Chapter 6 #2
"What if my best isn't enough?" The question was barely a whisper, as if giving it full volume would make it too real, too dangerous.
"It is." I reached out without thinking, covering his hand where it rested on his knee.
His skin was warm, the calluses rough against my palm.
He went very still, barely breathing. "Sarah adores you completely.
She feels safe with you. She knows in her bones that you're her person.
That's what matters, Cole. That's everything. "
He looked down at our joined hands, then back at my face. The raw vulnerability in his expression nearly undid me completely.
"The foster homes weren't all bad," he said slowly, not pulling away from my touch. "Some were just... empty. You'd sit at dinner and no one would ask about your day. Come home with a good grade and no one would even notice."
"That sounds just as bad."
"It was efficient." His mouth twisted slightly. "You learn not to want things. Not a hug, not praise, not seconds at dinner. Wanting was just a shortcut to inevitable disappointment."
"But you wanted things anyway."
"Rebecca did. She wanted everything, in her loud, reckless, unapologetic way." His voice softened with memory. "I just wanted her to be okay. To be safe. Now I want Sarah to be okay. And I don't know if wanting something hard enough is ever enough to make it actually happen."
"It's a start," I said quietly. "Wanting is always the start of everything."
We sat with that for a moment, letting it breathe. The children's laughter drifted back, punctuated by Leo's excited announcement that the caterpillar had made a break for freedom into the tall grass.
"What about you?" Cole asked, his thumb moving almost imperceptibly against my hand, sending electricity up my arm. "What do you want, Emma?"
The question caught me completely off guard. I looked away, toward the mountains I'd learned to stop seeing.
"My dad calls," I heard myself say, the words escaping before I could stop them. "Every single week, like clockwork. And I just... can't make myself answer."
"Why not?"
"Because every conversation becomes a minefield.
He'll casually mention my mom's favorite recipe, or ask if I've visited Lily's favorite trail lately.
" I swallowed hard against the tightness in my throat.
"It's not his fault. He's grieving too, probably worse than me.
But talking to him makes everything real again.
Makes me face the family I couldn't manage to keep together. "
"So you built yourself a new life where the reminders are different."
I looked at him, startled by his quiet perception. "Yes. Exactly that."
"Does it actually work?"
I managed a small, fragile smile. "Sometimes."
The afternoon sun had shifted while we talked, casting long golden shadows across the weathered porch boards.
Dust motes floated lazily in the warm light like tiny stars.
I realized, with a start that quickened my pulse, that the careful foot of space between us had vanished entirely somewhere in our conversation.
Our shoulders were nearly touching. My hand was still resting on his.
Close enough to smell sawdust and pine soap and something warm underneath, the fresh mountain air woven into his very skin.
He turned his head slowly. Our eyes met and held.
The easy, comfortable rhythm of shared confidences evaporated instantly, replaced by something else entirely.
Something that made the air feel thick and charged, every other sound receding to a distant hum.
His gaze dropped to my mouth for just a fraction of a second before snapping back to my eyes. Color touched his high cheekbones.
This was a terrible idea. I was having it anyway.
"Emma," he said, his voice rough and low.
"Ms. Reed!" Sarah's bright voice shattered the moment like glass. "The caterpillar escaped! We couldn't catch it!"
I pulled my hand back from his, the sudden loss of contact almost physically painful. "That's... that's probably for the best. Caterpillars belong in the wild with their families."
Cole cleared his throat roughly. "Right. Nature and all that."
"I should get them back inside." I stood up quickly, my legs embarrassingly unsteady beneath me. "Break's over. Story to finish."
"Emma." He caught my wrist gently before I could flee, his grip warm and careful. "Thank you. For listening. For understanding. For... all of this."
"Anytime," I managed, and meant it far too much.
I called the children inside, my teacher's smile firmly fixed in place like armor. The rest of the tutoring session passed in a productive blur; there was the climax to the seed’s enthralling story and praises to the children, but my mind remained stubbornly anchored to the porch.
To his hand under mine. To the look in his eyes that had seen straight through every careful wall I'd spent a year building.
After the last parent drove away, after Cole's truck rumbled off down the dirt road with Sarah waving sleepily from the window, my cabin fell into profound silence.
I stood at the window, watching the mountains blush pink and gold in the fading evening light. For so long, they'd been symbols of loss. My greatest failure made geological and eternal.
But now they were also his. The source of his peace, his honey, the wildflowers he'd brought me with nervous, uncertain hands. The backdrop to something new and terrifying and wonderful, blooming slowly but surely with my newfound emotions.
Somewhere between the Saturday morning coffees and the quiet, vulnerable conversations and his rough, capable hands fixing every broken thing in my small life, I'd started feeling something I'd sworn I'd never allow myself to feel again.
Hope.
It was fragile, trembling, barely there—a candle flame in a windstorm. Hope for a genuine connection. For a future that wasn't just about surviving the wreckage of the past. For my heart to be more than a dusty relic, to be something living, beating, capable of wanting again.
And hope, as I'd learned in the most devastating way possible with Lily, was the most dangerous thing of all.
Because hope made you lean forward into life. It made you open your clenched hands and reach for something beautiful. And open hands meant you could lose your grip on everything.
All over again.