The Anchor in the Dirt
Her sobs had finally quieted by the time I eased her back just enough to see her face.
She looked like a beautiful ruin. Her eyes were rimmed with red, her cheeks were splotched and damp, and her hands were still trembling in her lap like they were searching for something to hold onto.
She looked younger and older all at once—the vibrant girl I used to know was still there, but she'd been buried under the weight of a secret she never should've had to carry alone.
Pregnant.
The word hung in the humid air between us like thick, acrid smoke, heavy and inescapable.
I'd known something was wrong from the second she stepped off that bus; I'd felt the tremor in her world at dinner and seen the cracks in her mask at the grocery store.
But I hadn't expected this. I hadn't expected her to fold into me as if I were the only thing keeping her from shattering into a thousand jagged pieces.
And the worst part? The part that made my blood run hot and cold at the same time? I wanted to be that for her. I wanted to be the one thing that held.
"Nick..."
Her voice had been so small, a fragile thread of sound. I don't want him to know. I don't want Brandon near me, near this baby.
Every protective instinct I possessed flared so hot it burned.
I'd spent years keeping my distance, drawing a hard line in the sand between myself and Anthony's little sister.
She was off-limits. She was a complication I didn't deserve.
But looking at her now, those rules felt like they belonged to a man I didn't recognize anymore.
This wasn't about what I wanted or what the town would say.
She was drowning, and I was the only one close enough to see the ripples.
I sat there with her in the dirt for a long time, the rough bark of a pine tree digging into my shoulder.
I kept rubbing slow, rhythmic circles against her back until her breathing finally evened out and the hitch in her chest subsided.
Part of me didn't want to let go. Part of me wanted to tell her she could lean on me for as long as it took for the world to stop spinning.
But another part—the part that still wore Anthony's trust like a suit of armor—knew how dangerous that thought was.
When she finally pulled away, she didn't look at me.
She kept her gaze fixed on her knees, muttering something about needing water, about getting back before Harper and Tessa started a search party.
I let her go, watching her walk back down the narrow path toward the lake.
Her shoulders were hunched, and she looked so small against the backdrop of the massive trees, like she was carrying the weight of the whole damn world on her back.
I stayed behind for a minute, running a hand over my jaw and trying to steady the storm inside me.
I'd been married once. I'd tried to build a life with a woman who wanted a version of me that was polished and polite—a man I could never be.
I'd promised myself I'd never try again.
I'd told myself I'd keep my head down, keep my hands busy with grease and steel, and let "love" belong to people who didn't break everything they touched.
But then Aubrey walked back into Willow Creek.
Now she was standing on the edge of something impossible, scared and carrying a life that had no place to land.
And I couldn't stop the truth that tore through me like a freight train.
I wanted to protect her. I wanted to protect that baby.
Not because I owed Anthony. Not because it was the "noble" thing to do.
Because somewhere deep down, it already felt like it was mine to protect.
Anthony's voice carried across the lake then—a booming, carefree laugh that snapped me back to reality with the force of a cold bucket of water. He had no idea. If he knew what she'd just told me—if he knew the way I was thinking about her right now—Christ, he'd tear me apart.
But I couldn't unhear it. I couldn't unknow the feel of her crying against my chest. And I sure as hell couldn't walk away from her now, even if staying meant burning every bridge I had.
I splashed the frigid lake water over my face until my skin felt numb, hoping the cold would constrict the blood vessels and hide the evidence of my breakdown.
It was a desperate, useless effort. When I looked at my reflection in a relatively still patch of water by the reeds, I saw the truth: my eyes were rimmed with a tell-tale, puffy red, my throat felt like it had been scraped with steel wool, and I looked utterly hollowed out.
I told myself I could pull it off. I'd spend the walk back practicing a casual shrug and a hollow laugh.
I'd sit back down on that faded quilt, listen to Anthony's boisterous, unfiltered jokes, and pretend the world hadn't just shifted on its axis in the dirt behind the pine trees.
I'd been performing since the moment I walked out of my apartment in the city—I was becoming a master of the mask. What was one more hour?
But the second I stepped out of the long shadows of the trees and into the unforgiving glare of the July sun, the mask shattered before I could even fix it in place.
Harper's sunglasses slid down the bridge of her nose as she stared at me, the sharp, teasing smirk she'd been wearing for a decade vanishing in an instant.
Beside her, Tessa sat up straighter, the softness of her expression sharpening into something clinical and deeply concerned.
"Aubrey?" Tessa's voice was a low, careful anchor.
"I'm fine," I lied, the word tasting like salt. I tugged at the hem of my tank top, my fingers trembling as I forced a brittle, paper-thin smile. "Just got a little too much sun. I needed some air, that's all."
Harper stood up, her hands landing on her hips in that stance she took when she was ready to fight for someone. "Too much sun? Babe, you look like you just walked out of a category five storm."
I swallowed hard, my eyes instinctively darting toward the dock. Anthony was still chest-deep in the water, shouting something to Ryan as they tossed a water-logged football back and forth. They were lost in the easy, uncomplicated brotherhood of a summer afternoon.
But Nick was standing exactly where I'd left him, his arms crossed over his chest, his gaze locked onto mine with a gravity that made my knees weak. He didn't move. He didn't wave. He just watched me, his gray eyes a silent testament to the secret we now shared. He knew.
The realization that I wasn't the only person carrying the weight of those two pink lines anymore was too much. My chest squeezed so tight I couldn't catch a full breath. My voice cracked, barely a whisper. "I just... I can't—"
Tessa was on her feet and at my side before I could even finish the thought. She slid a firm, supportive arm around my shoulders, her presence a shield between me and the prying eyes of the rest of the cove.
"Let's get you home," she said, her voice leaving no room for argument.
"Yeah," Harper added, her usual bravado replaced by a focused, protective energy. She slipped her sunglasses back into place as if the dark lenses could hide the fact that she was ready to cry for me. "Let's go before anyone else starts asking questions."
They didn't give me a chance to argue or try to salvage the day. Within minutes, they had our things packed into Harper's car. When Anthony shouted from the water, asking where we were headed, Harper just waved him off with a loud, practiced lie about "girl time and emergency ice cream."
Anthony, bless his oblivious heart, just laughed and went back to his game. But as we pulled away from the gravel lot, I looked back one last time. Nick's eyes followed the car until we disappeared around the bend, steady and unshakable.
The ride back was draped in a heavy, respectful silence, broken only by the hum of the tires against the blacktop. I stared out the window at the passing blur of green, clutching the hem of my shorts so hard my knuckles ached.
"You don't have to explain anything," Tessa said softly from the passenger seat, not turning around. "Not until you're ready to hear the words yourself."
Harper, for once, didn't have a snarky comeback. She reached into the center console, pulled out a half-melted, slightly squashed candy bar from the bottom of her bag, and pressed it into my hand. "Sugar fixes the surface stuff, Bree. It's temporary, but it's a start."
I let out a weak, watery laugh, the sound catching in my raw throat. "You guys didn't have to drag me away like that. I could have made it."
"Of course we did," Harper said firmly, her eyes fixed on the road. "You looked like you were about to break in half in front of God and everyone. You don't need to do that—not with Anthony watching, and definitely not with the Willow Creek gossip mill looking for a lead story."
Tessa nodded, her voice a calm, steady drumbeat. "You don't have to carry the mountain alone, Bree. Not anymore."
The candy bar felt sticky and warm against my palm. For the first time that day, I let myself lean back into the seat and actually exhale. My friends were holding the perimeter; they wouldn't let me fall apart where the world could watch.
But as the trees blurred past, I couldn't shake the phantom sensation of Nick's arms around me in the shadows. I couldn't forget the way the air had felt different in those few stolen minutes—the way it felt like, for the first time since the city, I wasn't the only one standing in the dark.