Page 13 of Until the Storm Breaks
By the time I’ve cleaned up and locked down, it’s nearly one. I head out into the night—Lark left hours ago in her beat-up Honda that runs on hope because her shitty ex took the truck in the divorce. I start the walk home. It’s only just under a mile, and I need the air.
Laila meets me at the edge of the property, tail wagging like I’ve been gone for years instead of hours. She falls into stepbeside me, and we crunch along the gravel drive in comfortable silence. The July air smells like saltwater and Doug fir and that green scent of everything growing too fast.
Inside my cabin, I grab clean clothes and slip into the shared bathroom, careful with the door. I shower quickly, conscious of the thin walls and the late hour. When I walk back to my room, still toweling my hair, I collapse on the bed, landing on the book hidden underneath. I should move it. Put it on the shelf where it belongs, spine out, nothing to be ashamed of.
Instead, I shove it to the side and pull the blanket over me. It’s now past one in the morning. I wonder if Calvin’s asleep over there, or if he’s lying awake too. If the cabin feels wrong to him, knowing Susan lived there.
It’s strange how absence carves space in the world.
That’s the line I reread obsessively, the one that guts me every time. But it’s not what I chose to ink on my skin. No, I picked the reckless one, the one that made me feel brave:Some storms are good enough to dance in. Even if they ruin everything in their path.
Yeah, well. Calvin Midnight would know all about storms that ruin things. About writing beautiful words about destruction being worth it, then running for shelter the moment real damage threatened. When his mother’s mind started slipping, when things got messy and hard, where was he?
I close my eyes and try not to think about the way he looked this morning. Try not to remember that I have those lines tattooed on my ribs, hidden where no one can see. Two sentences about embracing chaos, and here I am, serving the same drinks to the same people every night, playing it safe. Try not to think about my own notebook, full of crossed-out first lines and stories that never make it past page three. At least he finished something once.
I pull the pillow over my head, as if that could muffle mythoughts. But trying not to think about Calvin Midnight is like trying not to hear him through these walls. Impossible.
And getting harder by the minute.
CHAPTER 4
CALVIN
The heavy bag takes my right hook like it owes me money.
Five-thirty in the morning, and I’m already drenched in sweat, working combinations in Dad’s old garage gym. The detached garage sits off to the side of the Victorian, converted into his personal boxing sanctuary back when I was a kid. He’s been gone for over ten years, but the space hasn’t changed much—same cracked concrete floor, same water-stained posters of Ali and Frazier, same smell of leather and rust and decades of effort. The garage door’s rolled up, letting in the salt air and the first gold streaks of sunrise over the water.
I didn’t sleep much. I’d heard Maren come home at around one, her footsteps on the gravel quiet and careful. Heard her cabin door close, then the shower running from the shared bathroom, then nothing but my own brain refusing to shut the fuck up.
When’s the last time you were even here?
Her words have been rattling around my skull since yesterday. I wrote about loss like I understood it, packaged grief intopretty sentences. Then when Mom started forgetting our names—when she neededrealhelp—I stayed in Seattle.
The last few visits home were brutal. She’d grab my wrist, tears streaming: ‘Hank? You came back?’ The hope in her voice when she thought I was Dad nearly broke me. It happened every time toward the end. Despite being adopted, I look too much like him, which made her confusion worse. My brothers and I all agreed it was better if I stayed away. I told myself it was better for her. Doesn’t make the guilt any lighter.
The bag swings back. I plant my feet and throw another combination. Jab-jab-cross. The rhythm settles something in me and makes the guilt manageable. This is the only meditation that’s ever worked for me. Fists and leather and the burn in my shoulders. I didn’t realize how much I’ve missed it in Seattle.I should start boxing more in my free time, hell maybe I could even start teaching a class in the evenings when I’m back in Seattle and?—
“You’re dropping your left shoulder.”
I glance back, startled. “Morning to you too, Dom.”
Dominic steps in, grabbing tape for his wrists. Same dark hair as always, same broad shoulders, that same way of taking up space in a room like he owns it. The years of running Midnight Boxing have kept him in fighting shape, especially with the MMA classes he added to the gym’s offerings. He’s broader now than last time I saw him, more solid through the chest and arms. Though I’ve still got a couple inches on him, something that’s annoyed him since I hit my growth spurt at sixteen.
“So were you gonna stop by the gym now that you’re back? Say hi?”
“I got in yesterday evening.” I throw another combination, harder than necessary. “And had just picked up Mom’s urn. Wasn’t exactly in a social mood to make the rounds.”
“Just making sure you’re not bolting back to Seattle quite yet.”
I resist an eye roll and don’t take the bait.Yes, I haven’t been home much. No, I’m not fucking leaving before the memorial.He’s winding me up on purpose. Always knows which buttons to push.
“Theo and Alex said you didn’t stay long at the restaurant yesterday,” he continues, finishing with the tape.
“I stayed for a bit. I was tired after the drive.”
“Jack actually hung out with them. Came by my place too.”
“Yeah, he mentioned that when he got home. We caught up after.”Caught upmeaning we drank beers on the porch and talked about everything except Mom until almost midnight.
