Between Nowhere and Not Yet
The first snowfall of the season arrived without fanfare—just as it always did.
In the hush of night, it blanketed the mountain in a delicate veil of white, softening the scars left by weeks of rain.
It muted the wilted meadows and cloaked the bare, contorted trees, giving them—for a brief spell—a gentler silhouette.
For a little while, the ugliness beneath was hidden.
But like any bandage stretched over rot, the illusion didn’t last. The snow melted quickly, exposing every soggy blemish to daylight once more.
Nic’s boots squelched through the icy mud.
Dirty ribbons of snow still clung to the roots of trees and the undersides of shrubs.
It had only been a few days, but the weak winter sun had already stripped the world of its disguise.
There was no crispness, no clarity. Only slush.
The ground was wet and reluctant, the air thick with the smell of wet bark and decay.
Unlike early spring—when snowmelt brought blooms and reckless color—this lingering between freeze and thaw brought nothing but silence and sludge. The land seemed just as weary as he was.
He had been walking for hours. Maybe longer. Maybe days. There was no destination—just motion. He veered away from deep mud. Took whatever path seemed less traveled. When the trails ran out, he followed birdsong and the rustle of small animals skittering through the underbrush.
There was something clean in the wandering.
Directionless, yes—but freeing. He didn’t have to be Nic-the-son, Nic-the-lover, Nic-the-wolf-who-no-longer-was.
Out here, there were no roles to play. No one to charm.
No one to disappoint. As long as he didn’t know where he was going, he didn’t have to brace for what waited at the end.
Here, in the weightless space between nowhere and not-yet, the ache in his heart’s lake could finally breathe.
He knew exactly how far he'd unraveled.
After Nesaea, memory had ceased to be a thread—it was shrapnel.
Nothing linear, nothing clean. The night lived behind his eyes, jagged and constant.
Guilt churned like acid in his gut, burning through his appetite, his sleep, his ability to be still.
For weeks, he buried himself in labor. Anything to stay moving, grinding, distracted.
But even that collapsed. His father had pulled him from the project, saying he looked like a dying man.
So he turned to Helen.
At first, she was his sanctuary. Then—his mirror. She asked him to talk. He reached for her body. She offered comfort. He bristled with impatience. He was raw, bleeding from a wound he couldn’t see, and every time she tried to help, it only cut him deeper.
They fought often. Violently. No fists—just venom.
His words, cutting through the softest places in her.
He never meant them. But that didn't matter. They were said. And when he left—he always left—he did so with her tears etched behind his ribs. Each time, it hollowed him a little more.
The last fight was different. Worse.
They’d shut themselves inside her villa and screamed until the walls shook. He didn’t remember what set it off—some glance, some question. Maybe something she'd cooked, or something she'd worn. Something stupid. Something normal.
He remembered the sound of her voice breaking. The tightness in his throat. The cold fury in his own words.
By the time dawn crowned the hillside, he had wrenched the door open and vanished into the frost, her voice following him, cracked and pleading, Don’t go. Please. Stay.
He hadn’t looked back.
Now, he couldn’t even recall what he'd accused her of. Only the echo remained—his voice, low and cruel, saying something he couldn’t un-say.
What if that was the end?
What if he had finally carved too deep, and there was no more healing to be done?
She had always been his light. His compass. Without her... who the hell was he supposed to be?
He kicked at the slush beneath his boots. It splashed cold against his trousers, grounding and senseless.
His hands clenched into fists.
He missed her. He hated himself. And he didn't know how to fix what he'd broken—only that if he didn’t find a way, the dark might swallow the last part of him that still remembered what it felt like to love.
Nic paused beside a twisted pine. Despite the cold, sweat slicked his back.
He wasn’t warm from the trudging—just feverish, raw.
His skin was clammy, chest tight. It felt like illness, but he knew better.
It was the sleeplessness. The aftermath of screaming through the night.
The echo of Helen’s tears still rattled in his marrow.
He longed for water. His mouth was dry and bitter, but there was no stream. No relief. He pressed his shoulder to the tree trunk, letting his weight sag into the bark. Just a moment. Just enough to breathe without feeling like he was choking.
Behind him, his footprints smeared the thin layer of melting snow, a single dark wound on an otherwise pure field. He stared at the mark, unsettled.
Was he that mark, in Helen’s life? A stain on her quiet beauty. A muddy scar she would never fully scrub away.
What if all his love had ever done was ruin her?
A rustle snapped his thoughts in two. From the brambles, a thin gray fox emerged—its patchy coat mid-transition, unsure of what it wanted to be. Winter hadn't yet claimed it fully. It looked awkward, half-forgotten by both seasons.
The creature caught his gaze—unflinching. Then, without warning, a second fox leapt from the shadows. Bigger. Equally disheveled. They seemed to recognize each other. In the next breath, they were gone, darting into the scrub, the flash of their white-tipped tails lingering in their wake.
Nic exhaled, dragging a hand through his disheveled locks. He stood at the crossroads again. Go back to Helen, or keep walking nowhere.
What was left between them, really?
They loved each other. That wasn’t in question. But love hadn’t stopped the damage. Every time he held her, he bled. Every time she tried to hold him together, he pulled her apart.
He’d begun to wonder, sometime after midnight—was this love, or simply a habit they were both too terrified to release? Could she really fix someone this broken? And could he live with himself if she tried?
Maybe staying was the most selfish thing of all.
He looked once more down the path he hadn’t taken.
No, he wasn’t ready to go back. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
He needed to walk. To burn off the rot. To stop expecting Helen to carry what was his to reckon with.
The wilderness didn’t judge. It didn’t ask him to talk. It just let him move.
And for now, that was all the healing he could bear.
It took another few miles before Nic stumbled upon a hunter’s lodge—run-down, crooked, and half-reclaimed by the woods.
Like most, it was more ruin than refuge.
The roof sagged, the walls leaned as though weary from decades of storms. Still, it was a shelter, and that was something.
The sun was slipping below the treetops, and the idea of sleeping under the open sky—with no fire, no blanket—had long lost its romantic edge.
Hungry, parched, and worn through, Nic stepped inside the single room.
The door groaned and resisted, wedging askew in its warped frame.
Gaps yawned between the boards. The scent of rot clung to the air.
Weeds and tree roots broke through what remained of the floor, and the only furniture—a warped ledge nailed into one wall—was littered with leaf debris and a thick coat of dust.
There was no pot, no cup, no tinder. No fire had burned in the lodge’s iron grill in many winters. Still, it was enough. Shelter was shelter, however hollow its bones.
He looked up at the sagging beams and gave the ceiling a crooked smile. “Perfect place for a romantic getaway. Shame I came alone.”
He noted the places where wind bit through the slats. On the way to the nearby stream, he’d gather branches and tall grass—whatever might keep the cold out.
The stream wasn’t far. Nic crouched on its muddy bank, water lapping softly at his hands.
He scooped the icy flow into his mouth. It pooled heavy and chill in his stomach, but it couldn’t quench the deeper burn—the ache of regret, the gnawing hunger he couldn’t name.
He splashed his face and neck, but the clamminess returned in moments.
Nothing shook loose. Not the guilt. Not the pain, twisting into knots behind his ribs.
He hadn't meant to walk this far. When he left Helen’s villa, he had been all fire—rage, shame, heartbreak. He hadn’t thought to pack a lamp or coat or compass. He simply walked, driven by something primal—by the need to be away. The forest had swallowed him before he noticed.
On the walk back to the lodge, he tore branches from trees and pulled handfuls of long grass.
He jammed them into the cracks in the wall, doing his best to seal the lodge against the night.
A branch wedged into the doorframe might keep curious wildlife out.
He built a nest in the corner, a rough pile of grass, and curled into it.
Coat drawn tight. Hood up. Face buried in fur. Eyes closed.
Night fell hard.
The cold came like a tide—slow, steady, ruthless.
It seeped through the walls, poured beneath the door, crept into the seams of his coat.
It settled deep—into joints, into marrow, into the very center of his chest. Even sleep recoiled from it.
Each time he drifted, the cold seized him back into wakefulness.
He curled tighter, teeth clenched. Tried to count. Tried not to count.
And still, he listened.