Chapter 15
FINN
I don’t sleep.
The bed smells like her—vanilla and something warm I can’t name—and every time I close my eyes, I see her face. The way she looked at me when I told her to leave. The tears on her cheeks. The hope dying in her eyes as she realized I wasn’t going to fight for us.
The ranger station has never felt so empty.
I try to return to my routine when dawn finally breaks. Coffee—black, too strong, the way I’ve always made it. Fire—add logs, adjust the damper, watch the flames catch. Systems check—generator, water pressure, propane levels.
Everything in order. Everything exactly as it should be.
Everything wrong.
The silence I once craved presses against my eardrums like a physical weight. For four years, I’ve lived in this quiet, cultivated it, convinced myself it was peace. Now I know what it really is.
Absence.
The absence of laughter, of humming, of a voice asking questions I actually wanted to answer.
I try to work. There’s a rocking chair commission due next month—a custom piece for a couple in Seattle expecting their first child. The wood is already selected, the design sketched, the joints mapped out in my head. All I have to do is start.
I can’t.
Every time I pick up a tool, my hands shake. Every time I try to focus on the grain, I see her fingers tracing the arm of my dining chair. This is beautiful work. You can feel the care in every line.
I set down the chisel and walk away.
The kitchen is worse. Her presence lingers here more than anywhere—the counter where she kneaded bread, the stove where she braised short ribs, the spot by the window where she stood taking pictures for her blog.
I can almost see her there, hair piled in that messy bun, hips swaying slightly as she hummed.
I make eggs because I have to eat something. They taste like nothing.
By afternoon, I’ve walked every inch of the property twice. The snow is starting to melt, patches of brown earth showing through the white. In a few days, the roads will be completely clear. In a week, there’ll be no evidence a storm ever happened.
Except inside me, where everything is still a disaster.
I end up at the woodshed, staring at the chopping block where we stood together. Where her hand brushed mine reaching for the same log. Where I first started to realize how much trouble I was in.
You’re so afraid of losing someone else that you won’t even try.
Her words echo in my head, relentless. I’ve been hearing them on a loop since she drove away—in the crackle of the fire, in the howl of wind that’s finally dying down, in the oppressive silence of every room she used to fill.
She was right. She was completely, devastatingly right.
I’m not protecting anyone. I’m hiding. Calling it survival, calling it healing, when really it’s just cowardice dressed up in acceptable clothing.
My team didn’t die so I could spend the rest of my life building furniture in isolation. They died in the middle of a war, fighting for something they believed in, and I’ve been dishonoring their sacrifice by refusing to fight for anything at all.
What would Jimmy say?
The thought surfaces unbidden, and I let it come. Jimmy, with his easy grin and his terrible jokes. Jimmy, who talked about his unborn son like the kid was already his best friend. Jimmy, who told me once that the only thing worse than dying was living without really being alive.
He’d call me a coward. He’d tell me to get my head out of my ass. He’d probably throw something at me—he always had terrible aim, but that never stopped him from trying.
She made you happy, McGrath. Actually happy. And you let her walk away because you’re scared? That’s bullshit. That’s not the guy I knew.
The imaginary voice is so clear it almost hurts.
Rodriguez would be worse. He’d get quiet in that way that meant you’d really disappointed him. Sanderson would just shake his head. Walsh would crack jokes until I wanted to punch him, then get serious and tell me exactly how stupid I was being.
They’re all dead, and I’m using their memory as an excuse to stay dead too.
My phone has been on the kitchen counter since yesterday. I’ve ignored it deliberately—didn’t want to see if Marcella texted, didn’t want to face the absence if she didn’t.
When I finally check, there are three missed calls from Moira. No messages. Just three calls, spaced an hour apart.
I call her back.
“Finally.” Her voice is sharp with relief and frustration. “I’ve been worried sick. What happened? You go radio silent for three days and then—”
“I screwed up.”
Silence. Then: “How badly?”
The whole story comes out in fragments. The wrong cabin. The storm. Three days of falling for a woman I had no business falling for. And then the ending—the brutal, efficient way I pushed her away because I was too scared to do anything else.
Moira is quiet for a long moment after I finish.
“So let me get this straight,” she says slowly. “A beautiful woman showed up at your door on Valentine’s Day, saw past all your walls, made you actually feel something for the first time in four years... and you told her to leave.”
“It’s more complicated than—”
“No, it isn’t.” Her voice hardens. “It’s exactly that simple, and you know it. You got scared, and instead of dealing with your fear like an adult, you pushed away the best thing that’s happened to you since you came home.”
“She deserves better than—”
“Stop.” The word cracks like a whip. “Stop with the martyr bullshit, Finn. I’ve been listening to it for four years, and I’m done. You’re not protecting her by pushing her away. You’re protecting yourself.”
I don’t have a response.
“Your team died,” she continues, softer now.
“And that’s a tragedy. It’s an unspeakable, horrible tragedy, and you have every right to grieve them for the rest of your life.
But they wouldn’t want this, Finn. They wouldn’t want you hiding in the woods, refusing to let anyone in because you’re afraid of losing them. ”
“You don’t know what they’d want.”
“I know what Jimmy told me. At your welcome-home party, before everything went wrong. He pulled me aside and said, ‘Your brother is the best man I know, but he’s going to try to disappear when we get back. Don’t let him. Make sure he actually lives.’”
My chest constricts. “He said that?”
“Word for word. I’ve been trying to honor that for four years, and you keep shutting me out. But this woman—Marcella—she got through. In three days, she did what I couldn’t do in four years. And you’re going to let her walk away?”
“She’s probably already back in Denver.”
“Then go to Denver.”
“I can’t—” The words stick. “Cities. Crowds. You know I can’t.”
“You can’t? Or you won’t?” Moira’s voice gentles. “Finn, you survived an IED. You survived losing your team. You survived four years of isolation. You can survive Denver traffic if it means getting her back.”
I think about Marcella standing in my kitchen, telling me she’d rather be scared with me than safe alone. I think about the way she touched my scars like they were precious. The way she said my name.
“What if I mess it up?”
“Then you try again. That’s what love is—trying again, even when it’s hard.” Moira exhales. “You spent eight years putting yourself in danger for people you’d never meet. You can’t find the courage to fight for someone you actually love?”
The question hangs in the air.
And something in me finally cracks open. Not the careful walls I’ve built to keep people out. Something deeper. Something that’s been frozen for four years.
Permission. Permission to want something. Permission to reach for happiness even though I don’t deserve it. Permission to honor my team not by hiding, but by actually living the life they didn’t get to have.
“I have to go,” I tell Moira.
“Go where?”
“Denver. Tomorrow. No—tonight. I have to tell her. Show her. I can’t just call, I need to—”
“Finn.” Moira’s voice is warm now. “Good. Finally. Do you need her address?”
“Her blog. The contact page has—I’ll figure it out.”
“Don’t screw this up again.”
“I won’t.” I’m already moving, pulling out my duffel bag, the one that’s been in the closet since I got out. “I can’t.”
The drive to Denver takes three hours in good conditions. Tonight, with patches of ice and my hands shaking on the wheel, it takes four.
I count my breaths the entire way—in for four, hold for four, out for four. The technique that’s supposed to calm me barely keeps me functional. Every mile closer to the city, the anxiety ratchets higher.
Cities mean crowds. Crowds mean chaos. Chaos means danger.
My body doesn’t care that the war is over. My nervous system doesn’t understand that Denver traffic isn’t Kandahar, that backfiring cars aren’t IEDs, that the press of people isn’t a threat.
But Marcella is worth it.
I keep repeating that as suburbs give way to actual city. As traffic thickens. As buildings rise around me like walls.
She’s worth it. She’s worth it. She’s worth it.
Her address was easy to find—the blog’s “About” page mentions her Denver neighborhood, and a quick search gave me the rest. I’ve been to Denver exactly twice since I got home, both times for VA appointments I couldn’t avoid. Both times ended with panic attacks in parking garages.
This time will be different. It has to be.
The city at night is a special kind of hell. Lights everywhere, too bright, too many. Sirens in the distance. People on sidewalks even at nine PM. My hypervigilance kicks into overdrive—tracking every movement, cataloging every potential threat, exit routes constantly mapping in my head.
By the time I find her building, I’m sweating through my shirt despite the cold.
It’s a nice place. Not fancy, but well-maintained. Security door that requires buzzing in. Three stories, older architecture. The kind of building where people have plants in their windows and know their neighbors’ names.
I sit in my truck for five minutes, engine off, trying to stop shaking.