Page 70 of Second Chance with the Half-Elf
“I forgot what it felt like,” I admit.
“To laugh?”
“To want to,” I say. “Without guilt. Without wondering what’s waiting on the other side of it.”
She nods, patient and quiet in that way she always is when things turn real.
“I didn’t stay because of him,” I say suddenly. “I mean—I did. But not only.”
“I know,” she says. “But it’s okay if he was part of the reason.”
“I wanted to know I could make a life for myself here,” I continue. “Not just slide into someone else’s. I needed to believe I was choosing—not defaulting.”
Rowan tips her glass toward me. “That sounds an awful lot like growth.”
“It sounds exhausting.”
She laughs. “Also that.”
We sit there a while longer, the stars crawling out slow overhead. The wine warms my throat and my chest and something deeper that I didn’t realize had been cold for years.
I laugh again—loud, unguarded—when Rowan mimics Aeron’s gravel-voiced brooding.
And this time, I don’t stop myself.
CHAPTER 26
AERON
The ship sculpture looks worse than I remember.
I stand there, hands on my hips, staring at it like it personally offended me. Which, maybe, it has. The thing’s half collapsed from winter storms, its masts listing like old bones, and someone’s wrapped caution tape around the keel like that’s gonna stop it from giving up and crumbling into driftwood.
“This is what they want rebuilt by tomorrow?” I mutter.
Drokhaz grunts beside me, dragging out a bucket of replacement bolts. “Festival finale. Council says it’s tradition.”
“Tradition’s gonna need a tetanus shot.”
Still, I roll up my sleeves.
The thing was originally carved by Theo Garren in the '70s—old woodworker, no kids, eyes like drift ice. He built it for his wife, who died before she ever saw it finished. A replica of the schooner they met on. Every line of it’s a love letter written in pine and patience.
I don’t believe in fairy tales, but I respect a man who carves his grief into art and nails it to the ground.
We start hauling fresh lumber up from the shed behind the museum. The gulls scream overhead, indignant, and the sun’sgot that sharp edge—bright, but not warm yet. I work in silence, letting the rhythm of tools and breath and old wood take the edge off the noise in my chest.
By noon, we’ve braced the bow and re-rigged the mainline. Sweat’s drying on my neck, and my shoulder’s starting to bark, but it feels good. Real. Like putting your hands on something broken and doing more than just hoping it holds.
I’m tightening the final lashing when I feel her.
Not see. Not hear.
Feel.
Like the air changes weight.
I glance up.
