Chapter 30
Thirty
Henry
The dreams come hard.
Too hard.
I’m back under the half-finished beams of my house, sawdust in my hair, Zach barking so frantic it shreds my nerves. Then the crack. It’s not thunder this time, but wood giving way. Weight drops white-hot through my skull, and the world splits into pain and light.
I jerk awake, drenched in sweat, but the cabin ceiling doesn’t move. The beams hold.
Tabitha’s hand is on my chest. My heart hammers, and my lungs refuse to slow.
“Henry.” Tabitha leans over me, hair falling like a curtain, eyes searching.
I know she sees it—the way my fists are clenched, the way my body is locked as if I’m bracing for impact that already happened.
“You’re dreaming,” she says, steady, like she’s talking me down from a ledge. “You’re here. You’re safe.”
Safe. The word scrapes raw.
We’ve switched places. She was on the edge earlier. Now I am.
“Breathe with me.” Tabitha strokes my forehead.
I try. In through the nose, out through the mouth. My ribs loosen just enough to let air through.
She doesn’t press questions. Doesn’t ask what I saw.
She doesn’t have to. She knows.
I grab her hand before I can think better of it, pressing it harder against my chest like it’s the only tether I’ve got. “Don’t leave.”
“I’m not. Where would I go? It’s the middle of the night.”
Something in my chest shifts. It’s pain and relief tangled together.
I want to tell her everything. About how shooting Ralph Normandy still haunts me, about how I lay immobile after the beam struck me, how I heard Zach there, until he wasn’t.
About Francine, our conversations that went nowhere but still left me exhausted.
About the way her voice left me gutted but also grateful.
I want to tell her I love her, but I don’t know how to carry all this weight and love her at the same time.
The words don’t make it out.
Instead, I let her curl against me, her head fitting just under my chin, her breath warm against my skin. I hold her like I’m afraid she’ll vanish if I don’t.
And when I finally doze off again, she’s the last thing I feel.