Page 116 of When the Storm Breaks
There’s nothing here. No sign. No marker. No memorial. Just a stretch of pines, dark and endless, leading to a place I swore I’d never return to.
My feet move before I decide to follow. Over snow-laden roots. Over fallen branches. The body remembers what the mind refuses to.
And before I realize it, I’ve left Calla behind.
It’s like I’m on autopilot.
My pulse hammers. My ears ring.
Everything inside me is screaming—turn around. Run.
The walk used to take ten minutes. Now it stretches endlessly, every step a battle against memories I spent months trying to bury.
Calla follows closely at first.
But then… her steps slow. Hesitation outweighs trust.
I hear it in the careful placement of her feet. In the way she lingers just far enough behind to create space between us.
The woods press in—quiet. Watchful.
And I see it. The tree, tilted a little too far to the right, like it’s bracing against something unseen.
My stomach churns.
I turn right. Then left. Then right again.
The trees part. The lake comes into view. Frozen. Untouched. Perfectly still.
The breath I take feels like it might kill me.
It’s the same. Every part of it. As if time never touched it. As if the world didn’t end here.
I thought maybe it would’ve changed. That the seasons, the months,somethingwould’ve left a mark.
But it’s exactly as we left it.
It was ours. Now it belongs to her.
I don’t know what I expected to feel, walking through these trees again.
Regret, maybe. Anger.
But not this.
Not this unbearable longing—this aching, impossible hope that I’ll step out into the clearing and find her waiting at the shore. Arms crossed. Pretending like she hasn’t been waiting for me all this time.
That I haven’t been keeping her waiting.
I don’t expect the way my stomach hollows out when she isn’t there.
When it’s just… empty.
Still.
The silence is deafening. A quiet that should be peaceful—but isn’t. A quiet that makes the world feel unfinished.
Like something vital has been ripped from it.
