Chapter 40
I had settled into a comfortable rhythm, living back at my parents. I think it helped that even though I spent a lot of time in my room, I was rarely alone. And that made me feel secure because every few nights, my phone lit up with Blocked Caller.
I never answered.
At my lawyer’s request, I started a log. Date. Time. Count. A thin column titled “notes” that stayed mostly blank because what could I write besides still happening and won’t stop?
On speaker one afternoon, Mom clattering pans in the background, Clara and Jackson arguing over whether frosting was a food group, my lawyer said, “I know it’s maddening.
With blocked numbers, we need escalation or corroboration.
Keep documenting. If he slips, if there’s a text, a voicemail, anything traceable, I jump. ”
“So I just wait?” I asked. “Write down every time he pokes at the bruise and pretend it doesn’t hurt?”
“You keep living,” he said gently. “The process is slow, but it’s moving. And Cassidy, when this goes to court, your record will matter. All of this will matter.”
After we hung up, I stared at the notebook like it had all the answers. Then I closed it and opened my laptop.
Marin’s email was a little flare of light in the inbox: We’re greenlit. Offer attached.
My first book under my own name. Fiction, technically, names pulled up by the roots, timelines shifted, but the bones were mine. We went back and forth for two days, tightening clauses, confirming I could keep certain structure choices, and then I signed.
I texted the family thread. Signed. They exploded with emojis and proud of you and Dad’s accidental all caps response. My hands shook, but for once it wasn’t fear.
Now I just have to finish it...
The conversation continued, encouraging me to keep going, congratulating me on getting this far.
A separate ping came in almost immediately from a different thread.
Brody: Heard a rumour.
Me: Which one? I’m collecting them like trading cards.
Brody: The good kind. My parents said the land sale went through. Congratulations, neighbour-not-yet-but-soon.
Me: Thank you. I can’t believe they said yes.
Brody: They didn’t say yes. They said, finally.
Me: ??
Brody: Now the important part. Placement.
Me: Of…?
Brody: Your house. Your library. Your porch, where you’ll drink coffee and judge the deer.
Was it normal that my heart stuttered?
Me: I don’t judge deer.
Brody: You do. You’ll need a sightline to glare at them when they chew your garden.
I snorted, picturing me doing just that.
Me: That’s fair.
Brody: So we camp on the lot. Check out all the best places for you to build. Spend some time on the land. You’ll feel where it belongs.
Me: Bold of you to assume I would want to do that with you.
Brody: Bold of you to think I’d let you build without doing it right.
Me: And why, exactly, do we camp on my land?
Brody: Because I know what you want even when you don’t say it. And because I like being around you. Pick one. Oh, and I know the land better than you.
I stared at the screen longer than I should have, then typed:
Me: Bring good coffee. And a backup blanket.
Brody: I’ll bring two. Saturday?
I almost said no. Then I looked at my call log. Saturday sounded like oxygen.
Me: Saturday
Brody: See you soon, Cassidy
Me: Don't forget the extra blanket, I run cold.
Brody: Good thing I run hot.
An actual squeal ripped from my throat before I dropped my phone on my bed, flopping back onto my pillows. I stared at the ceiling with a smile dancing across my face, and my heart thumping loudly. I felt ridiculously young and silly, but at that moment, I didn't care.
I walked the path from my parents on Saturday, while the day was still soft. Brody said he would take care of the supplies just to bring me. The land felt different now that it was officially mine, like stepping into a room and knowing which chair would always be yours.
Brody was waiting for me in the first meadow that made me know this place was mine. We settled surrounded by pine and thawing earth. The creek, somewhere to our left, was now free from the ice.
“First candidate,” he said, tapping a boot on a knoll that looked west over the meadow. “Evening light. Long view. Slight wind break from those firs.”
I stood and watched the field breathe. “I could write here.”
“You could be yourself here,” he amended, and the ridiculous thing was, he wasn’t wrong.
We set up the small canvas tent and a fire ring, the kind of easy teamwork that makes you forget you haven’t been doing this for years. He handed me stakes and I hammered, over-eager, bending one sideways.
“Ruthless,” he said. “Tent never stood a chance.”
“Do not put me in charge of infrastructure.”
“Noted. I’ll handle the structure. You handle the fire.”
We ate sandwiches he packed and watched the sky pale to lavender. The fire took on the second try, crackling like it had something to say. He poured tea from an old enamel pot into matching mugs, and I pretended not to notice the way my hands warmed more from his nearness than the cup.
“Tell me something true,” he said, stretching long, boots crossed at the ankle. Sparks pinwheeled up into the early dark.
I considered dodging. Then I didn’t. “Sometimes when I sit down to write, it feels like I’m stealing from myself. Those months were… mine. Even the awful ones. Sometimes putting them on a page feels like cutting them out to prove something to strangers.”
He didn’t rush to fix it. He nodded, eyes on the fire. “You’re not cutting. You’re patching.”
I don't know why, but I barked out a laugh. “Patching.... how?”
“You’re taking something that shouldn’t have happened, something that hurt you, left wounds, and you're letting yourself experience that all again so you can find your voice again. You are healing and patching yourself up. That’s reclamation.”
The word settled somewhere low in my ribs. Reclamation.
“Your turn,” I said. “Something true.”
He considered. “I used to think I had to outrun where I came from to be worth anything. Then I outran it and felt empty. Coming back didn’t fix everything, but… I like who I am here.” He rolled the mug between his palms. “I like who I am around you.”
The wind shifted. And I felt something shift in me, too.
Later, the night got properly cold, and we slid under a layer of blankets, shoulders touching. Every brush of fabric felt louder than voices. He turned and tugged my hat down over my eyebrows, thumb lingering a beat too long on my cheekbone, like he was memorizing it.
“Sorry,” he murmured, not moving away.
“Don’t be,” I said. I didn’t move either.
I rolled and we lay facing each other. Close enough to feel each other's breath.
He told me a story about him and Adam skating on the creek at ten, breaking through thin ice up to their knees and lying to Judy that their jeans were wet because of a snowball fight.
I told him about winning an eighth-grade short story contest and refusing to read it aloud because I didn't feel like it was good enough.
“But you are going to write now,” he said softly. “And share it with whoever you want. ”
We didn’t kiss that day... or night. We almost did, twice, once when I turned to say something and found him already looking at me, once when he brushed a leaf out of my hair and his hand stayed cupping the back of my head like a promise.
Both times, the air went thin. Both times, he eased back like he could wait.
“Second site in the morning,” he said into the dark.
“Bossy,” I whispered.
“Organized,” he countered, and I felt him smile.
I slept harder than I expected and still woke early, the sky a pale seam at the horizon. He was already up, feeding the fire like it was a ritual. He handed me a mug, and we didn’t talk for a while. Birds tried a few notes. The meadow stretched around us.
We walked the property line with our coffee, the east grove, over to where the creek bends, the slight rise near the old maple that felt like it could hold a porch and a life.
We flagged the maybe-spots with a post and orange ribbon.
He pointed out drainage, winter sun angles, and how wind came in off the field.
He didn’t tell me what to choose. He told me what each choice would mean so I could.
By noon, my cheeks hurt from the wind and smiling. The almost-kisses sighed around us like a secret we were keeping with the trees.
By the time I got home, the house smelled like roasted garlic and something sweet, Clara’s doing.
Mason’s laugh drifted from the kitchen, low and easy in a way that was starting to be familiar again.
I lingered in the doorway, unseen, watching him stand behind Clara, his hands resting on her hips as she stirred a pot on the stove.
Jackson zipped past them with a toy truck, narrating his own demolition derby.
The sight made something loosen in my chest. Clara’s shoulders weren’t tight anymore. Mason’s voice wasn’t brittle and raw. They were still working, still fighting, but it was different now, less desperate, and full of hope.
I slipped upstairs and opened my laptop. The document I’d been avoiding glared back at me: the chapter I hadn’t been able to write. The one where everything cracked wide open, where Andrew’s mask slipped. I’d started it three times and abandoned it, the words too jagged to shape.
But something about the laughter downstairs, about Clara’s smile, about knowing they were finding their way back to each other, gave me the strength to try again.
My fingers moved slowly at first, then faster, the sentences rough but true.
I wrote until my eyes burned and the knot in my stomach finally loosened.
A buzz lit up my phone.
Brody: I had fun.
Me: Me too.
Brody: Do you think you found your spot? Or should we keep at it?
Me: Keep at it? You going to give up your free time until I decide where I want to build? That's quite the commitment, Palmer.
Something about typing the word commitment in a text Brody sent my heart racing. I didn't know exactly what was going on between us lately.
Brody: I'm not giving up anything, Morgan. We can try the other places we flagged. See how the sun sets, how it rises. You’ll know when it feels right.
Oh god, it did feel right, and that was terrifying.
Me: You want to camp again?
Brody: Unless you’re scared of spending another night under the stars with me.
Me: I’m not scared.
I was scared.
Brody: Good. Then it’s a date.
I stared at the screen, my pulse a little too quick. A date. Maybe he meant it lightly. Maybe he didn’t. Either way, I found myself smiling, new memories of warmth and hope pushing out the ones that had been haunting me.