Page 61 of Second Chance with the Half-Elf
That gets her. Her shoulders stiffen, breath hitching like she wasn’t ready to hear the thing that’s haunted us both.
“I was angry,” she whispers. “All the time. Like it was the only thing keeping me upright.”
“I know,” I say. “I saw it in your eyes.”
“And you still…”
She doesn’t finish. Doesn’t have to.
“I never stopped.”
The ocean swells then, a wave crashing far off against the southern rocks. Sea spray lifts, catching the early light, casting the world in shimmer for one heartbeat.
Evie sets the mug down beside her, hands suddenly free and restless. “I don’t know how to let someone in without bleeding for it.”
“I don’t want you to bleed,” I say. “I want you to breathe.”
She turns fully now, the blanket slipping from one shoulder. The light hits her cheek, revealing a scar I’d forgotten was there. Faint. Faded. But still a map of where she’s been.
I lean forward, forearms braced on my knees.
“I’ll fight for you,” I tell her. “But not against you.”
Her lips part. Her eyes shine.
“I won’t chase you down, Evie. I won’t drag you back here by your ribs. But if you reach for me—if you look back—I’ll be here. Every time.”
She swallows hard, blinking fast.
“I don’t trust easy,” she says, voice a rasp now. “I don’t know how.”
“That’s fine,” I say. “We can build slow.”
The wind picks up, curling around us with the scent of salt and stone and pine. The kind of air that scrapes clean and makes room for something new.
She doesn’t say anything else. Just slides closer, until our knees brush.
It’s not a declaration. But it is a beginning.
CHAPTER 23
EVIE
Idon’t sleep.
Not after the way his voice sounded in the dark—gravel-soft and raw, saying things I didn’t know I needed to hear.
“I’ll fight for you—but not against you.”
Those words echo, again and again, like the tide against stone. Relentless, patient, and honest in a way that unnerves me more than any shouted confession ever could.
I leave the blanket on the loveseat and walk. No direction. Just the slow crunch of dirt under boots, the sharp bite of salt air in my lungs, and that low hanging morning fog that makes the whole town look like it’s half memory, half myth.
Lumera wakes slow. Lights flicker on behind windows. Boats clatter in the harbor. Someone’s dog starts barking three blocks over and doesn’t stop. I cut down a side path near the old salt sheds, where the smell of brine and rust lives in the bones of the buildings, and end up leaning against a wooden railing that looks out over the east docks.
The tide’s out. The boats sit lower than they should, anchored but somehow still restless.
Just like me.
