Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Sawyer
IT’S JUST AFTER eleven when I pull into Jake’s driveway.
I cut the engine but don’t get out right away. I sit there, staring at the front porch, wondering if this was a mistake.
But then the door opens, and Hattie bounds out, tail wagging. Jake follows, smiling.
I climb out of the Jeep and rub Hattie’s back. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Jake says. “I thought you might’ve changed your mind.”
“I almost did.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.” He nods toward the lake. “Come on.”
“So tell me about this plan of yours,” I say as we walk across the grass.
“The best way to hike Smith Mountain is to take the Sea-Doo across the lake and beach it at the base. Then we hike from there.”
“Have you done it before?”
“Plenty,” he says. “Hattie’s practically the trail guide. She keeps an eye out for snakes.”
“Snakes?” I repeat, not hiding my alarm.
He grins. “We probably won’t see any. But yeah, copperheads, rattlesnakes… they’re around. I’ll lead the way.”
“I could rent us a helicopter, you know,” I offer. “Have us lowered onto the top.”
Jake laughs. “It’s the climb that makes you strong, not the view from the top.”
I hadn’t told him why I really wanted to do this. I hadn’t mentioned the dream. Just texted him this morning to see if he was free.
Now I wonder if I was crazy.
At the dock, he hands me a slim life jacket and puts a bright pink one on Hattie.
“She can swim like a fish,” he says, “but I like her to wear one when we’re in deep water. Just in case.”
“She looks adorable.”
“Pink suits her,” he says with a smile. He slips into a black life jacket, starts the engine, and motions for me to climb on. “You next. Hattie’ll ride up front with me.”
I get on, settle behind him, and watch as Hattie climbs on like a seasoned pro.
Jake lowers the Sea-Doo into the water and idles away from the dock. I grab the strap at the back of his vest, unsure where else to hold on. When he accelerates, I instinctively wrap my hands around his sides.
The lake stretches out, deep blue and wide beneath a clear sky. A pontoon boat drifts to our left, a wake-surfer carves waves to our right, music blaring from onboard speakers.
Jake navigates toward the open water. Hattie lifts her nose to the sky, ears flapping in the wind. She looks like pure joy.
Ten minutes later, we slow near a sandy stretch at the base of Smith Mountain.
“This place is beautiful,” I say.
“It really is,” Jake agrees. “I’ve been to Lake Como, and yeah, it’s stunning, but Smith Mountain has its own kind of magic.”
He guns the engine just enough to push us onto the beach, then cuts it. Hattie leaps off and takes off down the shoreline to sniff.
“Ladies first,” Jake says, motioning for me to climb off. He follows, then pulls our bags from the storage compartment.
I’m wearing shorts, hiking boots, and a small backpack. Jake has a bigger one slung over his.
“The water’s still cold,” I say, testing it with my toe.
“It won’t warm up until June. I usually swim by April, but with a wetsuit.”
We sit and lace up our boots. I catch myself noticing how strong his legs are, athletic, solid.
“What do you do to stay in shape?” I ask.
“I run. Mostly trail runs. Clears my head. How about you?”
“Not much lately. This might be a wake-up call.”
“You’ll make it,” he says, standing and adjusting his pack.
A small part of me wants to tell him I’m not sure. But another part, faint, but alive, wants to try anyway.
He leads the way to the trail. Hattie bounds ahead, tail high.
“How about I go first,” Jake says. “Just in case we do meet a snake.”
“Yes, please.”
“You know I’m never letting you live that down, right?”
I roll my eyes. “I had a feeling.”
I smile then. It feels strange. A lightness pressing up against the weight of so much darkness. But I let it come. And it feels good. Like the first rays of sun at dawn.
The climb starts steep. I follow him step by step, already regretting my severely lagging fitness level.
“You good?” he calls back.
“Still with you.”
The trail zigzags through underbrush and trees. After twenty minutes, we pause on a rocky outcrop. Jake pulls out a bottle of water for Hattie, who laps it up gratefully. Then he hands me one.
“Thanks,” I say, drinking deeply.
“Did you ever hike this mountain growing up?”
“No,” I say. “We talked about it, but never did. I know Tommy would’ve loved it.”
“Yeah,” Jake says, brushing something invisible from his shorts. “He would have.”
“It’s okay to talk about him,” I say gently. “I miss talking about him.”
Jake nods slowly. “I don’t know why it makes me feel so guilty. But it does.”
“My mom never got over it,” I say. “And I understand. Losing a child…” I pause. “It rewrites everything.”
“Your parents created that scholarship in his name, right?”
“They did. There was a settlement. They didn’t want money to be the end of his story.”
“They were good people,” Jake says quietly.
“They were. It’s nice to talk about them with someone who knew them.”
We sit in the sun a while longer. It filters through the trees in golden shards. Then Jake says, “Why did you move to New York?”
I take a moment. “I don’t know. Maybe guilt. Maybe I needed to become someone else. I think I was trying to run from the old me.”
“I liked the old you,” Jake says, his voice low.
I glance at him. Our eyes meet and hold. I don’t look away.
“Did you feel at home there?” he asks.
“No,” I admit. “Not even a little. But I stayed. Almost ten years.”
“That’s a long time to stay somewhere that doesn’t feel like home.”
“It is,” I say. “I got caught up in the work. The pace. The routine. I stopped asking myself if I liked it.”
“Are you glad you left?”
“I wish it had happened differently. But now that I’m gone, I wonder how I lasted so long.”
Jake nods. “City life never suited me. Nature’s what helps me stay centered.”
“It’s easy to forget the world’s chaos out here.”
“Exactly. But I think that’s part of the problem—how much noise we let in. The news. Social media. It’s designed to keep us anxious.”
“They know we’ll stick around for the next crisis.”
“It’s no wonder people forget how to breathe.”
“I’ve been guilty of that,” I say. “Forgetting to be here—in the only moment we actually have.”
Jake looks at me sharply, concern flashing in his eyes. I want to reassure him. I want to say I’m fine.
But I don’t.
Because I don’t know if I am.
I hop down from the rock. “We better keep going if we’re going to make the top.”
Jake rises and slings the backpack over his shoulders. “Let’s go then.”
We climb in silence. Hattie moves beside him, still energized. I follow, steady, even as the silence stretches.
Eventually, Jake hands me another bottle of water. We drink. Take a rest. Walk some more.
After nearly an hour, we reach the top. Hattie plops down and stretches out, panting.
The view is breathtaking.
The lake sprawls out below us, its waters silver and endless.
Docks look like toothpicks. Houses like dollhouses.
In the distance, a field glows green, horses grazing like flecks of shadow.
For the first time in a long time, the beauty doesn’t feel like something happening far away from me. I actually feel present inside it.
Jake offers his hand as I scramble over a final outcrop. I take it, and for a moment, I’m pressed against his chest.
Something shifts.
I don’t know what.
But it feels important.
He brushes the back of his hand across my cheek, then slips his arm around my shoulders and turns me toward the lake.
“It’s like looking down from heaven,” I whisper.
“Yeah,” he says. “It is.”
We stand there, quiet, taking it in. Then he looks at me, steady, unguarded. I feel the pull between us, the quiet knowing that he sees me and accepts me completely. Even the cracks in my foundation. The failures. The uncertainties. And I’m grateful, so deeply grateful, to be seen as I am.
“Is it okay if I kiss you, Sawyer?”
I place my hand on his chest, feeling the warm strength of him. I nod once, hear myself whisper, “It’s more than okay.”
He takes his time with it, studying my face with an intensity that stirs emotion deep inside me and makes it impossible to look anywhere else.
And suddenly, I realize I have been waiting for this my entire adult life.
Wanting to be wanted by this man who snagged my heart as a boy a long, long time ago.
He leans in, cupping my jaw as though I might vanish if he isn’t careful. He settles his mouth against mine, a whisper of a kiss, but it’s enough to unravel me. Heat sparks through, so swift and consuming my knees nearly give way.
I sink into him, my fingers anchoring in his shirt. The kiss deepens, still tender but no longer careful, like a promise breaking open after years of being locked up. The air around us disappears, the only sound a flock of geese flying over the lake below us.
There’s no mistaking it now. This isn’t a moment borrowed from the past. It’s something new, something that carries both memory and possibility, as if all the years between then and now have been leading us here.
And I know this: being kissed by Jake is everything I imagined and more.
When he pulls back, he brushes the back of his hand across my cheek.
I look up at him, not even trying to hide what I’m feeling. I don’t think I could if I wanted to. “Do you believe people are meant to meet again, Jake?”
“I do now,” he says, his voice low and intimate.
“I never thought I’d see you again. And yet… I think it wasn’t meant to happen until now,” I say, hoping he hears the truth in my voice.
He reaches out, touches my face. “Yeah,” he says. “I believe that. And I also believe we weren’t finished. What we had back then… it never left. Not for me.”
“Not for me either,” I say, the admission out before I can think better of it. “When I got here, I didn’t want to keep going. I couldn’t see anything good ahead. But maybe there’s still something left. Maybe I’m meant to find out what it is.”
Jake looks at me, eyes full of quiet emotion. “I don’t know what comes next. But I’m grateful. And if you choose to stay…”
He lets the words hang, layered with meaning.
A part of me wants to retreat, afraid of wanting anything at all. But another part, small but steady, stays open. Just open. And for now, that feels like enough.
I reach out and cover his hand with mine. Squeeze once.
Words aren’t necessary.
Possibility is enough for now. And for me, a reason to go on.