Page 157 of Stuck with my Mountain Daddies

And now everything was seconds from detonation.

The silence outside the door was almost worse than the shouting. No more thuds. No more voices. Nothing.

Not even footsteps.

I sat there for a while, waiting. Hoping for someone, Beckett, Garrett, even Asher, to knock, to open the door, to saysomething. But no one came.

And maybe that was fair.

I pulled myself out of the bed like I was peeling off another version of myself, one too tired to keep crying, too hollow to keep sitting still.

The blanket slipped off my shoulders, and I stood, legs aching with that post-adrenaline heaviness, as if I’d just run a marathon even though I hadn’t moved in hours.

Outside the window, snow still fell in soft spirals, the world dusted in quiet white.

I needed air.

I needed out.

I threw Garret’s coat over me, shoved my feet into boots I found by the door, and stepped outside without thinking too hard about where I was going.

The cold slapped me in the face. Sharp. Real.

The air was so quiet it buzzed, like the world itself was holding its breath.

I didn’t know where I was walking. Just that I needed to move. To get away from the screen, from the cabin, from the guilt and noise still ringing in my head.

The snow crunched underfoot as I moved down the path that led toward the trees, the same ones I’d admired on quieter days when the world hadn’t cracked open beneath me.

Back when I thought maybe I could stay here forever.

The chill cut through my clothes, but I didn’t care. I welcomed it.

I needed it.

Because out here, there was no trending topic, no screaming match behind closed doors, no Ava dripping venom into a camera.

There was only the hush of snow, the whisper of wind in the trees, and the sound of my own heartbeat trying to steady itself.

I remembered the first time I posted a video.

I’d been seventeen. Sitting on my bedroom floor with a cheap ring-light glow and dreams too big for my chest. I remembered refreshing the view count over and over, watching the numbers rise like they meant something.

Like I meant something.

That first rush of likes had felt like love, but it wasn’t.

It was approval. Temporary. Conditional. Addictive.

And I’d chased it for years.

I tripped over a root hidden under the snow and caught myself on a nearby tree, heart lurching. I stayed there, palm pressed to the bark, breath fogging the air.

Why did I ever want that life?

Why did I ever think it would be enough?

The truth settled like frost over my skin: I hadn’t just been runningtosomething in LA. I’d been runningfromsomething, too.

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