Page 111 of The Long Way Home
Her gaze finds mine and stays there. Usually, she’d break it, offer a joke, a smile, anything to ease the moment. But tonight she doesn’t. She studies me instead, careful and searching, like she’s listening for something beneath the quiet.
And for some reason, I let her see it. Not just the wanting, but the history of it. The way my eyes have always found her first. The way I’ve learned the shape of her moods, the sound of her laugh, the weight of her absence. The words gather behind my teeth, heavy and dangerous, and for one reckless heartbeat, I consider giving them breath. I consider what it would mean to finally stop carrying this alone.
She lets out a stuttered breath and looks away. But it’s already too late. The moment has lodged itself somewhere deep in my chest, settling there like a slow burn.
The fire snaps, sending a spray of sparks into the dark. I add another log and lean back, wiping the sweat from my neck. Rachel sits cross-legged beside me, cradling what has to be her third beer, her knee close enough to mine to be felt.
“Do you think the lake’s haunted?” she asks suddenly.
“Haunted?”
She nods, all serious. “Yeah. Like, old ghosts of fishermen or something. Maybe a teenage couple who went missing in the ’70s.”
I take a long pull from my beer. “Is this your way of scaring me into keeping the fire going all night?”
“No,” she lets out a light laugh. “I just think you’d be one of those people who gets haunted. You’ve got that ‘I’ll investigate the noise in the woods alone’ energy.”
I smirk. “That’s firefighter energy. Not ghost-hunting stupidity.”
“Same difference.”
I lean forward, poking at the fire with a stick. “What about you? You give off strongfirst-to-die-in-a-horror-movievibes.”
She gasps, hand to her chest, clearly offended. “Rhett, that’s rude. I wouldabsolutelymake it to the end. You know I’m too stubborn to die early.”
I laugh. “Yeah. Actually, you’re right. You are way too stubborn.”
She lifts her cup, hiding a smile behind the rim, eyes peeking over at me, mischievous and knowing. “You’d save me, though.”
I glance at her. “That so?”
She shrugs, casual on the surface, but her gaze holds mine a second longer than necessary. “I mean… I just feel like you would. So I wouldn’t even have to use my superpower-level stubbornness.”
It isn’t a question. It’s an assumption.
Rachel glances at the half-empty cooler. “You think there’s one of those craft beers left? The fancy kind?”
“I’ll check,” I say, standing and stretching. “If not, we’re cracking open the emergency Oreos.”
“God bless your priorities.”
When I come back with the last craft beer and the half-smashed pack of Oreos, she scoots over to make room on the log.
Rachel leans back on her hands, looking up at the sky. “I always forget how many stars there are out here. It almost looks fake.”
I follow her and look out to the sky. She is right, the sky is scattered with them.
“Yeah,” I reply. “You don’t see this back home. Just clouds, traffic lights, and planes.”
She pulls her knees up and wraps her arms around them. “Sometimes I think I’d trade everything for quiet. Just… stillness, you know? I forgot how much clarity this place gives me. I forgot how much I love this place.”
“I think you’d get bored here,” I admit.
She turns to look at me, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Wow, thanks.”
“I mean it in a good way. You’ve got too much spark in you. You’re not meant to sit still.”
She rolls her eyes, but doesn’t argue. Her face is half-lit by the fire, soft around the edges, gold licking at her cheekbones and dancing in her eyes.
