Page 31 of Summertime Hexy
This is different.
This feels likeremembering.
Like breath after too long underwater.
Likelife.
I hear her before I see her. Somewhere in the woods behind me, cursing under her breath as twigs snap and her boots crunch against the leaves.
I don’t move.
“Derek?” she calls.
Still don’t move.
She appears a moment later, flushed, hair wind-wild, journal clutched in one hand and what might be a half-eaten granola bar in the other.
“There you are,” she says, breathless. “I’ve been yelling your name like I’m summoning a cranky forest demon.”
“Did it work?” I ask without looking.
She flops onto the bench beside me. “You’re the crankiest forest demon I know. Take it as a compliment.”
We sit in silence.
I feel her glance at me, but she doesn’t speak.
Which is unusual for her. And somehow worse.
“Rowen,” I say finally.
Her head turns sharply.
“My brother. His name was Rowen.”
She says nothing. Just… waits.
“I turned him to save him,” I say. “I was too late. He died anyway. Just slower. More painfully.”
She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t rush in with pity or soft words.
She just lets the silence hold the shape of him.
“I killed him,” I say, voice low. “Because I had to. Because if I didn’t, he would’ve become something worse.”
Hazel reaches out.
She sets her hand on mine.
And suddenly I’m not alone on that bench anymore.
I exhale shakily. “I never let myself feel anything after that. Not really.”
“Yeah,” she says. “That sounds like a you thing.”
I huff out a breath. Almost a laugh.
She squeezes my hand once, then lets go. Doesn’t make it a moment.
