Chapter 3
Blakelyn
The water on my feet dries faster than the sting of his words from earlier.
He told me he lost his wife and daughter to the river.
How do I deal with that?
How does he?
By the time I get back to my porch, my skin still feels too tight. Like it doesn’t fit me. Like it’s trying to contain something it wasn’t made for.
His voice after he pulled me out of the river earlier still rings in my ears. It’s replaying over and over and over.
“Are you out of your goddamn mind?”
The words weren’t even the sharpest part—it was the way he said them. Like I was nothing but a danger to myself. Like my presence alone puts him at risk.
Maybe it does. He lost his wife and child, and I foolishly went into the river alone.
I didn’t expect the pull of the current. It took everything in me to stay upright.
What if I’d fallen? I can swim, but I can’t fight a river and hope to win.
Going in that way was idiotic.
Walking inside, I sink onto the couch and wrap both hands around my knees. I’m not shivering. It’s still about eighty-four degrees outside. Seventy-six in here. But I feel… exposed. Like he saw straight through me and didn’t like what he found.
I wasn’t trying to make a statement. Wasn’t trying to provoke him. I just needed the quiet. The stillness.
He said my name. Just now.
Just once. Quiet. Barely audible over the chirp of crickets and the hush of the river below. But I heard it. “Night, Blakelyn.” And the way it landed in my chest was nothing short of a damn collapse.
I don’t even try to undress or wash my face or pretend I’m doing anything other than falling apart. I slide off the couch until I’m sitting on the floor, knees pulled tight to my chest, arms wrapped around them like maybe I can hold myself together.
It’s not that he told me he lost them.
It’s how he told me.
My wife and my daughter.
Five words. No elaboration. No dramatics. He didn’t ask for pity. I don’t think he wants that. I don’t think he meant to tell me at all. It was just a brutal kind of truth that settled between us like dust on old wood.
And the worst part is, I don’t know what to do with it.
I didn’t cry though I wanted to. I didn’t hug him. I didn’t even say I was sorry. I don’t think he would have wanted me to.
I just sat there and touched the back of his hand. So still. So quiet. My chest aching. I wanted to say a thousand things, but I don’t know if any of them would matter.
What do I say? How do you comfort someone who suffers that kind of loss?
So, I said nothing. Absolutely nothing.
I didn’t want to make it worse.
I didn’t trust myself not to cross some invisible line we haven’t drawn yet.
I don’t even know why I care so much.
I don’t know why he matters so much.
I feel too much.
Because of him… Gruene.
With his chiseled, scarred jaw, eyes like stormy water, and hands that fix things even through the scars… he’s beautiful. He’s broken.
He’s not gentle. But he’s not cruel, either.
I cannot stop thinking about the way his pinky twitched when mine brushed over it. That small, sharp, electric thing that happened in the space between stillness and silence.
I felt it.
I know he did, too.
But what does it mean? Can it mean anything?
I fall asleep on the floor.
My back hurts like hell when I wake up, and there’s a stiff ache in my left hip where it pressed against the uneven wood slats all night, but I don’t move right away. I stare at the pale light filtering through the window and let my brain ease back into my body.
There’s something different about this morning. Not in the air or the light or even the way the birds are louder than they should be.
It’s me.
Something’s shifted… inside. A splintered place that doesn’t sting quite the same.
I’m still scared. Still learning how to breathe without checking behind me every five seconds. But there’s something else now, too. Something heavier. Something sharp and slow and warm.
Hope.
I recognize it because it’s unfamiliar. Because it doesn’t sit right yet.
But it’s here and it has his voice. His name. His quiet. His storms.
Gruene.
The water looks different today. Not brighter. Not clearer. Just deeper.
I stand at the edge of the dock with a towel in one hand and a bottle of sunscreen in the other, staring down into the river like it might offer something up.
It won’t, but I come anyway. Because this is where he comes, morning and night.
Where he floats. Where he breathes. Where he forgets or remembers or just exists.
And it’s beautiful and serene. Even in its danger.
It’s peaceful.
I don’t see him yet. It’s early. The sun is still low enough that it slants sideways through the trees, making the water shimmer like glass about to break.
Lowering myself to the dock, I sit cross-legged. I spread the towel beneath me before uncapping the sunscreen. The smell is familiar—coconut, citrus, something chemical and sweet—and I wince before I can stop myself.
Tyler always liked when I wore this brand. He said it made me smell fuckable .
Choking on the unwelcome memory, I drop the bottle to the dock, my hands trembling just enough to piss me off.
Not now. Not here. He’s not here.
I whisper it under my breath along with the thoughts within my head.
“He’s not here.” But my body doesn’t believe me. My skin still tightens the way it did every time I’d hear his keys at the front door. My stomach still knots like it’s waiting for impact from his fists. My throat still closes like I need permission to speak. To breathe. To… exist.
Even now. Even with the quiet peace of this place wrapped around me like a shield.
That’s the part of abuse no one talks about.
The after. The waiting. The fear that turns into habit.
The trauma that builds a nest in your ribs and refuses to move out.
I hate it.
I hate him.
But more than anything, I hate that I still let him live inside me when I’ve already left.
The dock creaks behind me, and I turn my head… too fast. The fear still lives inside me.
It’s not him. Not Tyler.
Of course, it’s not him. He doesn’t know where I am.
It’s Gruene.
I release the breath I didn’t realize I was holding.
He’s barefoot. Shirtless. His dark hair is damp, like he’s already been to the river once this morning or he just got out of a shower.
There’s a towel slung over one shoulder and a vintage green Stanley thermos in his hand.
He’s looking at me like I’m real. Like I’m not a ghost or a problem or an interruption. Just a woman on our shared dock.
This is new.
“Hey,” he quietly says.
He spoke first. He never speaks first.
My throat tightens as I respond, “Hey.”
He steps closer toward the edge, but he doesn’t sit down right away. He just studies me like he’s figuring out how close he should get.
“You good?” He asks, really looking at me.
I’m a little unnerved, but I nod.
His eyes narrow as though he doesn’t buy it, but he doesn’t say anything.
I wouldn’t either. I don’t.
Swallowing, I force myself to breathe evenly. Not because I’m scared of him. I’m not. That alone should scare me. It doesn’t. But because everything about him affects me. That’s what’s terrifying.
He settles beside me on the edge of the towel, close, but not touching. The air between us crackles like it did last night, but softer now. Warmer.
“You sleep?” he asks.
I nod. “Eventually.”
“I’m sorry… that I just left.” He’s staring at the water as though trying to decode the secrets of the universe within its depths.
I glance at him, my breath catching at his majestic profile. Somehow, I manage to say, “It’s okay. I didn’t know what to say anyway. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing.”
“You didn’t.”
I pick at the edge of the towel. “I didn’t say anything. ”
He shrugs. “What would you say? I’m sorry .” He laughs but it’s harsh. “Everyone says that. But why? It’s just a response. You stayed.”
His words crack something open in me I didn’t know was still locked up tight. No one has ever said that to me like it mattered. Like my staying, even in silence, meant something.
“I didn’t know if you wanted me to.” I whisper.
“I did.” His voice is quiet. Rough. Honest.
I turn to face him, our knees almost touching.
He watches me the way he did last night—like he’s afraid of saying too much… or not enough. Like he doesn’t trust his mouth, doesn’t know what to say or even if he wants to say anything, but wants to try anyway.
“I didn’t think I’d ever say it out loud,” he says suddenly.
I blink at him. “Say what?”
“That they’re gone.”
My chest aches as I say, “You don’t—you don’t have to tell me more, Gruene.”
He’s quiet for a long time, then he sighs, still not looking at me. He says, “I want to.”
I hold my breath as he leans back on his palms, his eyes on the early morning horizon. “It was raining. Bad. The rainstorms here can be brutal. I was driving. Molly—my wife—was pissed because we were late. I was trying to make up time on the back roads. Stupid. Fast. Reckless.”
He swallows hard.
“Aubree—my daughter—she was in the backseat. Singing. God, she never shut up. It used to drive me crazy. I’d give anything to hear it again.”
I press my fist to my mouth.
“I hit the curve. The tires slipped on the pavement. I tried to turn into the skid, but it was too late. I screamed. Molly screamed. Aubree cried in fear. We— we went over the guardrail. Into the river.” His voice doesn’t waver.
It doesn’t need to. “I remember hitting. I was thrown out. Water was everywhere. The river. The rain. Cold and black and fast. It happened so fast. And then—nothing.”
I reach for him before I realize I’m moving. My fingers close around his. He lets me take his hand. His fist is clenched. His fingers are cold.
“It was an accident. A tragic accident.” I whisper.
He doesn’t answer right away. Then he snaps, “It was my fault. I was driving. I couldn’t get to them.”
My eyes burn and my throat is thick as I shake my head, “No, Gruene. It was an accident. It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t cause the rain. You shouldn’t blame yourself.”