Weston’s POV
She wants to leave.
The words have been rattling around my skull since dinner, sharp-edged and relentless. Bouncing off the inside of my head like bullets that won't stop ricocheting.
No more mornings watching her stumble into the kitchen, hair tangled, eyes half-closed, reaching for coffee like it's a lifeline. No more afternoons catching her laugh at something Theron said, the sound hitting me somewhere I thought had gone numb. No more evenings on the porch, sitting in silence that somehow feels fuller than any conversation I've had in years.
I lie awake staring at the ceiling, listening to the old house settle around me. Creaking beams. Wind against the windows. The distant sound of horses shifting in the barn. Familiar noises that usually lull me to sleep.
Tonight they just remind me how empty this place will feel without her.
I try to convince myself this is good. This is what should happen. She was never supposed to stay—just a runaway girl hiding from her father, a temporary complication in a life I'd carefully constructed to avoid complications.
I should let her go.
Should help her pack. Drive her to the bus station. Watch her disappear into a life that doesn't include me.
It's safer that way. For everyone.
But my chest feels like someone's standing on it, pressing down with their full weight. My hands won't stop clenching into fists against the sheets. And every time I close my eyes, I see her face at dinner—pale, determined, already halfway gone.
I don't sleep.
Morning comes anyway. Gray light filtering through curtains I never bothered to replace after Elena died. The same curtains she picked out, faded now, hanging like ghosts.
I move through chores on autopilot. Feed the horses. Check the water troughs. Repair a fence post that's been leaning for weeks. Physical labor is easier than thinking. My body knows what to do even when my mind is somewhere else entirely.
I avoid the house. Avoid her. Avoid the conversation I know is coming.
But I can't avoid hearing it.
Theron corners her in the kitchen mid-morning. His voice carries through the thin walls—urgent, pleading, all the things I can't make myself be.
"You're not leaving. Not like this. Not without telling me what's really going on."
I freeze outside the back door, hand on the knob. Eavesdropping like a coward. But I can't make myself move.
Raven's response is too quiet to hear. Just a murmur, defensive.
Then Theron again: "I'm not letting you disappear. You matter too much."
The words hit me like a fist to the chest.
You matter too much.
So simple. So obvious. Four words that say everything I've been choking on for weeks. Why can't I say things like that? Why does every feeling have to fight through layers of scar tissue and barbed wire before it dies somewhere in my throat?
I think of Elena. Of course I think of Elena.
She used to tease me about it. My inability to say what I meant. To open my mouth and let the important things out instead of swallowing them like broken glass.
"Someday you're going to lose something because you couldn't find the words," she'd warned me once, laughing. Poking my chest with her finger. Trying to crack me open with that smile that always worked.
She hadn't known how right she'd be.
I walk away before I hear the rest. Can't stand there listening to my brother fight for something I'm too damaged to reach for.
The day passes in a blur of avoided glances and heavy silence. Raven stays in her room. Theron radiates wounded energy, slamming things harder than necessary. I bury myself in work until my muscles ache and my mind goes numb.
It doesn't help.
Night falls. Dinner is leftovers eaten separately, nobody willing to sit at that table again after last night's grenade.
I should go to bed. Should close my eyes and pretend tomorrow will be different.
Instead, I find myself standing outside her door.
I don't knock. Don't know what I'd say if she answered. Just stand there in the dark hallway like the pathetic excuse for a man I am, listening to the soft sounds of her moving around inside.
Footsteps crossing the floor. A drawer opening and closing. The creak of bedsprings.
She's packing. Or thinking about packing. Or lying there staring at the ceiling the same way I was last night.
I hate myself for being such a coward.
Hate the walls I built so carefully after Elena died. Hate that they worked exactly as intended—keeping everyone out, keeping me safe, keeping the grief contained in a box I never have to open.
Except now there's someone I want to let in. And I've forgotten where I put the key.
I'm still standing there like an idiot when her footsteps approach the door.
It swings open.
She nearly collides with my chest, stumbling back with a startled gasp.
"Weston?"
Her eyes are red-rimmed. Swollen. She's been crying.
Something in me cracks. A fissure running through stone I thought was solid.
"If you need to go—" My voice comes out rough. Wrong. Like I haven't used it in years. "I won't stop you."
The words taste like ash. Like lies dressed up as nobility.
I watch her face, hoping she can read what I can't say. Don't go. Stay. I don't know how to want you but I do.
She studies me for a long moment. Those moss-green eyes searching mine, looking for something beneath the surface. I don't know if she finds it.
"Is that what you want?" she asks quietly. "For me to leave?"
No. God, no.
"I want you to be happy."
It's the closest I can get to the truth. A coward's confession. The words I actually mean are buried so deep they'd need excavation equipment to reach them.
Something shifts in her expression. Recognition, maybe. Or understanding. The look of someone who's learned to translate silence into meaning.
She reaches out and touches my arm. Just briefly. Just enough to brand me through my sleeve.
"I'll stay a little longer," she says.
The relief that floods through me is embarrassing. Overwhelming. I have to lock my knees to keep from swaying.
"But Weston?"
I meet her eyes.
"Eventually you're going to have to actually say what you mean."
She closes the door.
I stand there for a long time after. Minutes. Maybe hours. The ghost of her touch burning through the fabric of my shirt, sinking into skin, settling somewhere near my heart.
She's right. I know she's right.
Elena used to say the same thing, back when she was alive and trying to love a man made of locked doors. I couldn't do it then. Lost her before I learned how.
Can I do it now?
The question follows me back to my room. Settles into bed beside me like an unwelcome guest. Stares at me in the darkness while I count the cracks in the ceiling.
She's staying. For now. A little longer.
But "a little longer" has an expiration date. And if I can't find the words before it runs out, I'll lose her too.
Another woman walking away because I couldn't open my mouth.
Another ghost to add to the collection.
I close my eyes and see Raven's face. Red-rimmed eyes. Trembling mouth. The desperate hope she's trying to hide beneath determination.
She's carrying something. A secret she won't name. I can feel it like a storm building on the horizon—pressure in the air, electricity before lightning.
Whatever it is, it's eating her alive.
And I'm standing here with my mouth full of words I can't say, watching her drown.
Some hero I turned out to be.
Tomorrow. I'll try tomorrow.
I'll find the words. Open my mouth. Say something that matters.
Or I'll stand there like a statue and watch her slip through my fingers.
Again.