Page 41 of Story Of My Heart

“We may have to add more boundaries as we go along. You have a tendency to find limits and push your way through them. But for now? Yes.”

I stare at him. That’s right, bucko. Feel uncomfortable. Regret your reckless choices. Understand the depths of how badly you’ve fucked up.

His tragic expression almost makes me feel sorry for him. “And there’s nothing that can change your mind?”

I sling my hair into a rough bun, smoothing down my sweatshirt and double checking my appearance before grabbing my phone and wallet. “There is, but I think we’ve already established that you’re not going to give it to me.”

“Oh. That.” Tate smiles weakly, looking utterly defeated sitting among the pillows.

“Yeah,” I reach for the door, hand resting on the knob for a moment. Once I leave this room, things will change. I don’t know if it will be for the better or worse, but I know that I can’t go on doing things as they are now. “I’m gonna go for a walk.”

“You’re coming back right?”

Physically? Sure. Emotionally? Not a chance.

“Eventually,” I say, stepping out into the night and closing the door behind me, leaving Tate and my chances at happiness behind in the dark.

I’m crumbling, disintegrating under the weight of unspoken truths and silenced desires. Every step away from Tate tears at the fragile threads that tethered me to the hope of us—of more. The Northern Minnesota air is crisp, but it’s nothing compared to the chill settling over my heart. As the distance between us stretches, I grapple with the raw, gnawing ache of a heart bruising under the strain of unrequited love. This retreat isn’t just from the cabin, but more like a retreat from the dream of what could have been—a retreat from the warmth of his nearness, from the intoxicating allure of his complex, unreachable soul.

Tonight, I mourn the death of a fantasy, the dissolution of a mirage that I’d clung to more fervently than I’d admitted. I’m an idiot who let herself fall when she knew the pain of the consequences.

The realization stings, sharp and unforgiving: I’ve changed, irrevocably, shaped and scarred by a love that was never truly mine to claim.

Chapter Twenty-One

Tate

Outside of the last week, I’ve spent my entire life waking up alone. It shouldn’t be jarring. In fact, it should be comforting, waking up in a quiet room with as much space to stretch my legs as I could possibly need. But Piper’s absence this morning is palpable. I haven’t moved in my sleep, keeping her side of the bed as it was when she left, hoping she would come back in the night. I’ve grown so accustomed to seeing her face first thing in the morning. Instead, I’ve been greeted by nothing but a white cotton pillowcase and empty air.

My initial instinct is to wonder if she’s been hurt. Sunset Lake is safe, the resort doubly so.

I think the idea that she’s been kidnapped is somehow far more comforting than the idea that whatever I did or said last night was so odious that she can’t bear to look at me or even be near me. I’d rather spend my day filing a missing person’s report than examine my own actions. My therapist would probably blame it on my neurodivergence, but we’d mostly cured me of my inability to read social cues.

Mostly.

I can’t shake this sensation of doom as I get dressed, feeling like I’ve irrevocably screwed things up with Piper for good. I’d like to find her and apologize, but I’m still not entirely sure what I’ve done wrong other than be myself. I’ve always told her I don’t believe in love, and I never said we’d be doing anything else other than pretending. Piper is my best friend and the only person in the world that I trust. I can’t help it if she decided to feel something that I never promised.

As I button up my shirt, I wrestle with a storm of thoughts. If I could pin down love, understand it like one of my algorithms, Piper would be the reason for everything—no question. She’s become a part of my life so naturally that the thought of a day without her feels as empty as a night sky with no stars. But here’s the clincher, and it’s gnawing at me big time. My own weirdness walls me off from the very feelings that sketch out what love is supposed to be. How can I give Piper the heartfelt connection she deserves if I’m not even sure what I’m capable of feeling? The fear that I can’t love her—not because I don’t want to, but maybe because I don’t know how—keeps whispering in my ear, taunting me with the possibility that I might let down the one person who matters most.

And the thought of that makes me too scared to take the risk.

I head out to the main lodge, determined to salvage whatever chance at friendship we have left. I don’t see her on the path to the building, and all of my hopes of finding her casually perched inside with a cup of coffee are dashed when I open the door. I find only families with kids getting ready to go out on the lake for the day, that terrible bird, and my brother Gibson with his fiancée Avery.

Grabbing myself a cup of less than stellar coffee from the complimentary station in the lobby, I watch as they interact with each other. The two of them are nothing but smiles. Every touch and glance between them is warm and soft and full of a kind of joy that I don’t think I’ve ever experienced, apart from the way that I felt with Piper on the cruise last night. They’re so wrapped up in each other that this entire lodge could come down around them and I don’t think they’d even notice. Everything about them screams love. It’s like watching something out of a fairytale.

Even the way they talk to each other, discussing their work plans for the day, seems so collaborative. They have each other’s backs, an equal team. Love is a partnership. Love is about who you want to spend all your time with. Suddenly, it dawns on me; maybe I’ve been complicating things, setting romantic love apart as something lofty, something beyond my grasp. All this time, I’ve been looking for grand gestures in the clouds, when love has been the soil beneath my feet. Love lives in the quiet moments—sharing a laugh over a late dinner, the way Piper listens intently as I ramble about code, her anticipation of what I need before I even think of it, or her patience when I stumble through social cues. Love, I realize, has been manifesting in all the small, everyday interactions with Piper. This revelation doesn’t just lighten the weight on my shoulders—it illuminates my entire being.

Love is about finding that person who balances you, and fits like a puzzle piece with all of your idiosyncrasies and failings.

Love is what I have with Piper. Or, rather, what I had, until I torpedoed myself so spectacularly last night.

I love her. I’m fucking madly in love with Piper. And I’ve been loving her, in my own way, without even knowing it.

I had love this whole time. I was just too stupid to recognize it. And now I’ve probably lost it for good.

Avery kisses my brother goodbye, wrapping him in a loose hug before making her way out the door. I sidle over toward him with a conciliatory cup of coffee as he watches her go.

“How do you do that?” I ask as he takes the cup from my hands, his eyes not leaving her until the door shuts behind her and she’s fully out of view. “How do you … work together and be a couple so easily?”

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