Chapter 5
FIVE
ABBY
The fire station looks nothing like I imagined.
I don’t know what I expected. Maybe something darker and grittier. Intimidating.
Instead it’s clean and warm and strangely comforting. There are photos on the walls. Old ones, new ones. Firefighters grinning with soot-smudged faces. Kids sitting on the engine with helmets too big for their heads. Holiday decorations taped up slightly crooked.
Community lives here.
That realization unsettles me more than it should.
Daisy practically vibrates beside me as Brendon leads us inside, her fingers hooked tightly through mine like she’s afraid I might disappear if she lets go.
“This is where you work?” she asks, eyes wide.
“Part of the time,” Brendon says. “I’m a volunteer.”
“What do you do the other part?” she asks.
He glances at me before answering, like he’s checking whether this is okay.
“I run wilderness survival courses. Winter navigation, avalanche safety, that kind of thing.”
Daisy gasps. “Like a mountain man?”
Brendon laughs, the sound low and genuine. “Something like that.”
I watch him as he talks, the way his shoulders loosen in this space, the way he knows where everything is without thinking. This isn’t a costume he puts on. This is who he is now. He’s grounded and capable.
It makes my chest ache in a way that feels both familiar and frightening.
He gives Daisy a full tour. The engine. The lockers. The heavy jackets. He lets her try on a helmet, steadies it with careful hands when it slides too far over her eyes.
I hover nearby, pretending to read a bulletin board while actually tracking every interaction like my heart depends on it.
Because maybe it does.
When Daisy finally settles at one of the tables to start writing, Brendon brings over three cups of hot chocolate from the communal kitchen.
“For bravery,” he says solemnly, handing Daisy hers first.
She beams.
“For supervision,” he adds, offering one to me.
Our fingers brush.
The contact is brief. Electric. My stomach flips in a way that has nothing to do with sugar or caffeine.
We sit.
Daisy writes furiously, tongue poking out in concentration. Brendon leans back in his chair, watching her with a softness that makes something twist low in my chest.
“You’re good with her,” I say quietly.
He shrugs, but there’s something guarded in the movement. “She’s easy to be good with.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
He looks at me then, really looks at me, like he’s weighing how honest to be.
“I like showing up,” he says finally. “I always have.”
The words land heavier than he probably intends.
Daisy suddenly looks up. “Can I ask you a question for my project?”
“Absolutely,” Brendon says.
She squints at her paper. “Where did you learn how to be brave?”
My breath catches.
Brendon doesn’t answer right away. He looks down at his hands, flexing them slowly, like he’s grounding himself.
“I wasn’t always brave,” he says. “I just learned how to keep moving even when I was scared.”
Daisy nods, satisfied. “That still counts.”
Brendon smiles at her, but something in his eyes flicks to me.
After a while, Daisy wanders off with one of the guys to see the engine again, leaving Brendon and me alone at the table, the hum of the station settling around us.
This is it.
I can feel it.
The moment my chest has been bracing for since the café. Since my kitchen. Since the first time our eyes met again after ten years of pretending we didn’t exist to each other.
“You’ve been quiet,” he says.
“I’m thinking,” I reply.
“Dangerous.”
I huff a small laugh despite myself. “You always said that.”
“And you always proved me right.”
Silence stretches, thick but not uncomfortable. Just… loaded.
“Can I ask you something?” I say finally.
He nods. “Anything.”
“Why didn’t you fight?” The question slips out before I can soften it. “Back then. Why didn’t you try harder to understand why I was pulling away?”
His jaw tightens.
“I thought you’d already decided,” he says quietly. “And I didn’t want to beg.”
“I didn’t want you to beg,” I say. “I wanted you to ask.”
He looks at me then, really looks, like the truth is assembling itself in pieces he didn’t know he still carried.
“I didn’t think I was allowed,” he says. “You always seemed… ahead of me. Smarter. More certain. I figured if you were leaving, it was because you’d finally seen what I couldn’t give you.”
My throat tightens.
“That’s not what happened.”
He stills. “Then what did?”
This is the moment.
I feel it in my bones. The way my heart starts pounding, the way my palms go damp, the way every instinct screams to keep the past buried where it can’t hurt us again.
But Daisy’s voice echoes in my head. Heroes show up.
So I do.
“I thought you cheated on me,” I say.
The words hit the table between us like something dropped and broken.
Brendon stares, unblinking. “What?”
“The summer you left for basic,” I continue, my voice trembling despite my best efforts. “Someone sent me photos. Said you were partying. That you weren’t taking it seriously. That you were… with other girls.”
His face drains of color.
“What photos?” he asks slowly.
“I deleted them,” I say quickly. “I didn’t want them in my life. I didn’t want them near my kid. I just… I believed them.”
His throat works. “Abby.”
“I was eighteen,” I whisper. “I didn’t know how to tell what was real and what wasn’t. I just knew it hurt, and I felt stupid for believing you loved me.”
Brendon pushes back from the table and stands, pacing a short distance before turning back to me, hands clenched at his sides.
“They weren’t real,” he says.
My stomach twists. “How do you know?”
“Because I didn’t do it,” he says, voice raw. “Because I went to basic training terrified out of my mind and counted the days until I could write you without feeling like I was bothering you. Because I never touched anyone else.”
Tears sting my eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, my voice breaking.
“You broke up with me,” he says quietly. “You didn’t give me a reason. I thought you were done. And I thought if I chased you, I’d just prove you were right to leave.”
I stand too, suddenly unable to sit with the weight of it all.
“I thought you didn’t fight because you didn’t care.”
He steps closer, not touching me, but close enough that I can feel the heat of him. “I didn’t fight because I cared too much.”
My breath shudders.
There’s a memory that slams into me without warning — him leaning against my locker, smiling like the world was kind. His hand slipping into mine. The night by the river, his hands shaking as he promised he’d come back.
Your smile, my ghost.
“I loved you,” I whisper.
His voice is hoarse. “I never stopped.”
The space between us collapses.
This kiss is nothing like the one in my kitchen.
This one is desperate. Claiming. Years of loss and longing crashing together in the press of his mouth against mine. I gasp, my hands fisting in his jacket, pulling him closer because the truth has finally torn the floor out from under us and I need something solid.
His hands slide to my waist, anchoring me, steady and sure. He kisses me like he’s making up for lost time, like he’s been holding this back for a decade and can’t anymore.
I kiss him back just as hard, just as hungry, tears slipping down my cheeks because grief and relief feel the same in my body right now.
When we finally pull apart, foreheads pressed together, we’re both breathing hard.
“I’m angry,” I admit. “And hurt. And scared.”
“I know,” he says. “I am too.”
“But I don’t want to run,” I whisper.
His thumb brushes my cheek, gentle. “Neither do I.”
From across the room, Daisy calls out, “Are you done talking yet? I need a quote for my ending!”
Brendon laughs, breathless and real, and something in my chest loosens.
“Coming,” he calls back.
He looks at me one more time, eyes steady. “One step at a time?”
I nod. “One step.”