Page 92 of When the Smoke Clears

I reach for his arm; he sidesteps smoothly, reaching for his jacket instead. The avoidance is subtle, but unmistakable.

“Where are you going? You can’t drive yet.”

“For a walk.” He shrugs the jacket on, still not meeting my eyes.

“For how long?”

“Don’t know.” He pauses at the door, hand on the knob, back still to me. “I just need some air.”

The latch clicks as he steps outside.

The cabin deflates around me. Too quiet. Too still. Like the air left with him.

I sink onto the couch he abandoned earlier, the cushions still faintly indented in the shape of his body. It feels like sitting in the outline of a missing person.

I pull my knees to my chest and listen—to the hum of the refrigerator, to the echo of his footsteps replaying in my head. He wasn’t cold. He wasn’t angry.

He was hurt.

And I don’t know how to fix that kind of wound.

Eventually, I stand and retrieve the now-cold mug of tea from outside his door, dumping it in the sink. My hands shake as I set the mug down, ceramic clinking against stainless steel.

I press my palms over my eyes until sparks bloom in the dark. A quiet fear threads through the grief: What if this changes how he sees me? What if I handed him something so heavy he thinks he has to carry it alone?

By the time the sun sinks behind the trees, there’s still no sign of him. No text. No call. The worry sharpens into something claustrophobic, coiling tight in my gut.

I stand by the window, watching the tree line, waiting to see him emerge from the woods like he always does. He’s still healing. His shoulder is barely functional. He shouldn’t be out there this long.

I give him twenty more minutes in my head. If he’s not back by then, I’m going out after him, whether he wants me to or not.

I tug one of his hoodies off the back of a chair—a dark gray one, soft from wear, smelling faintly of cedar and his cologne. I slip it on. The sleeves hang past my hands; the hem hits mid-thigh. It’s ridiculous and a little pathetic, but having him wrapped around me, even in fabric, steadies my breathing.

I curl into the corner of the couch and wait. For the sound of his key in the lock. For the heavy, familiar footsteps. For anything.

But the night keeps unfolding, quiet and merciless.

And Luke stays gone.

Finally, I grab a flashlight and shove my feet into my shoes, heart pounding. If he thinks I’m just going to sit here while he disappears into the dark with fresh trauma and a half-healed shoulder, he doesn’t know me as well as he thinks he does.

My hand closes around the doorknob.

Underneath all the fear and frustration, deeper even than the ache, one thought echoes:

This news has changed him.

When he comes back, he won’t be the same.

And possibly, neither will we.

CHAPTER 22

LUKE

I’m cutting back through the clearing when a beam of light slices between the trees.

Isla.