Chapter 56
Fifty-Six
He’s in the exact same spot as last time. Darkness slopes his form; he’s just a silhouette against the stars, unmoving like he belongs to the night.
It’s probably why he chose this place. The lack of light pollution.
A twig cracks underfoot as I near. He doesn’t move at first; then, barely, his back lengthens like a wire drawn taut. Still, he doesn’t look.
I hold my breath as I close the distance.
I want to stand here, and just look at him. I want to sit shoulder to shoulder, like muscle memory might bring us back. I want to fold myself into him, like my body might remember what my mouth can’t say.
I don’t do any of that.
I lower myself a little ways off, careful, like stepping too close might shatter something already fragile.
“Hi.” It slips out thinner than I expect. All that fire I had barging through his front door? Lost somewhere between here and there.
There’s no response. Only the whistle of the breeze, the sky, and nothing else. A little crack sounds in my heart, but his fingers twitch and I hold onto that.
He’ll talk when he can.
I look toward the horizon, where faint ribbons spark and fade before I can really grasp them.
Something’s building out there though, I can sense it, and yet my attention is tethered to the half of my heart sitting just inches away.
His silence used to hum with feeling, and now it’s a story written in a language I can’t seem to read anymore.
“Carson…” My throat cinches. “I—I just wanted to…” The words collapse. I try again, slower. “There’s a lot I need to say. It’s all—” No.
It seems he’s not the only one speaking in a different language tonight; mine’s scrambled too.
Where do I even start? There’s so much to say, but this feels like unfamiliar territory, and I’m not so reckless to dive headfirst into it anymore.
Not so brave like I was when I first came to Grove.
The unfinished pieces of my sentences scatter across the rocky outcrop and I stare at it, vision misting.
“Make a wish.” Rough—so rough. I’d forgotten how much I missed that cadence.
Hope sparks and my head jerks, but his gaze is still fixed skyward. A gold-tailed meteor cuts across the dark, cleaner and brighter than the rest.
So I do. I wish. The same wish I’ve made every single day since I was left standing alone on his front-deck.
The streaks burst harder, one after the other, but the quiet holds us tighter. Five minutes. Ten. Fifteen. All this beauty, and still the only thing I feel are the words crowding desperate on my tongue.
And even though he doesn’t look like he wants this conversation anytime soon, I can’t keep swallowing them down. “You went to see Bryce.”
I don’t know what I’m expecting. Maybe a shrug. A short explanation following it. Anything more than just—
“You weren’t supposed to find out.”
My head snaps toward his shadowed outline, disbelief hammering against my ribs. That’s it?
“Why?” I will it strong but hardly makes it out.
He scrubs a hand down his jaw, slow enough that I feel the lag in it. “What do you want me to say, Brielle?” It’s not sharp… it’s empty. My name more like a machine output, than memory.
In this moment, all I can think is—what have I done? Fear like I never thought I’d feel again rock-climbs my throat. “Something,” I beg. “Anything.”
Nothing. The silence caves and tears rise, hot and stinging. I catch one with a sniffle before it can fall—and that sound, so slight, is what finally snaps his head toward me.
“Don’t cry.” There’s something behind it.
I’m not registering what. I’m too busy blinking, trying to steady my vision. Not from tears, but because suddenly, everything looks warped.
Off.
Then it hits.
This is my Carson—but it’s not.
It’s a worn version, a dulled-down outline of the man I know. Shadows bruise dark beneath his eyes, his mouth’s pinched too tight, and—God—he’s lost weight.
I act before I think, hand lifting, then stopping short. My fingers shake in the air between us.
“Carson.” My voice barely carries. “What’s happened?”
For one stupid second, when his gaze drops to my hand, I think maybe. Maybe.
But when I reach, he ducks away.
“Nothing.” He won’t look at me. “Just leave it.”
I can’t. Because as much as it cuts, him pulling away from me, it doesn’t hold a torch to seeing him like this.
“Talk to me.” Please. Please. Please. Each echo spins faster until it’s all I can hear. “I miss you.” My throat aches with it. Layered over the horror of how hollow he looks, another fear unspools, this one uglier, scarier. “Tell me we’re not over.”
It sparks something. For the first time, he turns fully, meteor-light catching on every jagged line of him.
“That’s not my decision.” The words are flat, but the way his eyes grip mine feels like a question he needs me to answer.
I wish I had one. But I don’t. Not one that will fix… this. So I cling to the only truth I have left.
“I miss you.”
It flickers through him—there, then gone—but I catch it. The shift. The crack in the wall. And it makes me brave.
One second, space yawns between us. The next, I’m closing it. Crawling into his lap just like last time—same sky overhead, same rocky ledge beneath, same desperation lodged in my chest.
He doesn’t stop me; he doesn’t draw me in either. His arms stay braced against the earth, fists clenched so tight I swear I can feel the tremor running through him.
I lower my forehead to his. Breathe him in. Salt, sleepless nights, and something I used to call home.
“Do you?” I whisper. “Miss me?”
His lashes brush my cheek, and for a second, he’s so still I think he’s gone somewhere I can’t reach.
“It won’t change anything if I say yes,” he says.
“Why?”
When his gaze finds me again, it’s endless grey. “Because that’s not the question that matters.”
“Then what is?”
“Can you stand on your own now?”
The bottom drops. A reel of the last few weeks replays—every stumble, every scraped-together win, every night I swore I couldn’t do it alone, and every morning I somehow did. Still, even after all that, I don’t know the answer.
But he reads a truth I don’t.
Whatever he sees loosens something inside him. His body is no longer carved from stone beneath me. Then comes the sound, a shaky exhale, dragged from the depths as if it’s been caged there forever.
“There’s this party tomorrow.” His fists flex, release. “I wasn’t gonna go. But…” His gaze flicks to the sky, then back to me. “Come with me.”
It lands heavier than it sounds. Not just a party. Not just a maybe. It feels like something else entirely.
But I don’t even hesitate.
“Yes.” My forehead stays pressed to his, the acquiescence woven into my breath. “I’ll come.”