Chapter 14
kelsey
The strangled sound that tore me from sleep wasn’t human. It came from somewhere deep and primal, the kind of noise wounded animals made in the throes of death. My body knew before my brain caught up—muscles locking, lungs seizing, adrenaline flooding my veins.
Beside me, Teddy thrashed against the sheets, his breathing ragged and broken. Moonlight reflected off the snow-covered ground beyond the windows, enough for me to see his familiar features twisted into something haunted. His lips moved, forming words I couldn’t quite—
“Levi. No, no, please—”
My entire body went rigid.
This wasn’t a medical emergency. It wasn’t a heart attack or stroke or any of the things my sleep-addled brain had initially supplied. This was worse—something I recognized with the kind of bone-deep knowing that came from having lived through it once already.
It was the same dream that had plagued me for the past two and a half years.
The nightmare that had broken everything beyond repair.
The weight of our son’s body in Teddy’s arms. The paramedics who wouldn’t meet our eyes.
The terrible finality of hospital doors closing, of time running out, of all the words we’d never get to say.
My hand hovered in the air between us, fingers trembling. I should touch him—should pull him out of whatever hell his subconscious had dragged him into. But I couldn’t make myself move, couldn’t bridge those final inches.
“Teddy,” I managed, though it came out small and scared, nothing like the comforting, steady tone I’d been aiming for.
He didn’t respond, lost in whatever horror was playing out behind his eyelids. His chest heaved with each labored breath, sweat beading on his forehead despite the December chill seeping through the windows.
I forced myself to reach out, my fingers barely grazing his arm. “Teddy, wake up.”
He lurched upright so violently I nearly fell off the bed. His eyes—wild, unseeing—stared right through me, the same way they had that night. Like I wasn’t really there. Like maybe I’d never been there at all.
My ribcage tightened around my lungs, squeezing until each breath became a conscious effort. The room seemed to tilt on its axis, walls pressing closer while simultaneously stretching away. My ears filled with a roaring sound that had nothing to do with the wind outside.
No. Not now. Not here.
I slid from the mattress on legs that felt disconnected from my body, my hands already moving to smooth the rumpled sheets.
Fix it. Make it neat. Make it right.
If I could just get the corners tucked properly, if I could just straighten the comforter, maybe everything would stop spinning.
“Kels?” Teddy called out, his voice still rough with sleep.
I couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t risk seeing that devastation on his face again. Instead, I focused on the pillows, fluffing each one before positioning them against the headboard. One task, then another. That was how you survived. That was how you kept going when your body forgot how to work.
“Don’t.” There was something broken in the way he said it, making my hands still. “Don’t go quiet on me. Not now.”
The click of the bedside lamp made me flinch. Soft yellow light flooded the room, chasing away the shadows but somehow making everything feel more exposed. More raw.
I kept my back to him, continuing to adjust the already-perfect pillows. “You were just having a nightmare. It’s—it happens. I can make some tea or get you a glass of—”
“Kelsey,” he pleaded. “Baby, look at me.”
I couldn’t. If I looked at him, if I saw what I knew would be written across his face, the careful control I’d managed to maintain for the past three days would shatter. And once it broke, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to piece it back together again.
His hand caught my wrist as I reached for another pillow, gentle but insistent. “Please.”
The contact sent electricity shooting up my arm, not desire but something closer to panic. I jerked away, the movement too sharp, too telling.
“Christ,” he muttered, dragging both hands down his face. “We’re right back there, aren’t we? Back to you shutting down, and me not knowing how to reach you.”
Twelve seconds of silence.
Then twelve more.
The distance between us was growing with every breath I didn’t take, every word I didn’t say.
Twelve seconds would stretch into twelve minutes and then twelve miles—the same progression that had destroyed us the first time around.
The terrible arithmetic of loss, multiplying the space between us until we were strangers again. Maybe we were doomed to fall back into the same patterns as before, cursed to drift apart, no matter how hard we tried to hold it together.
“I’m not shutting down,” I said in a monotone. My hands had resumed their nervous movements, straightening things that didn’t need straightening, creating order where none existed.
“Then what do you call this? Because from where I’m sitting, looks like every other time you’ve—”
“Every other time I’ve what?” The words came out sharper than intended, defensive. “Every other time I’ve tried to help? Tried to make things better?”
“Every other time you’ve disappeared on me while being right fucking here.”
The accusation was too accurate to deny. I was falling back into old habits, retreating behind tasks and efficiency, using motion as armor against feeling. But knowing it and stopping it were two different things.
“Don’t shut me out,” he said, quieter now but no less desperate. “Not tonight. Not after everything we’ve—please, Kels. Just... sit. Talk to me. Anything but this.”
My throat closed around whatever response I might have made.
Because what could I say? That watching him relive our son’s death had triggered every carefully buried instinct to run?
That I was drowning in guilt and shame so thick I could taste it?
That if I stopped moving, stopped fixing, stopped pretending to be useful, he’d realize that the real Kelsey was just like that reindeer with the wonky antler back at the other cabin?
Not worth repairing. Not worth saving. Not worth loving.
The sheets were perfect now—corners sharp enough to please a drill sergeant.
“I’ll get you some water,” I said, already turning toward the door, desperate for even a thirty-second reprieve from the weight of his gaze.
I made it approximately two steps before he was up, his hands catching my shoulders, spinning me back to face him. Not rough, but insistent. Determined.
“No,” he said, and there was something wild in his eyes now, pain manifesting as frustration. “Watched you run this exact same play a hundred fucking times before, and I’m not letting you run away. We’re gonna stand right here and actually talk for once in our goddamn lives.”
“Let go of me,” I croaked, my stomach churning with dread.
“Not until you tell me why you do this. Why you always—” He stopped, jaw clenching like he was trying to crush the words into something less devastating. “After Levi died, you wouldn’t even look at me.”
“That’s not—”
“It is,” he cut me off, years of hurt finally spilling over.
“You stopped saying his name! Our son’s name, Kels.
Like, if we didn’t talk about him, it wouldn’t be real.
And when I tried—Christ, when I tried to bring him up, you’d shut down.
Go reorganize the pantry or scrub the baseboards or bake another fucking casserole nobody wanted to eat. ”
My shoulders tensed beneath his hands because once again, Teddy was right. I had done all those things. Was still doing them.
“But I never stopped—” He broke off and cleared his throat, his grip on my shoulders loosening but not releasing.
When he spoke again, his voice was thick with the emotions he was struggling to hold back.
“I never stopped wanting you. Even when you pulled away from me, like you couldn’t stand the thought of me touching you.
Even when you were at that gym seven days a week, changing everything about yourself like you were trying to become someone else entirely.
I still wanted you. Still loved you. Still do, if I’m being honest.”
My throat burned with unshed tears, but he wasn’t done yet. The dam that had broken, and everything we’d carefully avoided for years, came pouring out.
“I didn’t just lose Levi that night. Lost you, too. Watched you slip away piece by piece and blamed myself. Every fucking day, I blamed myself for not waking up sooner. For not being able to save him. And I thought—I thought you blamed me too.”
“So you ran to the club,” I said with a brittle laugh, needing to push back against the version of truth he was serving. “Where everything’s sunshine and rainbows, and the women are always happy to see you.”
“What women?” he asked, his voice deadly calm.
“Oh, please. You can drop the act. We’re divorced now, no sense in acting like you weren’t getting your dick wet—”
Teddy pressed me against the door, his hand locking around my jaw to hold me in place.
I’d gone too far, struck too close to something raw.
“Told you before, I never cheated on you,” he said, adopting a carefully controlled tone.
I searched his hazel eyes for signs of deception but found only raw honesty and a pain that mirrored my own.
“One woman,” he growled, baring his teeth. “Been with one woman my entire life, baby. You. Never touched anyone else, never wanted to. Even after the papers were signed, even when I couldn’t stand to be in the same state as you because it hurt too fucking much—there was only you.”
“But you were always gone,” I whispered, hating how meek my voice sounded. “Every night. Sometimes you wouldn’t come home until—”