Chapter 29 #2
Like maybe we didn’t mess it up beyond repair.
Like maybe we could still save it.
And that’s what scares me the most.
Because soft hope is way more dangerous than chaos ever was.
Later, when she falls asleep beside me, her hand still curled into my shirt like she’s afraid I’ll disappear, I stare at the ceiling.
The little white lights blink in the corner.
On.
Off.
On.
Off.
And I realize something awful and honest:
Loving her is easy.
Trusting her is impossible.
And I don’t know how to build a life on only half of that.
The snow keeps falling outside.
Quiet.
Endless.
Like it’s trying to cover everything we broke.
I know it’s a mistake the second the door swings open.
Heat rushes out. Noise. A wall of sound that hits too fast after the quiet of the house. Wet jackets, beer, wood smoke. The place is packed with ski boots and red faces, people shaking snow out of their hair like dogs.
A band’s already playing. Loud. Sloppy. Familiar.
Sage slips out of her coat, cheeks pink from the cold, eyes bright in a way that makes me feel worse instead of better.
“You okay?” she asks, smiling.
“Yeah,” I say. “Just… loud.”
She laughs and threads her way toward the bar. I follow, already wishing I’d stayed home.
Then I hear my name.
Not shouted.
Recognizing.
“Ethan?”
My stomach drops before I turn.
Emily.
Boston-Emily. The girl who came to watch me play every secret set last summer.
She flirted. Asked me to play songs for her.
I told her I wasn’t available and yet—our eyes would still lock as the notes carried in the late summer air.
Suspended. It’s like when she looked at me she saw all my secrets. But still—I never cheated.
She’s standing near the edge of the crowd, ski jacket half unzipped, hair tucked into a knit hat. Same face. Same mouth. Same look of surprise that turns into a grin like this is the best coincidence of her week.
“No way,” she says. “What are you doing up here?”
Sage stops beside me.
Her hand rests lightly against my arm. Casual. Possessive without squeezing.
“Hey,” I say, forcing a smile. “Didn’t know you skied.”
Emily laughs. “I don’t. Friend dragged me. I’m terrible.”
She looks past me, then back. “Holy shit — I didn’t even know you sang in Vermont. Our you going up to the stage soon?. Last time I saw you, you were—”
She pauses, searching her memory.
“—what, playing Sundays at O’Malley’s? And that dive near Fenway on weeknights?”
There it is.
I feel Sage’s hand still.
Not tighten.
Just… stop.
Emily keeps going, oblivious.
“You still doing that? You were good. I mean, really good. I used to bring people just to hear you.”
I open my mouth.
Nothing comes out fast enough.
Sage turns to me slowly.
Her smile is still there.
It hasn’t cracked.
“You play,” she says. “For money? Gigs?”
Not accusing.
Not surprised.
Just… placing the word between us like a piece of glass.
“Sometimes,” I say. “I used to.”
Emily nods enthusiastically. “Used to, my ass. You ever gonna admit how much you loved it?”
Sage looks at Emily now.
Then back at me.
“Oh,” she says softly. “So this was a whole thing.”
I feel exposed in a way I haven’t felt in months.
Like the walls just moved back.
Emily finally seems to catch the shift.
“Oh — sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s fine,” Sage says quickly.
Too quickly.
She reaches for her drink. Takes a sip. Sets it down with care.
No spill.
No shake.
Her eyes don’t leave mine.
“How long?” she asks.
I hesitate.
Emily fills the silence without meaning to.
“Last summer,” she says. “Random week nights. Sundays mostly at the bar by the harbor.”
Sage nods once.
Once.
“That’s… interesting,” she says.
The band kicks into a new song. Someone whoops. Someone bumps into us and apologizes.
Sage steps back.
Just half a step.
Enough that her shoulder no longer touches mine.
“I’m gonna head out,” she says.
Already pulling her coat back on.
“What?” I say. “We just got here.”
She meets my eyes.
Really meets them.
“I know.”
She doesn’t look angry.
She looks… resolved.
She walks toward the door without waiting.
Not storming.
Not rushing.
Just leaving.
I follow her out into the cold, boots slipping slightly on packed snow.
“Sage—”
She keeps walking.
Unlocks the car.
Gets in.
I climb into the passenger seat, heart hammering now, the silence louder than the music inside.
She starts the engine.
Doesn’t look at me.
The drive back is quiet except for the heater and the crunch of tires on snow.
She drives perfectly straight.
Too carefully.
Like she’s containing something.
When we pull up to the house, she doesn’t shut the engine off right away.
Just sits there.
Hands on the wheel.
Then, without turning her head, she says—
“I wasn’t the only one telling lies, huh?”
Her voice is calm.
Almost curious.
I swallow.
“I wasn’t hiding—”
She finally looks at me.
Her eyes are wet.
Not crying.
Just full.
“You went to therapy. I told you everything,” she says quietly. “Every ugly thing. Every embarrassing thing.”
She lets out a small breath through her nose.
“And you kept a whole other version of yourself.”
She shakes her head once, like she’s disappointed in herself more than me.
“I didn’t even know what to be jealous of,” she says. “That’s the part that hurts.”
She opens the door.
Cold air floods in.
“Goodnight, Ethan.”
And then she’s gone.
No yelling.
No tears.
No fight.
Just a door closing softly behind her.
I sit there in the dark, realizing something too late:
The loud Sage I knew how to survive.
This one?
This one might be the one I can’t come back from.
I wake up thinking I’m still dreaming.
There’s weight on my chest. Heat. Pressure.
My first thought is sleep paralysis. That my body hasn’t caught up with my brain yet.
Then my airway collapses.
Something hard digs into my throat—thumbs, palms, all wrong—and I suck in air that doesn’t come. My vision fractures at the edges, sparks firing behind my eyes.
I try to speak.
Nothing comes out.
My hands fly up on instinct, clawing at wrists that don’t budge. Whoever’s on top of me is solid, planted, knees braced into the mattress like they planned this.
Planned.
My brain finally clears enough to focus.
Sage.
Her hair is loose around her face, wild, her mouth slack in a way I’ve never seen before. Her eyes are wide and glassy—not crying. Not drunk.
Empty.
No.
Not empty.
Full of something sharp and absolute.
Rage so complete it looks calm.
I buck hard, twisting my hips, trying to roll. She leans forward and the pressure increases. My ears start ringing. There’s a roaring sound, like being underwater.
This is how people die, a detached part of my brain notes.
I slam my elbow sideways, catch her in the ribs. She grunts—not in pain, more in surprise—and that half-second is enough.
I roll.
The world tilts violently. We hit the floor in a tangle of sheets and limbs. I scramble backward on my hands, gasping, coughing, my throat burning like it’s been sandpapered raw.
She’s on her knees now, breathing hard, staring at me like she doesn’t recognize me.
Or like she does.
I get to my feet, unsteady, backing away until my calves hit the dresser.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I rasp.
She doesn’t answer.
She stands slowly and her gaze flicks—not to me—but to the corner of the room.
My guitar.
The one leaning against the chair. The one my mother gifted me.
“No,” I say hoarsely. “Sage—don’t.”
She grabs it by the neck and swings.
The sound is sickening. Wood splitting. Strings screaming. The body cracks against the bedframe and then again against the wall.
Once.
Twice.
The neck snaps clean through.
Something in my chest breaks with it.
“Get out,” I say. My voice is steadier than I feel. “Get the fuck out of my house.”
She turns on me then, eyes blazing.
“I should call the cops,” she says, breathless. “You pushed me. You attacked me.”
I touch my throat.
My fingers come away trembling.
“Go for it. ” I say quietly. “The fingerprints on my neck will prove otherwise.”
She freezes.
Just for a second.
Then her mouth twists into something ugly.
“You don’t even know who they’ll believe,” she spits.
I don’t argue.
I don’t raise my voice.
I pick up my phone with shaking hands and dial.
Tony answers on the second ring.
“Ethan?”
“I need you,” I say. “Now.”
He doesn’t ask questions.
“I’m on my way.”
I grab my coat, my keys, my wallet—nothing else. I don’t look at the bed. I don’t look at the guitar pieces scattered across the floor like bones.
I walk out the door without shoes, cold biting into my feet, my breath fogging in ragged bursts.
Behind me, the house is silent.
Too silent.
I stay locked in the car, hands still wrapped around the steering wheel like it’s the only thing keeping me upright. My throat throbs with every swallow. Each breath burns.
She comes out a few minutes later.
Calm again.
Coat on. Hair smoothed. Phone in her hand.
She doesn’t look at me.
She walks to her car like this is any other night that ended wrong. Like she didn’t just try to end me.
Her engine turns over. Headlights sweep across the driveway, briefly lighting up my windshield—my face reflected back at me, pale, eyes too wide, fingerprints already darkening along my neck.
She backs out slowly.
Then she’s gone.
Red taillights shrinking. Turning at the end of the drive. Disappearing into the dark.
I don’t move.
I sit there long after the cold seeps through the floorboards, long after my hands stop shaking, long after the house behind me feels like a place I’ll never step into again.
Only when the road is empty—when there’s no chance she’s coming back—do I finally unlock the door.
And that’s when it hits me.
Not fear.
Not anger.
Grief.
Grief for the version of her I loved.
Grief for the man I was before this.
And grief for a house with a white picket fence, babies, and her barefoot in the kitchen, cooking on the stove. I want to remember her that way—the version of what we could’ve been.
Tony pulls in fast.
Too fast for the road conditions. Snow spraying up behind his tires, headlights cutting across the trees like he’s hunting something. He parks crooked, door already opening before the engine’s even off.
He takes one look at me and stops.
Doesn’t ask questions.
Doesn’t swear.
Doesn’t rush me.
Just crosses the space between us and grips my shoulder once—hard, grounding.
“Get in,” he says.
I don’t argue.
The heat hits me first. Then the smell—wool, leather, something sweet and sharp. Melissa’s coat is in the backseat, her scarf draped over it like she stepped out of the story to give us space.
We drive in silence.
I watch the road unfurl through the windshield, my reflection ghosted over the glass. My neck burns where her hands were. Every bump in the road sends a reminder through my body that I almost didn’t make it out of that bed.
Tony doesn’t fill the silence.
He never does when it matters.
The ski lodge glows warm against the dark, windows bright, smoke curling from the chimney. We park. He gets out first, waits until I’m steady enough to stand before slinging an arm around my shoulders—not holding me up, just making sure I don’t fall apart in public.
Inside, it smells like fire and pine and old money.
We take seats near the hearth. Tony returns with two glasses of brandy without asking.
The first burn makes my eyes water.
The second loosens something deep in my chest.
I stare into the fire, watching the logs shift and collapse.
“I thought she was it,” I say finally.
Tony doesn’t react. Just nods once.
“When it was good,” I continue, voice flat, “it was everything. Like… cosmic. Like we found each other in the dark.”
I swallow.
“And then there was this other side. Ugly. Twisted. Like love with teeth.”
Tony exhales slowly. “Yeah.”
“I kept thinking—if I just understood her more. If I loved her better. If I didn’t trigger her.”
My hands curl around the glass.
“She’s been hurt,” I say, hating how automatic it sounds. “She’s got trauma. Past abuse. A million reasons.”
Tony finally looks at me then.
“Those are explanations,” he says quietly. “Not permissions.”
The words land clean. Sharp. True.
I nod, throat tight.
“I kept excusing it because when she was gentle… she was unreal. Like she saw every good part of me and worshipped it.”
The fire pops. A log collapses inward.
“And now?” Tony asks.
I lift my eyes.
“Now I know her trauma doesn’t get to become mine.”
Saying it hurts.
Not saying it hurts worse.
“She wasn’t my soulmate,” I add. “She just made me feel chosen in a way I didn’t know I needed.”
Tony raises his glass slightly.
“That’s not nothing,” he says. “But it’s not enough.”
I take another drink. The brandy warms my chest, steadies my hands.
“I don’t hate her,” I say. “That’s the fucked-up part.”
“You don’t have to,” Tony replies. “You just have to live.”
I lean back, finally letting the weight settle.
For the first time all night, I feel safe.
Not because the world makes sense again—but because someone solid is sitting across from me, reminding me I didn’t imagine the danger. I didn’t exaggerate it. I didn’t deserve it.
Tony finishes his drink and sets the glass down. His eyes say the marks on my neck. I didn’t have to give details.
“You’re staying here tonight,” he says. “We’ll deal with the rest tomorrow.”
I nod.
The fire crackles.
Outside, snow keeps falling—covering tracks, softening edges.
And for the first time since I woke up choking, I let myself believe this:
Some loves feel like destiny.
Others feel like survival.
Only one of them is worth keeping.
I have a few weeks off. We’ll call the guys and get out of here. Fresh snow. Perspective. We need a damn vacation after the year we’ve all been through.