Page 109 of The Space Between
Glancing around, I do. He starts walking, waiting for me and purposefully shortening his strides. I follow through tall grass and scattered cypress and oak trees until we reach the top of a small ridge that looks down on the river. It’s not the part where people float. This is quiet. Private. Untouched. And still wild.
A breeze from the river cuts through the heat, and for the first time in days, I can breathe.
We sit in silence. Just existing together for awhile.
He doesn’t look at me. He stares at the water and picks at blades of grass. He seems lost in thought, and then, he says, “This is where I go when I can’t breathe.”
My throat tightens.
He brought me to his place.
I don’t take it for granted. Reaching over, I take his hand. He links his fingers with mine and we sit there for a long time.
Not speaking. Not fixing. Justbeing.
Gruene
She doesn’t saya word on the walk back. She doesn’thaveto. Her hand’s still in mine. Our fingers are woven together, but she’s giving me room… almost like she knows I might try to drop it. I don’t. She holds me there with the only thing that’s ever worked—quiet presence.
Not force. Not pity. Not pleading.
And dammit to Hell, I hate how much I need it.
I haven’t brought anyone here since Molly.
Since Aubree
The air’s thicker now, like it knows what I did—what Iallowed.
Her. In my place.
I unlock the truck, but I don’t start it.
I just sit with my hands on the steering wheel, staring through the windshield like maybe I can pretend I didn’t just give her a piece of something I buried years ago.
“Thank you,” she whispers, fully aware that I just tore open my chest and let hersee me.
I don’t respond.
I don’t knowhowto.
My voice is caught in the same place it always is—back in the river, somewhere between the scream I never let out and the silence I buried them in.
I’m trapped in a fucking loop between the past and the present.
By the timewe get back to the cabins, the sun’s high and the lot by the dock is full—floaters piling out of SUVs with neon coolers, beer, and too much sunscreen. Reece waves from the rental stand. We wave back but I don’t stop.
I park behind her car.
“I need to grade some papers,” she says, unbuckling. “They only let me know late yesterday that grades had to be entered by tomorrow.”
What? She said she was free the whole day?
I nod but I still don’t say a word.
She reaches for the door handle, but she stops, looking back at me. “Youdon’thave to say anything, Gruene. But I need you to know—what you gave me this morning? It mattered.”
My jaw tightens.
