Chapter 11
Greyson
Tires over gravel cut through the woods like a whisper I don’t deserve to hear.
It’s faint—barely there beneath the steady hush of the mountain—but my brain catches it anyway, hooks it, holds on like it’s been waiting for the sound all morning.
I close my eyes.
Exhale.
And I pull my mask over my head, preparing myself, like it’s fucking armor.
Not the kind that stops bullets.
The kind that stops feelings.
Because if I don’t do something with my hands right now, I’m going to do something stupid—like run down the drive and tell her to stay.
Like admit that last night wasn’t just heat.
That it woke something up in me I thought I’d buried for good.
I’m in my workshop, where the air smells like cedar and scorched wood and the faint metallic tang of tools.
The stove in the corner throws out steady heat.
My table is covered in clamps and measuring squares and sandpaper.
Controlled chaos.
My kind of chaos.
Creation is the only thing that’s ever made sense.
I flip the face shield down properly, then lift the wood-burning razor—heavy, familiar—bringing the heated tip to the enormous slab of maple laid across the workbench.
I use a variety of cutting implements and pyrography pens for my art when I’m working with wood.
This piece is a table I’ve been working on for weeks.
Big. Bold. A statement piece.
The kind of thing my agent keeps telling me will sell for obscene amounts of money if I’ll just let her market it.
Scale has been the obsession lately—taking the intimate designs I used to etch into belts and small boxes and blowing them up into something that can’t be ignored.
Tables. Bookshelves. Headboards.
Things that live in a room and make people stop talking when they see them.
I decided months ago I was going to start a line.
Hand-carved, crafted, etched, finished.
My hands, my work, my rules.
And for months it’s been willows.
Always willows.
Branches bending. Roots anchored. Leaves like whispers. A signature I never meant to become a beacon.
Sunsets too.
The mountain landscape in the background.
That’s what I remember from being a kid up here—the way my grandfather pointed at the trees and said, See? Even when they bend, they don’t break.
Like it was a lesson. Like it was a warning.
But for a while now it’s been willows.
Willows became a passion.
A message.
A brand, apparently, even if I never asked for it.
But not today.
Today, I know I’m starting something different.
The tip of the burner hovers above the wood, heat shimmering faintly in the air.
I stare at the blank surface, waiting for the first line to come to me.
I don’t move.
Because the tires are still crunching along my drive in the distance.
Because I can feel her leaving like it’s a physical thing.
Like a hand sliding out of mine.
Because even from here, even with the mask and the workshop and the tools, I can’t outrun the fact that she was in my bed this morning.
That she was warm and soft and breathing quietly beside me like she belonged there.
That I kissed the sweet tattoo on her shoulder like I had a right to.
I don’t.
And that’s the point.
I tell myself I did the right thing.
I tell myself it’s better this way.
I tell myself she’ll be relieved once she’s back on paved roads and cell service and civilization.
Once the story becomes something she can file away as a wild detour—a storm, a bear, a mountain man, a night she’ll remember when she’s bored or lonely or nostalgic.
She’ll go back to her life.
I’ll go back to mine.
And nothing changes.
That’s how it’s supposed to go.
A few minutes pass.
I wait for the sound I’m pretending I don’t need.
The closing of a car door.
The final punctuation mark.
When it comes—distant but unmistakable—my chest tightens so hard it feels like my ribs shift.
I swallow against it.
Then I lower the burner to the wood and make the first stroke.
A line.
Smooth. Controlled. Deliberate.
My hand doesn’t shake.
My hands never shake when I’m working.
That’s the mercy of it.
This is the one place my brain goes quiet enough to behave.
I draw a curve.
Another.
And another.
The scale is enormous compared to the reality.
But more and more. I keep adding until it takes shape.
Petals forming with each slow, darkened pass.
The scent of scorched maple rises, sharp and clean, grounding me in the present.
Outside, the truck’s engine fades.
The gravel sound disappears into the trees.
She’s gone.
My heart squeezes again, harder this time, like it’s trying to convince me to chase her.
I press down, tracing the next petal deeper, letting the burn bite into the grain.
Because this is what I do instead of begging.
This is what I do instead of calling out.
I burn my feelings into wood and pretend it’s art—not confession.
The shape grows under my hand, line by line, petal by petal.
And even before it’s finished, I already know what it will be.
Not a willow.
Not a sunset.
Something brighter.
Something that turns toward the light even when it’s surrounded by shadows.
I keep working until the outline is unmistakable, until the wood holds the shape like it was always meant to.
I pause, breath loud inside the mask, and stare down at what I’ve done.
A new signature.
A new problem.
Because I didn’t start something different today by accident.
I started it because of her.
And no matter how fast I shove her off my mountain, she’s already lodged herself somewhere under my skin—rooted deep, stubborn as winter.
“Fuck,” I growl.
It’s right there—stark and raw and impossibly bright against the pale grain—spreading across the entire three-foot surface of the table like a confession I never meant to make.
The petals flare outward, bold and unashamed.
The center is dark and dense, burned deep, the lines tight as if I tried to control it and failed.
And the damn thing looks like it’s staring back at me.
I pace the length of the workshop, boots thudding on the plank floor, hands flexing like I can shake the feeling out.
Like I can outrun it.
I can’t.
Because it’s too late to change it now.
It’s mocking me.
Reminding me.
I turn, taking my mask off and dropping it on the floor, and I face it.
Clara’s sunflower.