Page 4 of Breaking Through

Almost.

Until I saw him.

He stood onmybeach. That's how I'd come to think of the isolated stretch of shoreline. It was a sanctuary I'd carved out of the darkness.

He stood there with something hanging around his neck. It was a camera. My chest tightened as water streamed off my shoulders, each droplet sparkling in the pale morning light. My fight-or-flight instinct kicked in the way it always did when someone tried to see more than a glimpse of what the fire had left behind.

But it wasn't just anyone. It washim. It was the new guy I'd been not-quite-watching all summer, with his sunshine smile and those green eyes that seemed to find beauty in everything they landed on.

I'd seen him at the Little Blue Bean. He was a social media wizard working with Parker Williams, bringing a splash of color to our faded town with his complicated coffee orders. Twenty-five at most, he captured beauty while I documented decay. We occupied the same spaces but lived in different worlds entirely.

I'd seen him helping Mrs. Johnson with her groceries, noticed him walking with old Clark Harlow, and I caught myself tracking his movement through town like some stalking creep. Truthfully, I didn't mean it that way, but he was hard to forget.

The rising sun caught his profile, turning his sharp cheekbones to marble, highlighting a jawline—firm but with a softening touch—that belonged in an art gallery. Fitting the definition of youth, he was all fresh optimism and untested dreams.

He was far too young to look at me like I was something worth photographing or worth noticing at all. He was far too bright to be standing in the shadows that followed me.

Click.

The sound of the shutter cut through the morning silence like a blade. It was like the moment in my nightmares when everything changed, and peace shattered into chaos.

My toes sank into the damp sand as I waded forward. The kid's eyes went wide—green as lake glass. I noticed because, apparently, I was focusing on him now. A flush crept up his neck into his cheeks.

"Morning," I grunted, veering right to avoid getting too close, though not before his scent drifted over—there was something woodsy like he'd spent the night in front of burning logs—a fireplace, maybe. It had no business making my stomach flip. The smell reminded me of campfires and safety.

"H... hi." His voice cracked on the single syllable, and something in me wanted to smooth that nervousness away.

I kept walking, forcing myself not to look back or acknowledge how that stammered greeting had briefly softened something in my chest that had hardened over the past three years. My weathered truck waited in the parking lot to take me on a familiar escape route.

But I couldn't escape the image burned into my mind: those artist's hands cradling the camera, gentle as if he were holding something precious. That full bottom lip caught between his teeth and how he looked at me like I was something beautifulinstead of broken. He gazed at the scars that mapped my skin like they were constellations instead of casualties.

The drive home was a blur of misty roads and unwanted memories, punctuated by glimpses of him I'd collected all summer long. I told myself I was just doing my job. It was important to keep tabs on newcomers. Any good ranger would do the same.

It was a valiant attempt to explain away my obsession, but I knew better. I knew I'd memorized his laugh and the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled at Parker's jokes outside the Little Blue Bean. I couldn't forget the way he seemed to carry sunshine with him, even on cloudy days.

My cabin materialized out of the morning mist. It perched at the top of a steep bluff over a small bay. A hundred yards of dense pine forest separated me from my nearest neighbor. I'd jumped at the chance to have such a strong buffer when the park system offered me the place three years ago.

The cedar siding had weathered to the color of old pennies, darker where morning dew traced patterns down the walls. Wild grape vines climbed one corner, their leaves just starting to turn crimson at the edges. I'd let them stay because they reminded me of flames without the danger, beauty without the burn. It was a small rebellion against the fear that still lived in my bones.

I killed the engine, and silence settled around me. All the noise of the city was miles and miles away. No sirens sang their songs of tragedy. All I heard was the soft tap of pine needles on the metal roof and the distant cry of a loon out on the lake, calling for something—or someone—to share its morning.

The porch steps creaked their morning greeting as I climbed them, each wooden plank worn smooth by three years of my park ranger boots. I'd rebuilt the whole deck myself that first summer at Michigami State Park when I needed something todo with my hands besides remember. The railings still smelled faintly of sawdust and linseed oil when the air was damp.

Inside, everything waited precisely as I'd left it, as predictable as sunrise. The cabin was small but mine in every way that mattered, every repair and renovation a stamp of ownership more permanent than any deed. Exposed beams crossed the ceiling, dark with age and strong as iron, bearing the weight of decades.

The main room held what I needed and nothing more. I had a leather armchair worn butter-soft at the edges from long nights of insomnia. A stone fireplace I'd restored myself stone by careful stone dominated the north wall, the mantel holding only three things: my grandfather's brass compass, a piece of warped glass I'd pulled from my last fire in Chicago, and a carved loon decoy I'd found washed up on my beach.

Two floor-to-ceiling bookshelves flanked the fireplace, their pine shelves bowing slightly under the weight of field guides, paperback mysteries dog-eared at their satisfying endings, and a complete collection of Jack London that had somehow survived the life I'd left behind.

The morning light filtered through the windows I'd enlarged myself, letting in more sky than the original builder thought necessary. Gentle shadows played across the wide-plank pine floors.

In the compact kitchen, everything had its place. My coffee mug waited on the counter—thick ceramic glazed with the deep blue-green of lake water during storms. The French press stood ready next to it because some habits from my city life were worth keeping. I allowed myself a few small luxuries. There were no fancy espresso drinks at my place and no vanilla lattes with extra shots, just strong black coffee and silence.

My wet trunks hit the bathroom floor with a soggy slap. The mirror above the sink reflected more than I wanted to see—silvery scars that wrapped around my left side like lightning frozen in flesh, like a map of everywhere I'd been broken. Usually, I could ignore them. Usually, they were just part of the landscape of my body, like the crow's feet starting at the corners of my eyes or the silver threading through my temples at forty-three.

Regrettably, the kid's camera made me feel exposed in a way I hadn't in years, stripped bare in ways that had nothing to do with skin. It made me remember what it was like to have someone look at me—really stare, the way artists look at things—searching for beauty in broken places, finding worth in the weathered and worn.

The shower's spray hit my skin hot enough to scald, steam rising in clouds around me like the morning mist off the lake. Still, it couldn't wash away the memory of those green eyes, bright as spring leaves and full of something I didn't want to name. It couldn't erase the way he'd looked at me, like I was worth capturing, worth keeping, worth more than the sum of my scars.

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