Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
Jake
I HEAR A vehicle pull into the driveway and glance out the window.
Hattie trots to the door, tail wagging. I follow her outside, and we meet Sawyer just as she’s getting out of her car.
She smiles, and there’s something lighter about her this morning. Something different.
“Hey,” I say.
“Hey.” She bends to rub Hattie’s head. “I should’ve called.”
“You know you don’t have to.” I gesture toward the house. “Want a cup of coffee?”
“I’ve had enough for today. I’ve been up since four.” She pauses. “Can we talk?”
“Of course.” I nod toward the back field. “Walk with me to check the berries?”
We cross the yard, unhurried. The air is warm and soft, the kind of morning that feels like a new beginning.
“It’s beautiful,” she says.
“Perfect,” I agree.
We reach the field, and I pluck a ripe berry, hand it to her. “First one of the season.”
“They’ll all be ready soon?”
“Within a few days. I’ll be out here every morning.”
“I’d love to help,” she says.
“I’d love that too.”
She’s quiet. I let the silence stretch, knowing she’ll speak when she’s ready.
“I had the dream again,” she says finally. “The one where I leave here and go back to New York. I woke up shaking.”
I take her hand. Squeeze once.
“There’s something I need to confess,” she says. “When I came here... I wasn’t planning to stay. I came to say goodbye. To everything. To life, I think. I didn’t want to keep going. I thought the world was too broken. That I was too broken.”
I absorb this admission, realizing I am not shocked by it. “I suspected,” I say.
She looks at me, her eyes full with tears. “You helped me remember what life can be. You helped me believe in good things again.”
“You’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever known, Sawyer. What you’ve seen, it would have broken anyone. But you didn’t stay broken.”
She looks up, meets my gaze.
“Can I tell you one of my truths?” I ask.
She nods.
“I lost everything, too. My career. My sense of who I was. But if all of that led me back to you, then I wouldn’t change a thing.”
Fresh tears pool in her eyes.
“I never thought life would feel this way again. But somehow, it seems... possible.”
I reach out and brush a tear from her cheek.
“I love you, Sawyer. However this looks, whatever pace it takes—we’ll walk it together.”
She places her hands on my chest. “I love you.” She kisses me. Soft, then deeper.
And everything shifts.
In the middle of the ripening strawberry field, Hattie barks once, tail wagging fast and hard.
Sawyer laughs and reaches down to rub her head. “We’ll share him, okay?”
We stand there, arms wrapped around each other, surrounded by the slow, steady promise of the harvest ahead.
The morning is bright.
And everything, pretty much everything, even in this scarred world we call home, feels possible.