Chapter 29
Twenty-Nine
The rest of the day blurred into something that felt almost like a dream.
The water became our playground. We floated and splashed and explored each other's bodies—then, when exhaustion set in and we could barely keep our heads above water, we sprawled out naked on a sun-warmed rock, eating the food Dean had stolen from the kitchen.
He told me stories of summers past, memories so vivid they almost seemed too perfect to be real—sneaking out with Mason and nearly getting caught skinny-dipping with some girls from a neighboring property.
Or the time he and Thomas tried to build a raft from spare lumber and rope, only to sink less than ten feet from shore.
I laughed until my stomach hurt, and when I caught him looking at me—wet hair slicked back, eyes glowing with unguarded joy—I realized this was it.
This was what life was about. Little moments.
Fragments of time that seemed insignificant until you shared them with the right person.
Later, after we’d dressed, he stretched out across a patch of grass, his head resting comfortably in my lap.
The trees dappled sunlight across his features, as though trying to memorize him for me, and I found myself doing the same.
His lashes lay like shadows against his cheeks, his mouth soft, parted—lips that had kissed every inch of me only hours earlier.
For a moment I thought he’d fallen asleep, his face angled into my legs as though this had always been home.
My fingers moved before I could stop them, brushing a strand of hair from his forehead, smoothing it back into his hairline.
His lashes fluttered, then lifted, and when his eyes met mine, something in him softened in a way that made my breath catch.
“Sorry,” I whispered, jerking my hand back. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
But before I could retreat, he caught my hand in his, threading his fingers through them as though to keep me there.
My chest tightened as he turned my palm over, tracing the delicate lines.
The memory of his grandmother’s voice flickered in me—her thumb pressed to these same lines as she told me what each one meant.
As if he’d thought it too, his finger swept across the break she’d shown me.
Slowly, he opened his own palm, revealing the same mirrored line.
“We match,” he whispered, almost like he didn’t want the trees to overhear.
My throat ached, but I nodded. “We do.”
Then he turned my hand again, the sunlight glinting off the ring on my finger. His thumb brushed over the band with a kind of weight that made the air shift—gentle one moment, heavy the next—as his gaze lifted back to me.
“What was your childhood like?” he asked suddenly.
The question snagged in my chest, and I paused for a second.
“What childhood?” I finally stuttered, trying to make it sound light, but my voice sounded strained even to my own ears.
Something shifted in his expression, and he pushed up on one arm, eyes searching mine. “You must have stories. You and John—I bet he got into loads of trouble.”
A humorless laugh slipped from my mouth, and I looked out toward the trees as though the shadows could absorb the ache that suddenly filled my chest. “John and I were only in the same home for a few months,” I stated.
For a long time that was it. I went silent. My mind flashed with bits and pieces of a childhood that looked so much different than Dean’s. One where I was alone a lot. Trying to fit in. Trying to matter to anyone with a heartbeat.
I thought Dean had given up on me, that he’d forgotten his question altogether, but when my eyes locked on his again, I found his expression soft, as though he’d been there the whole time, patiently waiting. “Go on,” he urged.
“Honestly, I don’t have many memories,” I began.
“And the ones I do have are mostly of getting into trouble.” I plucked a blade of grass from the earth, folded it in my fingers, over and over again.
“But the thing is, I always tried to be good. Did my chores. Followed every rule. But…” My voice scraped raw against my throat.
“By my tenth placement, I gave up. I stopped trying to make them love me.”
I took a deep breath, as though what I was sharing was more like a confession than a story. “I never graduated, was always hustling, always too much, always a handful,” I whispered.
Dean slid his hand beneath my chin, tilting my face up until I couldn’t look anywhere but at him. His eyes burned into mine, fierce and unwavering.
“You were never too much,” he said in a low voice. “You were just asking the wrong people.”
The words cracked something open in me—like I was being given permission to exist for the very first time. “Wise words,” I whispered.
His knuckles grazed lightly along my cheek, the back of his hand tender against my skin, grounding me in a way words never could. “I’d like to take credit for them, but those words are my grandmother’s.”
A smile tugged at my mouth, a feeble attempt to hide the ache in my chest. “Your grandmother’s a wise woman.”
“She is. A little quirky, but she always had the right words when I needed them.” He hopped to his feet, offering me a hand that pulled me up to stand. “Speaking of my family—if we don’t get back soon, I’m pretty sure they’ll send out a search party.”
I laughed softly, tucking my head against his shoulder as though reality wasn’t something I was ready to face.
We walked back to the lodge in silence, our steps slow at first, as if neither of us wanted to disturb the fragile magic we’d built in the trees.
The trail wound on for miles, and for a while it felt like we were suspended outside of time––the world narrowing to only the crunch of pine needles beneath our feet and the fading warmth of the sun on our shoulders.
As the path stretched on, I felt the air shift. The light slanted lower through the pines, shadows lengthening, and with each bend of the trail, reality pressed closer. Voices began to carry faintly on the breeze, distant enough to remind us that the world was waiting.
Dean squeezed my hand, and I forced myself to smile, but unease had already started to coil low in my stomach. I couldn’t shake the feeling that what waited for us at the end of the trail wasn’t the same world we’d left at the lake.
When the lodge finally came into view, a flash of red and blue lights cut through the trees, washing over the wood like a warning.
The air was different. Tense. Buzzing with something sharp. Panicked voices carried from the entryway of the lodge, rising and falling with frantic beats. My stomach knotted as Dean’s hand broke from mine, and he started to run.
Inside, there was chaos. People were crowding near the hall, voices overlapping, faces pale and panicked. And then I saw her—Blair being wheeled out on a gurney, her skin ashen, her shorts bloodied.
For a second, everything tilted sideways.
“Blair!” Dean’s voice cracked as he shoved through the crowd. “What happened? What the hell is going on?”
No one answered him. Aunts, cousins, Trisha—they all avoided his gaze, their faces tight with something unspoken.
The EMTs didn’t pause, didn’t explain—they just rushed her toward the ambulance, pushing her in through the open doors.
Dean lunged forward, but Mason caught his arm. “Dean—calm down!”
“What the hell is happening?” he snapped, his voice edged with panic. “Is she hurt?”
But Mason only shook his head, his expression grim.
The siren wailed as the ambulance doors slammed shut, and soon it was pulling away from the lodge, heading toward the gates.
Dean spun on his heel and began running toward our cabins.
“Dean, wait!” I yelled.
He turned around, and the torment I saw in his expression was my undoing. My knees felt weak, but I somehow held myself upright. “I’m going with you.”
Ten minutes later we were in his jeep, gravel spitting beneath the tires as we sped down the winding mountain road.
Memories splintered through me—unwanted, unrelenting.
The sterile walls of a clinic. The sharp scent of antiseptic. The crushing weight of being nineteen and alone, holding myself together with trembling hands pressed to my stomach in the dark.
I blinked hard, but the sting of those memories clung, threading themselves into me until I couldn’t tell where the past ended, and the present began. By the time we reached the hospital, my body felt wrung out.
The automatic doors slid open in a rush of cold air and fluorescent light. Dean’s stride was long and furious—mine barely keeping up as he cut through the lobby. A nurse pointed us down a hall, and before I had time to catch my breath, we were there—at Blair’s door.
Dean opened it without knocking, and we stumbled inside, finding a doctor seated at Blair’s bedside, a Doppler gliding over the curve of her stomach.
The steady, rhythmic sound of a heartbeat filled the room—strong, sure, impossibly loud.
Dean froze. His confusion etched itself through every line of his face, his hands curling into fists at his sides as though he were desperately trying to reconcile what he was seeing.
The doctor glanced at him, then at me. “Do you know them?” he asked Blair.
Blair’s eyes flicked up, wet with tears when she nodded. “Yes. They’re my family.”
“Is it okay if they stay?”
There was a beat of silence before she nodded, then sobs wracked her body, and she turned back to the monitor. The flicker of a heartbeat danced along the screen.
“Everything looks normal,” the doctor said. “The baby’s measuring at about ten weeks. Bleeding can be frightening, but it’s not always a sign of miscarriage. Sometimes it happens at this stage of pregnancy.”
Blair’s lips trembled. Her hands curled into the sheet, and I moved closer to her, placing my hand on her shoulder.
Dean stayed rooted, but I recognized fear in his expression that was bone-deep and paralyzing.
“You’re okay,” I whispered to Blair. “We’re here now. You’re not alone.” The same words I’d craved to hear when I was in a hospital alone with my son.
Tears spilled hot down her cheeks, and she turned into my chest, clutching my shoulders until I wrapped my arms around her.
“I thought I lost the baby,” she sobbed. “I was so scared. I thought—”
“Shhhh…” I held her as tight as I could, wishing I could pull the pain and worry out of her and carry it myself.
Her sobs shook through me, each one slicing deeper than the last, and I tightened my arms around her, tucking her against my chest. “It’s okay,” I whispered into her hair. “You’re not alone. Not anymore.”
Dean didn’t speak. Not at first.
He stood a few feet away, jaw tight, hands buried in his pockets like he didn’t know what to do with himself.
The silence stretched, heavy and aching, before he finally stepped forward.
He dragged a chair to the side of her bed and lowered himself into it—slow, controlled, like he was bracing for something that might knock the wind out of him.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked softly.
The gentleness in his voice was almost my undoing. It was stripped bare, raw around the edges, as if he were barely holding himself together.
I stepped back, wanting to give them space, my heart tightening when Blair lifted her gaze to his.
She shook her head, swallowing hard, her cheeks blotched red from crying. “Because we hadn’t talked for so long,” she whispered, the words cracking open in her throat. “And I didn’t want you to see how big of a fuck-up I’ve become.”
The confession spilled out like it had been lodged behind her ribs for weeks, pressing and pressing until there was nowhere left to hold it. The moment it was free, she crumpled under its weight.
Dean’s face broke—as if her words had landed directly in his heart. He leaned forward and took both of her hands in his. “Damn it, Blair,” he said softly. “You’re not a fuck-up.”
“I didn’t want to disappoint you,” she sobbed.
His throat worked. He shook his head, slow and certain. “The only part of this that disappoints me is the fact that you felt you couldn’t come to me with it.”
Fresh tears sprang to her eyes, and she buried her face in her hands.
“I know I haven’t always gone easy on you,” he admitted, “I know that at times I’ve tried to parent you instead of being your brother. But that doesn’t change the fact that I would do anything in my power to support you.”
Blair’s gaze flicked up, as though his words had given her strength.
“I didn’t even know if I wanted the baby until today,” Blair whispered, “but being around family all week, and then when I thought I’d lost it…
” Her voice broke. “Isn’t that funny? How it takes almost losing something to realize how much it means to you? ”
Dean leaned forward, “I do.”
“I don’t want to give it up, Dean.”
His thumb smoothed over her knuckles, “Okay.”
“Do you think that’s stupid of me?” Blair whispered, her voice so small it made my chest tighten.
Dean didn’t hesitate—not even long enough to breathe.
“No. I don’t.”
And that was the moment something inside me twisted.
Sharp. Familiar. Unavoidable.
It hit like a bruise under my skin.
Because I knew what it felt like to doubt yourself so deeply it could hollow you out inside.
I stepped back quietly, easing toward the door—not because I felt out of place, but because something sacred was unfolding between them. Something unbreakable forming right there in the quiet.
It was beautiful and devastating all at once.
Because while Blair was discovering her desire to become a mother…
I was remembering all the ways I had once convinced myself I couldn’t.
I slipped out into the hallway and closed the door behind me, letting the moment belong to them—while my own past pressed against my ribs, reminding me of everything I’d buried just to survive it.