Chapter 12
Charlie
The old habits woke me before the sun had a chance to. They always did. Years of routine didn’t vanish just because there was snow outside instead of sand.
First thing, I checked the locks. Fingers grazing cold metal, bolts set in place. The world stayed outside, where it belonged.
Next, I fed the heater, coaxing the old beast to life with kindling and a few muttered curses. It clanked and rattled but obeyed, same as it always had.
Then I stood at the window, watching the horizon bruise from black to gray, listening for the quiet. I always listened for it. Silence meant safety. Silence meant nothing creeping through the cracks.
But that morning, silence wasn’t what I got.
At first it was faint—tinny carols bleeding through from Main Street, carried on the cold air. The town’s damned radio. Holly Ridge never shut up this time of year, and even from here the cheer leaked through.
I was about to curse it and turn away when something worse—no, not worse, different—reached me.
Music. But not the kind you could switch off. Not the radio.
Singing.
Her singing.
Belle’s voice rose from downstairs, warm and clear, threading through the bones of the house like sunlight through cracks.
She was untangling a mess of lights—I knew the sound of cords slapping against the table—and singing along to “Silver Bells” like she belonged here, like this house had always been hers to fill.
It should’ve annoyed me. Hell, it did at first. Too early, too cheerful, too much. This place wasn’t made for carols and soft voices. It was meant for silence and shadows.
But then I heard it again, the way her notes curved, the way her voice settled against the old wood of the walls, and something shifted.
It fit.
Like a missing puzzle piece I didn’t know was gone until it slid into place.
I gripped the window frame, jaw tight, throat tighter. I told myself to be irritated, to march downstairs and bark at her to keep quiet. I told myself she was invading spaces that weren’t hers, tugging life into corners that should’ve stayed dead.
Instead, I just stood there, the sound digging deeper, softening something I hadn’t wanted touched. My chest felt too small for the ache swelling inside it.
She didn’t sing like someone trying to perform. She sang like someone who’d been waiting all her life to be heard, and somehow, the damn house listened. I listened.
“Silver bells,” she murmured between a laugh when the lights knotted again, “it’s Christmas time in the city.”
I pressed a scarred hand to my face, cursing low under my breath.
The sound shouldn’t matter. Her voice shouldn’t matter.
But it did.
And the worst part was knowing I’d never hear the silence the same way again.
The music cut off, and I thought maybe I’d finally get some peace. Then I heard the door creak and footsteps in the hall, quick and light, far too alive for this house.
She appeared in the doorway a moment later, balancing two baskets so full I thought the handles might snap.
Her cheeks were flushed from the cold, hair dusted with snowflakes that hadn’t yet melted.
The smell came with her—cinnamon, pine, something sharp and sweet that clung to her gloves and scarf.
It hit me square in the chest. My house never smelled like anything but dust and woodsmoke.
She stood there grinning like she was a kid sneaking candy from the jar. “Thought it was missing something,” she said, voice light, teasing, hopeful all at once. She nudged the basket higher with her knee, eyes gleaming. “You know, for Christmas.”
I opened my mouth to bark at her. To tell her no, not here, not in this place where light had no business lingering. The words crowded my throat, sharp and ready.
But when I looked at her—cheeks pink, eyes bright, smile impossible—I felt the fight drain right out of me.
My jaw worked, but what came out wasn’t the bark I’d meant. It was quieter. Rough, almost reluctant.
“Fine,” I muttered. “Don’t break anything.”
The grin she gave me in return could’ve lit the whole damn house.
And I hated how a part of me—buried deep, beaten down for years—wanted to let it.
Decorating. I never thought the word would apply to this place. These walls weren’t made for tinsel and paper stars. They were built for silence. For ghosts.
But she didn’t seem to care.
Belle moved through the library like she’d been born to claim it. A string of lights draped over her shoulder, a handful of paper snowflakes tucked under her arm. She hummed as she worked—always humming, damn her—and climbed the stepstool to fasten the bulbs along the high shelves.
I stood with my hands jammed in the pockets of my jacket, leaning against the wall, pretending to scowl. In truth, I couldn’t look away. Every motion she made was careful, reverent, like she was placing offerings on the altars of my life—altars I hadn’t visited in years.
When she stretched for the highest shelf, shifting onto her toes, the stool wobbled. Instinct pulled me forward before I even thought about it. I caught the ladder, steadying it with both hands. She glanced down, startled for a second, and then smiled.
For a heartbeat our faces were close. Too close. I could feel the warmth of her breath, catch the faint trace of vanilla clinging to her skin. My chest tightened, an ache I couldn’t name, and I forced myself to step back.
She didn’t notice. Or pretended not to.
A little later she rummaged through the shelves, triumphant when she pulled an old record from its sleeve. “Perfect,” she whispered, sliding it onto the battered player I hadn’t touched in years.
The needle scratched, a soft crackle filling the room, and then the first notes of a carol drifted out—thin, wavering, but steady. Music I hadn’t heard since before the deployments, before everything burned down.
The sound crawled into the hollow places of me like it belonged there.
She sang along under her breath, hanging brittle paper snowflakes on the mantel, as if she didn’t notice me stiffen under the weight of memory.
I turned away, trying to focus on the shelves, but something caught my eye—a box half-hidden behind a stack of war journals. I tugged it free and opened it.
Inside was an ornament, cracked down one side, paint peeling.
For a moment, I couldn’t breathe.
I remembered the winter it had come from, a time that was mine and not mine anymore. A younger version of myself laughing at a table that felt like it might last forever. Promises spoken over candlelight, a life I thought I was building.
Then the fire. The betrayal. The years that turned everything to ash.
The ornament pinched between my fingers cut as pleasantly as it stung, a needle threading old wounds I’d thought were long dead.
Belle noticed me standing there, staring down at it. She didn’t ask. She just smiled gently, as though she knew enough not to. Then she turned back to her stars and her lights, letting me hold the memory without forcing it into words.
And for the first time in longer than I could admit, I let the music play.
It was the little things that started to gnaw at me. The things I never thought I’d notice, let alone care about.
The curl of her hair when she brushed it back behind her ear, quick and thoughtless, like she didn’t know how that single motion hooked my eyes and held them.
The way a dimple appeared when she grinned at a wreath she’d hung crooked on purpose, laughing softly as if she’d played some secret trick on the house itself.
The careful way she steadied a stack of books, palms flat, exaggerated in its gentleness as though she believed the pages were made of glass.
Every damned detail dug deeper.
I told myself not to see it. Not to feel it. But the truth sat heavy in my chest: I was watching her. Wanting her.
And it terrified me.
Delight warred with fury, tangled so tight I could barely breathe. The sight of her made me feel like I was falling and being strangled at the same time—every breath stolen, every heartbeat sharper than the last.
Don’t do this. The words echoed like a drumbeat in my skull. Don’t want this. Don’t let this happen.
She was too bright for me, too whole, too alive. She deserved Sunday mornings and family dinners, not a man built of scars and ghosts.
But when she turned, catching me watching her, and smiled without hesitation—without fear—I knew the lie for what it was.
I already had let it happen.
And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop.
She laughed over a tangle of bulbs, head bent, hair slipping into her eyes as she wrestled the mess into something brighter. The sound filled the room, unbothered, free.
That was when the truth pressed down hardest.
She was young. Whole. Alive in ways I hadn’t been for years.
She had a life outside these walls, a town that still opened its doors to her, a family waiting for her to come home.
I could already picture the townsfolk when they learned she’d been here—their faces turning, mouths whispering.
Pitying her. Mocking me. Why are you here, Belle?
What business have you with the monster on the hill?
The thought made my stomach twist.
And then came the jagged shard, sharper than any blade: her father’s name inked in my books, scrawled like a ghost that never left. That memory wasn’t just war, wasn’t just the men we’d buried or the promises we’d broken overseas.
It was betrayal.
Because the man who’d walked away with my wife hadn’t just been another soldier. He’d been hers. The father the whole damn town respected, the one they raised glasses to, the one they’d never believe could gut another man’s life and leave him bleeding in the ashes.
He was the reason I’d built myself into something cold, something untouchable, something people whispered about instead of welcomed.
And still—still—I found myself wanting her.
The guilt crashed through me, brutal and illogical. Guilt for desiring her. Guilt for being nothing more than the son of my own trauma. Guilt that she might come to love the man whose life was ruined by the one who raised her.
It was wrong. It was twisted.
But when she looked up, smiling, untangling another knot with a triumphant laugh, all I could feel was the pull.
And the guilt doubled for that too.
I knew what the “right” thing was. I’d known it from the second she knocked on my door with frost in her hair and determination in her eyes.
The right thing would be to step back, let her go, send her down the hill into the waiting arms of someone safe.
Someone unscarred. Someone who could give her easy mornings and laughter without weight, not a burned man stomping through his days with the past clinging like ash.
I told myself that again and again. She deserved better. Better than my shadows, better than my silence, better than the way I kept staring when I thought she wouldn’t notice.
And so I schemed. Not in the way I used to plan for battle, but in the way a coward does: contemplating cold, decisive endings.
I thought about telling her the truth—the kind of truth that would poison every smile she gave me.
I imagined laying it all bare: her father’s betrayal, the fire, the way I’d vowed never to open myself to anyone again.
If I did it right, if I chose my words with enough venom, she’d leave.
She’d hate me. And hating me would keep her safe.
It was sacrifice, I told myself. But deep down, I knew better. It was just another kind of cowardice.
Because then there were the small moments. The ones that cracked me open no matter how hard I braced.
She paused in the middle of stringing lights, turning to me with those soft, honest eyes, and said, almost shyly, “This looks like home.”
The word hit like a hammer to the ribs. Home.
Something I hadn’t claimed in years. Something I didn’t deserve.
I wanted to tell her that. I wanted to unload everything—the betrayal, the night the firelight turned cruel, the promises I’d made to never be vulnerable again.
I wanted to tell her so she’d know, so she’d stop looking at me like I was anything other than a ruin.
Instead, I swallowed the words. My throat burned with them. And all I managed was handing her another string of lights. “Hang them good,” I muttered, my voice small, weaker than I wanted her to hear.
Two halves of me clawed at each other.
One half screamed for me to end this, to push her away, to protect her from the rot of my life.
It warned that proximity would only break her, drag her down into the same ash I walked through daily.
That she’d grow to resent me, the way others had, the way I’d learned people always did once the novelty wore off.
But the other half—the selfish part—whispered that maybe her nearness could mend me. That maybe the warmth in her laugh, the certainty in her gaze, could thread light through the wreckage I’d become.
I hated myself for even thinking it. Hated that my heart weighed options like some moral equation: protect her or keep her. Lose her or ruin her.
“You’re thirty-nine and acting like a coward,” I scolded myself under my breath, watching her hum as she worked, paper stars catching the light.
But coward or not, I stayed rooted in place. And I didn’t tell her to leave.
She balanced on the stool, reaching high to hang a star over the tallest shelf. Her silhouette cut against the window, framed by the last light of day, and for a second she looked like she belonged in some other life—a life without scars, without ghosts.
But watching her stirred something dark.
I thought of the night I learned what betrayal truly was—the night the woman I trusted turned her back, and the man I’d called a brother became a stranger.
That memory, jagged and sharp, laced through me like venom.
And seeing her up there, so careless in her faith, made the parallel burn.
I wanted to step forward, to steady the stool before it wobbled, to keep her safe. But I stayed frozen, fists tight at my sides. Afraid that if I touched her, it would mean something I had no right to mean. Afraid that my hand on her would anchor her here, to me, in ways I could never unmake.
By the time night fell, the library glowed with the lights I swore I didn’t want. Paper stars shimmered, garlands draped across shelves, and the shadows looked softer somehow. She hummed contentedly among the stacks, as if she’d conjured a miracle from dust and grief.
I couldn’t stand it.
So I slipped outside without a word, the cold biting harder than it should. I lit a cigarette, dragging deep until smoke curled from my mouth like confessions I couldn’t voice. Ash fell against the snow, pale and weightless, like everything I’d been holding in.
I knew I should be brave. I should tell her everything—the betrayal, the fire, the ruins I’d made of myself. But instead, I stood there rehearsing the truth I already knew:
If I was honest, I’d lose her.
If I lied, I’d lose her, anyway.
Either way, I lost.