Page 12 of Perilous Healing

I jump, my heart racing as I whirl to the right and spot Silas standing on his side of the balcony, his arms crossed. “You’re out here, too.”

He doesn’t respond, just starts to go back inside.

“I don’t like feeling confined,” I say quickly. Vulnerability is not something that comes easy to me, but I know that Silas will keep my secrets. Because he’s done just that for half a decade already.

Silas pauses a moment, his large hand on the door. He looks like he wants to say something. And I wish he’d look at me.

Instead, he opens the door and says, “You’ll be fine.”

“Is this how it’s going to be between us forever? We just don’t talk about anything ever?”

“Yeah,” he replies without hesitation. “Because as far as I’m concerned, we never knew each other, and what happened between us never happened.” The door closes behind him.

How I ever thought things with Silas would get better, I’m not sure. I know he hates me. Despises that I settled here in Hope Springs. Maybe I should have left. Given him that distance he so clearly desires.

But how can I do that when it feels like things between us are unfinished?

I turn back toward the storm, trying my best to keep my head on straight. How is it that a hurricane doesn’t scare me, but being inside a boarded-up house is terrifying?

The wind outside is deafening.

I sit in my living room, knees curled up against my chest. Eyes closed. Just doing my best to keep breathing. I can’t go outside because of the storm, and I can’t seem to sleep because it’s so loud in here I can barely hear myself think.

Then there’s the panic attacks. The feeling of being smothered in this house. Like the walls are closing in around me. The wind echoes through my house like high-pitched screams.

Something hits the side of my house, and I bite back my own scream.

Eloise could be sleeping on the other side of the wall, and the last thing I want to do is wake her with my terror. I bite down on the inside of my cheek so hard that I taste the copper tang of my own blood.

Something hits my house again, this time above me.

Then a massive crack fills the house and the entire ceiling caves in.

I scream, lunging off of my couch just in time to avoid being crushed by the large tree that once stood outside my living room window.

It pins me, one of the branches catching my leg and holding me to the ground. I struggle to break free—heart pounding. Thiscannotbe happening! Rain hammers down on me, soaking my pajamas and the carpet.

It’s freezing, and I struggle to get free, but the pain in my leg shoots up through my body. Is this how I’m going to die? Pinned to the floor of my living room, being waterboarded by a storm?

“Come on!” I yell as I try to lift the tree off of my leg.

Another loud crack that sounds like thunder. I arch my back to tilt my head toward the front door as it flies open. Silas stands on the other side, soaked with rain water, his eyes wild and furious. He rushes forward and squats down to lift the branch off my leg, and I wiggle free.

Then, he kneels beside me, his hands running over my head, my arms, as he checks for injuries. “Are you all right?”

I look up at him and our gazes lock. For the first time, he’s not looking at me like I’m an enemy. That mask he wears is gone, replaced with genuine concern. “I’m okay,” I reply.

Silas stands, so I try to follow, but pain has me hissing through clenched teeth. One look down and I can tell that the branch tore through the sweatpants I’d been wearing and into the flesh of my leg.

Fantastic.

Here’s hoping that won’t need stitches.

“Come on.” He lifts me and carries me out of my house and onto the front porch. A gust slams into us, nearly knocking him off of his feet. I can’t hear a thing with the deafening wind and the boom of thunder.

We make it to his front door in seconds, but we’re both soaked.

Still, at least his ceiling is relatively intact.

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