Page 35 of Second Chance with the Half-Elf
I don’t have an answer that doesn’t taste like regret.
“I’m not gonna beg someone to love me back,” I say finally, quieter. “Not even her.”
Rowan softens, all the fire draining out of her shoulders. “I know. But she’s not thinking straight. She’s scared.”
“We’re all scared.”
“Sure,” she says. “But she thinks staying means being vulnerable. And being vulnerable means getting broken. Again.”
I stare out at the water. The gulls. The tide dragging seaweed back out like it’s tired of pretending to be still.
“She’s not the only one,” I say.
Rowan smiles, sad and knowing. “I didn’t say she was.”
I throw myself into the festival work like it might save me.
By mid-afternoon, my hands are raw. The skin along my thumb’s split from rewiring the main lantern string without gloves. There’s sawdust in my boots. Salt crust under my nails. A kink in my spine from hauling scaffolding to the north pavilion.
Perfect.
Physical pain is easy. It obeys rules. Heals in days. Doesn’t leave pictures in your head that replay every time you blink.
Everywhere I go, I see her.
There in the middle of the square—snapping shots of a mermaid dunk tank with that camera strap looped twice around her wrist like a tether.
And over there—behind the sound booth—laughing at something Liara says, her eyes soft and unguarded in a way I haven’t seen in years.
Every time I look away too slow, it hits me all over again.
How fast she crawled back under my skin.
And how helpless I am against it.
At dusk, I head down to the lower docks to finish repairs on the float for the monster parade. Some kid rigged a pulley system that’s half rope, half chewing gum, and entirely doomed.
The air down here tastes like old wood and regret. I work in silence, sweat dripping down my neck, ignoring the ache in my chest.
The tide doesn’t stop. Neither will I.
By the time I finish retying the last line and bracing the mast, the sun’s bleeding out over the horizon.
Still no sign of her. Not that I’m looking.
Much.
As I pack up, a voice calls out behind me.
“Thalen!”
I turn. Drokhaz, looming like a storm in a tailored vest, holding two cold beers.
“Figured you could use one,” he says, tossing it underhand.
I catch it without thinking.
I pop the cap on the dock rail and take a long swig.
