Chapter Twenty-Six
TALLY
The rain had started soft, barely a breath against my skin—as if the sky couldn’t decide if it wanted to cry or not.
Kind of like how I couldn’t decide if I wanted to cry or not.
But a few blocks from O’Malley’s, it made up its mind.
The mist turned to a steady, warm drizzle, slicking the cobblestones beneath my feet, painting the streetlights in hazy halos, and muffling the city’s usual chatter into a gentle hum.
I didn’t run. I didn’t pull up my hood. I walked.
It felt like the city was exhaling with me, and maybe I could loosen my grip on everything—the shame, the panic, the tightness behind my ribs—and exist. For a minute. For a block. For as long as I needed.
Nighttime in Savannah was when the real charm broke through the bustle.
She was older, quieter, alive in a way that didn’t need to shout through the iridescent glaze of the moon.
Gas lanterns flickered beside chipped bricks, casting golden halos that danced along the wet pavement.
The Spanish moss above me swayed in slow motion, like it was watching me from above, patient and unbothered.
A cargo ship groaned in the distance, its whistle breaking the stillness.
I turned down a side street without thinking, Nancy padding beside me like a soggy, judgmental cloud. She stopped to sniff a fire hydrant with the gravitas of someone solving a cold case, then looked up at me with sullen chocolate-brown eyes.
“I know,” I murmured, brushing damp hair from my eyes. “I was an idiot. I shouldn’t have stormed off like that.”
But it wasn’t about Charlie. It wasn’t what I’d overheard. It was everything.
The weight of not belonging. Of being the one who always showed up too late, with too much baggage and not enough answers. I’d spent most of my life being a visitor. A layover in someone else’s story. Never the destination.
And yet… here.
Here, even angry and embarrassed and soaking wet, a spark of hope uncoiled inside me. Like maybe this place didn’t care about my past. Maybe it only cared that I kept showing up.
I stopped in front of a bakery with fogged-up windows, the warm glow inside casting silhouettes of someone folding dough, dusting flour from their apron.
Across the street, two college kids ducked under a tiny umbrella, laughing like it didn’t matter that they were already soaked.
A group of older tourists shuffled past a ghost tour guide with a cane and a top hat, who looked like he’d been pulled straight from a Dickens novel.
And they were all… here. Living, moving forward.
For the first time since landing in Savannah, I wasn’t watching from the sidelines. Maybe I was already part of the story. Maybe this was the start. It was messy and imperfect, sure, but finally, there were words on the page.
Nancy Reagan gave a little sneeze beside me, shaking the water from her wiry curls, and I crouched to scratch behind her ears.
“I think we might be falling in love with this place,” I whispered.
She sneezed again, which felt like a yes.
The poodle paused to sniff at what I was sure was some other dog’s disgusting pile in the grass while I slowed my steps, one hand resting on the curve of my belly.
My dress clung to my skin, damp and a little chilled, but I didn’t mind.
It grounded me in the moment—this strange, in-between moment where I wasn’t quite the girl I used to be and not yet the woman I hoped I’d become.
I kept seeing Charlie’s face. The way his mouth twitched when he was trying not to smile.
The way his voice dropped low whenever he said anything kind and tried to pass it off as an insult.
The way he stood there, looking torn between staying silent and fighting for what he didn’t want to admit he cared about.
He’d said he didn’t like me. That being around me gave him hives.
And yet… he’d carried me up five flights of stairs. Cleaned up after me. Took me to my appointment, eyes filled with wonder at the life growing inside me. Slept on a too-small couch to make sure I wouldn’t wake up alone.
That didn’t seem like someone who didn’t care. That seemed like someone who didn’t know how to do it.
And what was worse—I kept noticing all of it. I kept letting it get to me.
That little softness in his voice. His hands hovering near my back when he thought I might trip. The way his eyes found me when he didn’t think I’d notice—frustration and awe tangled together, like I was a puzzle he couldn’t solve but couldn’t stop trying to.
It was infuriating. And comforting. And confusing.
I stopped at Whitefield Square, the white gazebo where Charlotte and Hoyt said their vows was cold and slick with rain, but offering a necessary shelter from the drizzle.
The benches were slightly damp, but I sat anyway, my dog curling up beside my feet, and I tipped my head back to look at the thick canopy of moss above me.
The branches swayed in the breeze, heavy with water and history.
What the hell was happening to me?
Savannah was getting under my skin. Charlie was getting under my skin. And I wasn’t sure which scared me more.
All I’d ever wanted was to belong somewhere. To be seen and accepted and not just tolerated. And maybe it was starting to happen here, in a city I barely knew, with a man who looked at me like I was fire and he didn’t mind the burn.
I let out a shaky breath and rubbed a hand over my belly.
“We’re in trouble, little one.”
Nancy groaned softly, shifting closer, and I smiled faintly.
We stayed like that until the rain lightened, until the silence stopped feeling lonely and started to feel like peace.
And when the rain started up again, and the tall, iron street lights cast a soft glow over the quiet square, the city didn’t feel so big anymore. It felt close and familiar, a place that I might be able to hold onto if I stopped running long enough to try.