Chapter 22
Blakelyn
I don’t remember the last time I felt this tired. Not just body tired—though I am that too—but soul tired. That bone-deep exhaustion that settles in when you’ve screamed with every part of your heart and finally run out of air.
The adrenaline and shock wore off sometime late last night.
Tyler was going to rape me. Again. And then, he’d probably have killed me.
The full scope that that could have been the outcome of yesterday hit me in the middle of the night and I broke. I couldn’t hold it together.
Someone I thought loved me at one point was not just planning on raping me yesterday, but that I had allowed him to… I hadn’t fought back when he’d hurt me physically, mentally, and sexually over and over and over again in the past.
He wanted to break my body and my spirit because I dared to leave him… and then, he was going to kill me.
How did I get here?
Gruene held me all night like I was breakable.
Every time I moved, it hurt. When my cheek would brush against the pillowcase, I’d wince.
When I’d flip or try to turn, I’d gasp while pain would shoot down my leg and up my side.
When I’d forget about my wrist and try to use it, the agony would consume me and he’d instantly be awake, asking if I was okay…
if I needed anything… if I wanted him to leave the bed and lie on the floor or the couch.
I said no. Every time. I didn’t want him to move… to leave me.
I’m awake now, unable to sleep. And I keep checking on him .
The bruise on his jaw. The splits in his knuckles— they look like ground meat. The way his teeth clench—even in sleep.
Pressing my lips to his temple once, softly, I whisper. “ Thank you for saving me. ”
He did.
He showed up when Tyler pushed past every line I ever dared to draw. And when I stood beside him and said the things I never thought I’d say out loud again—he didn’t run.
He stayed.
He held on.
He told me he loved me.
I reminded him I said it first and he smiled.
For a few minutes… the world went still
But morning comes.
And life doesn’t slow down for love.
It moves on.
And so do we.
I stayed home for a week. This morning, I covered my bruises with makeup and headed back to school. It’s humid and loud. The hallways are full of chaos and middle school hormones.
The ‘Welcome Back’ sign is still hanging above the main doors from the first day of school, but more than half of the glitter letters are now gone. My classroom still smells like printer ink, dry-erase markers, and that vaguely sour scent of pre-teen/tween body spray and anxiety.
It’s totally normal and it’s jarring.
A week ago, I had a man I used to think loved me with his hands around my wrist and fire in his eyes—and now I’m walking around with a coffee mug that says Teach Like A Boss.
No one here knows what happened, except the principal.
I had to tell her once I needed a complete week off so early in the year.
She was quiet after I reveled the extent and she said that she was glad I was okay and that I could take the week off and not to worry about it.
She sounded sincere.
No one sees the bruises on my arm, still faint under the sleeve of my blouse or the massive one on my hip that’s now a mottled yellow and brown blob.
No one would have any idea of the layers of makeup on my cheek to hide the mark from being backhanded…
faint but still there and still very obvious of what it is.
No one asks why I keep checking my phone, even though I know it’s dead, cracked beyond saving, after Tyler smashed it into the floor.
They don’t ask and I don’t tell but I carry it in me… like a storm I survived… like a wound I stitched shut with my own hands.
Because I did. I stood up to him.
I defended myself and I took back my power.
I don’t know what would have happened if Gruene hasn’t shown up when he did.
But… he did.
And I’ll always remember that.
At lunch, I sit with a few other new hires in the corner of the faculty lounge. I listen to the chit chat, but don’t actually participate. Someone’s kid is teething. Someone else’s air conditioning went out. There’s half a cake in the fridge from a birthday but none of them know whose it was.
I smile. I nod in the right places.
My brain is back at the river… with him.
Gruene.
I keep replaying the way he said it… not just “ I love you” also, “ It’s yours ” like I had the power to wreck him, and he was offering me the match.
I never wanted that kind of power, but I do want him… even if it terrifies me… even if it means I have to keep learning how to believe I’m not poison.
That my love doesn’t ruin everything it touches.
After school, I pick up a temporary phone from the shop in town, the guy behind the counter more interested in the new scratch-off machine than in helping me move my number over.
I send one message before I do anything else.
Me
Got a new phone. Number’s the same.
Me
I’m okay. Just tired.
It doesn’t take long.
Gruene
Where are you?
Gruene
Do I need to come get you?
I pause.
Then, I type back.
Me
I need a minute.
Just to breathe.
I’m okay.
I’ll be home soon. Promise.
Three dots blink.
Then, they stop.
A minute later his text comes through.
Gruene
Okay.
But if you’re not back by sunset, I’m coming to find you.
A smile breaks across my lips.
Even now, even after everything… he makes me feel.
I drive home with the windows down and the air thick with the scent of cedar, oak, cypress, and sunbaked asphalt.
The sky is high and pale and hot. My blouse sticks to my back. I roll my shoulders and try to shake off the heaviness of the day but when I pull into the gravel lot between our cabins, I see him, leaning against the front of his truck.
His hat is pulled low. His arms are crossed and resting on the hood. He’s waiting, just… waiting… for me.
I step out of the car. He doesn’t move. Neither do I.
Until I finally blurt out “You love me.”
I just need to hear it. Again.
He nods once. “I do.”
“I love you back.” I reply.
The corner of his mouth lifts. “I know.”
Silence stretches but I told my arms over my chest. “You gonna say something else?”
He straightens and takes one step forward. Then another. And another.. until we’re face to face… until I can feel the heat rolling off of him like fire. “What do you want me to say?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. Just… something.”
He stares at me, then, he says, “Okay. I’m not used to this,” his voice is low and rough.
“Not since them. Molly and Aubree. I buried myself in grief and work and guilt, and I liked it there. It made sense. Nothing touched me.” Reaching up, he brushes a strand of hair off my cheek.
I lean into his touch. “Then, you touched me.” My breath catches.
“And now you’re in everything, Blakelyn.
You’re in the way the river looks at sunset.
You’re in the fucking air I breathe. You’re in me .
I don’t know how to shut it off. I don’t want to shut it off.
” I don’t blink. I can’t. “I love you,” he says again.
“I love you and I’m gonna say it as many times as it takes until you believe it’s not something I regret. ”
Tears sting my eyes.
I do believe him… even when the part of me that was trained to flinch still whispers that it’s a lie.
Standing on my tiptoes, I press my chin to his chest, stare up at him, and whisper the one thing that’s been sitting in my throat since he stood beside me in the storm. “But I’ll never get tired of hearing you say it.” I exhale. “I’m still scared.”
His arms wrap around me. Strong. Sure. His breath lifts the hair at my forehead as he presses a kiss against it and he says, “I know. I’m scared, too.”
“I don’t want to ruin this.” I mumble.
“You won’t.” He replies. “If anyone fucks up, it’ll be me.”
“I don’t want you to wake up and wish you hadn’t said it.” I blurt out.
“I won’t.” He replies, instantly.
My head falls back further as my arms wrap around his neck. I look up as he looks down. It’s raw… open. “I love you, Gruene. Not because you saved me. But because you see me. And I don’t want to go back to a life where no one ever really did.”
Leaning down, he kisses me. It’s soft, yet passionate, full of everything we’ve both been afraid to say.
He pulls back and whispers, “Come on. Come inside.”
I nod and follow— because he loves me back. Not with flowers or soft words. But with fists and fury that don’t scare me because he doesn’t direct it at me and a promise that shakes me deeper than anything Tyler ever used to control me.
He loves me in a way that’s loud in its silence… raw… and unmistakable.
And now we’re waking up in the stillness of that after. In the hush of a dusk with everything we didn’t say before it mattered but finally found the courage to say in the dark.
He stirs beside me as the sun crests through the gauzy white curtains, washing his skin in golden light. His arm tightens around my waist, and I let myself soak it in for just a second longer before slipping out of bed.
I tug one of his shirts over my head and pad barefoot through the quiet cabin.
His cabin smells like cedar and river stone and warm cotton—like him. Everything inside has this worn-in feel, like it’s been lived in and grieved in and now… maybe starting to heal in.
I make coffee. Just the way I know he likes it. Black, strong, no fuss.
When I carry the mug back toward the bedroom, I pause in the doorway.
He’s awake now, sitting on the edge of the bed. His elbows are on his knees with his eyes fixed on the floor.
“Hey,” I say softly.
His head snaps up. The way he looks at me—like I’m the first sunlight he’s seen in years— sends warmth through my chest.
“You okay?” I ask, walking toward him.
He reaches for the mug without a word, his fingers brushing mine, holding the contact a beat longer than necessary. “I didn’t think you’d still be here,” he murmurs.
Sitting beside him, I fold one leg beneath me. “I told you. I’m not running.”