my chest.
Blocked number. No message preview.
It’s not an accident.
I know it.
I fucking know.
My fingers shake as I unlock it and open the text.
Unknown
You think you’re safe because I can’t see you.
But I don’t need to SEE you to OWN you.
You’ll ALWAYS be mine, Blakelyn.
See you soon, sweetheart.
I drop the phone right there on the floor in the middle of the hallway. My fingers are trembling. My throat tightens until I can’t breathe. The fluorescent lights above feel too bright, the linoleum under my feet is too slippery.
Tyler.
It’s him.
After all this time. After all this silence.
He’s coming back.
I don’t know how. I don’t know ?—
“Blakelyn?” a voice cuts through the noise screaming inside of my head.
The secretary, is walking toward me, frowning. “You okay, hon? Are you feeling okay?”
I bend, snatching the phone off the ground. I’m numb but I try to quell the shaking. “I—I’m fine. Sorry. Dropped my phone.” I plaster on a fake smile.
She nods though she says, “There’s a bug going around. I hope you haven’t caught it. If you feel worse, you come on in to the office and let me know. You can head home. We can get a sub.” I nod automatically and she walks away.
I stand there, my heart in my throat, my breath caught in my chest, and everything inside of me unravels.
Tyler is coming back.
I don’t go home right after school. I drive in circles afraid to pull up at my cabin.
He knows where I am. He already showed up once.
But he left… Gruene defended me, and Reece called the sheriff.
He left.
I should have known better than to think he’d stay gone though.
I take the long way back, past the feed store and the old post office. Parking behind the church, I sit in silence and stare at that message.
One single message can undo everything I’ve rebuilt. The life I’ve let myself believe I was creating.
Gruene…
Tyler doesn’t let go.
He never has.
He warned me that if I ever left he’d find me and he’d hurt me.
He said he would kill me.
He will. I know this isn’t just a threat.
It’s a promise.
A reminder that he’s always watching.
I left him but I was wrong to think I would ever truly be free.
No matter how many times Gruene holds me, no matter how many nights I fall asleep in his arms, the shadow of what I ran from will always find me.
I grip the wheel. I breathe. And I try to remember what it feels like to be strong.
When I finally do get home, Gruene is sitting on his porch with a beer in hand. His eyes lift the second I pull in.
I nearly lose it. I want to run to him. But I don’t. I compose myself. I swallow back my fear and I paste on the mask I’m so good at wearing.
Tyler made me this way, and I can’t tell Gruene.
He’s so fragile, so uncertain that he has the right to move on. I can’t. I can’t rock the boat. I can’t tip the balance. If I do, he’ll pull away again. He’ll see the panic in my eyes and backpedal. Opening the door, I walk toward him. He doesn’t move.
He watches me. He sees me. When I stop in front of him, my hands are shaking even though I’ve tried to stem them. He notices and stands— of course, he does —walking straight to me and wraps his arms around me.
He doesn’t ask questions. He doesn’t hesitate. He just hugs me, pulling me into him and I fall apart right there.
For the first time since that message came through earlier, I don’t feel owned by someone who doesn’t have the right, I feel held by the man who owns my heart.
Gruene
I know something’s wrong the second she steps out of the car.
She’s not walking—she’s orbiting… not in the peaceful way either. It’s like she doesn’t know where her feet are… like her bones don’t want to hold her up anymore.