Chapter 24
chapter
twenty-four
MILES
Every time I forget she left, the RV finds a way to remind me. This morning, it’s her favorite coffee mug, still sitting unused in the drying rack.
I haven’t slept. Not really. It’s been less than a week since she slept with me in my bunk, and it already feels too big, too cold.
So instead of sleeping, I just sort of drift in and out of whatever miserable psychological holding pattern happens when grief and confusion team up against you.
At some point around five a.m., I make coffee. I instinctively reach for her mug to make her a cup before I realize. Cool. Excellent. No emotional implications there.
Outside, the morning hangs gray and wet over camp. The rain stopped sometime before dawn, leaving the trees dripping and the air sharp enough to sting in my lungs.
I stand beside the RV with a mug in one hand and absolutely no idea what to do with myself. The ridge line disappears into mist.
Usually, mornings like this feel electric. Like something impossible might finally step out of the trees if I just stay patient enough.
Today? Nothing. Just tired and a little broken.
Jax climbs out of the RV rubbing his eyes and looks at me.
“Dude, you look like shit,” he says, wincing.
I stare at him. “Huh?”
“You should eat breakfast or something.”
Thoughts of that first diner breakfast with Daisy fill my mind. Toast and eggs and a natural togetherness that felt impossible.
“You there, bud?” Taylor’s voice cuts through my memories and I look up to see her, Maya, and Jax all staring at me with concerned looks on their faces.
“Seriously, eat something,” Maya says from the doorway, holding out a granola bar she’s half-unwrapped. Smart move. The smell of cinnamon awakens what’s left of my hunger cues.
I take a bite. Everyone watches me with concerned eyes.
“What?” I ask.
Jax gestures at me like he’s analyzing a piece in an art gallery. “You’re like…. Heartbroken. Really heartbroken.”
“Please never say that again,” I reply.
“Listen, we’re not blind,” Taylor says. “We know you and Daisy were into each other in a soulmate-y way. Also, you’ve been staring off into the distance for, like, a solid ten minutes.” She crosses her arms. “You gonna mope or move on, man?”
“Harsh,” Maya mutters.
“Oh shit, I didn’t mean it like that. I was trying to be motivational!” Taylor puts her hands up in surrender.
I look toward the tree line again. Toward the drainage. Toward everything. Toward nothing.
Then I hear myself say, “Maybe we shouldn’t.”
Silence.
Jax blinks. Taylor’s expression goes flat. Maya lowers her coffee.
Owen, who apparently materialized at some point because older brothers are terrifying like that, pauses halfway through opening a protein bar.
“Shouldn’t what?” he asks.
I shrug once. Fake casual. “Keep going.”
The silence deepens.
Taylor studies me for a long second.
“You fucking serious?” she blurts, half shock, half anger.
I laugh once. No humor in it. “Honestly, I don’t know.”
That lands harder than I mean it to. Because now I hear it. The truth.
I don’t know. I don’t know if we’re close. I don’t know if we’re being manipulated, whether by Daisy or the Ridgefield gang or sociopathic Redditors. I don’t know if I’m just a walking case of confirmation bias. I don’t know anything.
The thought settles ugly in my chest.
Jax scratches the back of his neck.
“So… we’re all just gonna pretend you didn’t just say that, right?” Jax winces.
Taylor exhales slowly.
“Get in the truck,” Owen says. Not optional. Big brother voice.
Great. Exactly what I need. An emotional intervention from a federally unemployed, Bigfoot-adjacent Batman.
After Owen grabs our coffee mugs, because that’s the level of fucks he gives, we hop in the truck as the other three try not to stare at us. Silence settles as we drive. Neither of us talks for a while. Which should feel awkward, but doesn’t. Just familiar.
As we drive past pinyon pines and rain-stained red rocks, I sigh the kind of sigh that’s bone-deep. Like something inside me finally got tired of pretending it wasn’t exhausted or hurt or confused.
Owen says nothing. Just drives. One hand loose on the wheel, coffee mug precariously balanced in the cupholder. Morning light burns through the fog, flickering gold across the dash every time we pass through breaks in the trees.
Owen drums his fingers on the steering wheel and I catch myself thinking back to my dad doing the same.
Our family solved things in cars, or tried to. We processed side by side. No eye contact required, no pressure. Just miles of endless road ahead.
And eventually, if you waited long enough, somebody would say the real thing. The memory sneaks up on me hard enough to hurt.
Mom in the passenger seat, feet tucked underneath her. Dad drumming fingers against the steering wheel while classic rock rattled through blown speakers. Owen sprawled half asleep against the window in the backseat. Me, peppering our parents with impossible questions beside him.
Always questions. What happens after people die? Do aliens count as neighbors? Could animals miss people? Does grief weigh anything?
Dad never laughed. I’d never thought of that before now. He never laughed at me. Just nodded as if the questions mattered. Then drove. Eventually saying something maddeningly calm like, “Maybe the not knowing is part of it.”
I stare out the window. The high desert rolls past, slow and familiar.
Red dirt mingles with light sandstone, glowing warmly against the blue sky. The kind of landscape that makes you feel tiny. It usually comforts me, but today it just feels… lonely.
My throat tightens. Owen knows exactly what he’s doing. No wonder he told me to get in the truck. No wonder he didn’t start talking. He’s recreating something. Giving me somewhere safe to fall apart. The realization settles warm and terrible all at once. Tears start to pool in my eyes.
And suddenly, painfully, I miss Daisy. And not in the abstract, breakup-sad-montage style. I miss her specifically. Painfully specific.
I miss her narrating things under her breath.
I miss the way she sat cross-legged on the couch, pretending thermal footage was boring while watching closely out of the corner of her eye.
The way she stole blankets like possession laws applied.
The sound of her laughing in the truck-stop shower.
The way she looked at me when I said something weird enough to surprise even me.
The way she saw through me. Too much. Too fast. Enough to scare me. Enough to scare her. Clearly.
My chest tightens again.
“I fucked it up.”
The words land heavily between us.
Owen doesn’t rush to answer.
“Yeah?”
“Yep,” I say. “What do you think?” I turn to him, eyes watery under my glasses.
The silence answers for me. Owen exhales slowly through his nose.
“You know what Dad used to say?”
I already hate this. Each mention still feels like a paper cut on my heart.
“What?”
“That when people are scared, they stop listening to what you say and start listening to what you do.”
The words land uncomfortably.
I remember Daisy in the rain. Daisy stepping back, hurt.
Then me… talking routes. Containment. Risk mitigation. Problem-solving. Because that’s what I do. I fix, control, and obsess. Protect the crew. Except she wasn’t asking for protection. She was asking to be chosen. I stare out at the road stretching endlessly ahead.
At cliffs glowing red against the morning light.
At uncertainty. At grief. At the shape of a life I suddenly don’t know how to hold. And somewhere between the silence and the miles and my brother quietly refusing to let me drown alone, I let tears fall.
“She thinks I care more about this than her.”
“And?” he says.
“And I don’t know if she’s wrong.”
That gets his attention. He turns his head to look at me for the first time.
“What?”
I don’t meet his gaze. “What if she’s right?”
I feel the vault of feelings and fears inside me unlock, and words start tumbling out. Like I’ve been holding them too long.
“What if I’m not actually someone who wants the truth?” I ask quietly. “What if I just… need there to be something?”
Owen says nothing.
Just listens.
“What if I built my whole life around chasing things because I couldn’t let go?
” My throat tightens unexpectedly. “Like… okay, cool, maybe Bigfoot exists.” I give a weak shrug.
“Or… maybe not. Maybe portals are just people getting lost. Maybe the Moth Man sightings are just people with astigmatism. And maybe I’m just some guy who got sad once and never figured out how to stop looking for meaning where there isn’t any. ”
The sentence hangs there. Ugly. Too honest.
“And Daisy…” Her name hurts. Still.
I stare down into cooling coffee.
“I keep wondering if she saw something in me before I did.”
The words come quieter now. Smaller.
“What if she saw I’m full of shit?” I ask.
Owen snorts. I glare at him.
“No, seriously,” I say with a sigh.
“I know,” he says. “That’s why it’s funny.”
“Helpful.”
He adjusts his grip on the steering wheel.
“You know what I think?” Owen asks.
“Do I want to?”
“I think she scared the hell out of you.”
I open my mouth. Close it again.
“Well, obviously,” I say, shaking my head.
“No, I think it’s more than that. She mattered,” he says simply.
“I know.”
“No.” Owen looks over. “I mean mattered.”
His eyes flick toward my mug.
“You made two coffees this morning, and I know the second sure as hell wasn’t for me.”
I freeze.
“No one was supposed to notice that.”
He nods. Wind shifts through pines outside the windows.
“You’re asking the wrong questions,” Owen says after a minute.
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“You keep asking if you care about her more than the hunt.”
My jaw tightens. “Right, and I still don’t know the answer because I’m allergic to sanity and happiness.”
He nods once, a small smile on his lips.
“Well, you’re not wrong there. But the question is whether the hunt—whether all of this—still matters without her.”
The answer should be obvious. This is my thing. My life. The thing I built everything around.