I take a bite of my toast, holding it between my fingers as I prop the book open at the table. Their eyes burn my cheeks, but I avoid their gazes as I copy notes from the text into my notebook.
I take another bite.
“Are you okay?” Jake asks.
I flip the notebook over, continuing the sentence I’m writing. “I’m fine.”
The wind howls outside, and the snow kicks up and taps at the windows. The animals have been tended to, but we won’t be doing much else outside today. It’s below zero.
Not that I’ve been helping much lately anyway, and I don’t really care what Jake has to say about it. I dare him to pick a fight.
“You’re fine,” Noah repeats. “You’ve said that every day for the past week. And yet, you’ll barely talk to us.”
Guilt pricks at me, and I forget what I’m writing. It takes a moment to remember the word I was jotting down and continue.
Noah doesn’t deserve my silent treatment. Neither does Jake, really.
It just hurts. I don’t know what hurts exactly or why it hurts, but I’m angry, and I can’t pretend I’m not. Jake followed Kaleb that night, and I went directly to the shower that was still left running, sitting in there for a half hour before my shivers and tears subsided.
When he came back, though, he came back alone, and I haven’t cried since. We haven’t seen Kaleb.
“I’m sorry he did that to your piece,” Jake tells me, holding his cup of coffee.
But I just shrug. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not like I was taking it with me in April anyway.”
“April?” Noah blurts out, and I hear him shift in his chair. “College doesn’t start until August.”
“I’ll be finished with my course work soon,” I tell them, not looking up. “As soon as the roads are clear, I’m going home.”
I’m eighteen, I’m financially independent, and I don’t belong here. Why would I stay?
I feel Jake lean in, tense. “This is your home.”
My eyes burn, and I flex my jaw to keep my emotions from betraying that I kind of like hearing that.
“We love you,” he adds.
But I just snicker. “So what did you think?” I ask, still writing. “I’d bed-hop every night for the rest of my life, as if we weren’t all completely insane? I was never going to stay.”
What did he expect to happen? I’d marry one of them? Live in the boonies and have all their babies?
Or maybe we’d just go back to being a family. Uncle, cousins, niece? I’d bring my husband here someday to meet them, the poor guy never knowing I’d screwed everyone in this house?
How did Jake think this was going to end?
“We would’ve backed off,” he says. “Kaleb is in love with you.”
“Kaleb…” I breathe out a laugh. “Is an animal. I’d be surprised if he remembered the color of my eyes right now. Like any girl, I only matter as much as his next piece of ass. That’s what I’m good for to him.”
I finish writing my sentence.
“He wasn’t right.” Jake watches me as Noah sits quietly across from me. “And he communicates by losing his temper. He was wrong, yes, but he was hurt. The only woman he ever loved forgot about him. Almost killed him.” He pauses. “He’s in love with you, Tiernan. He was jealous.”
Tears spring up, a cry I won’t let out aching in my throat. I want to shake my head. I want to yell and tell them it doesn’t matter. He can’t treat people like that, and it’s his choice how he communicates. No one is stopping him from saying what he needs to say.
So, he’s jealous. So, his father and brother are in the way. He didn’t have an issue sharing me the night of the fire. Am I supposed to read his mind whenever he suddenly changes it? He’s not a human. He’s a bear. His love feels like shit.
I straighten, slamming my book closed and picking up my stuff as I rise from the table. I walk around the kitchen, quickly pushing the thoughts from my head as I leave.
“Tiernan,” Jake calls after me.
I stop, hesitating a moment before I turn my head.
Jake sits in his chair, looking at me. “When Kaleb stopped talking, I tried to use sign language with him,” he tells me. “I still remember some of it.”
And then he puts his palm to his chest and taps twice, imitating the gesture Kaleb made before he left last week.
“This…” he says, “means ‘mine’.”
Steam drifts out of my mouth, clouding into the air. The peak lies ahead, the view so much the same as the first time I stood on this balcony back in August. But so different, too.
The chill has seeped through my white knit hat, and I hug myself with the brown plaid blanket Mirai sent me in the fall wrapped around me and a mug of cocoa in my hands.
My teeth chatter. The wind chill is well below zero.
And for a moment, I let my guard down and wonder. Where is he?
I stare out at the view, the snow-covered trees spread out all the way to the snow-capped peak, beautiful and desolate. Cold and lonely.
There’s only two directions he would’ve gone. Deeper into the forest, to the fishing cabin. Or to town.
Kaleb hates town.
The frigid air stings my lips. Another minus twelve degrees and frostbite can happen in as few as fifteen minutes. My fingers soak up the warmth of the mug, but even now, the blood is running cold, making them hard to stretch.
I try to stay longer, to feel what he might be feeling out there, but it’s too cold. I love the snow, but when it gets to this temperature it’s not fun anymore. I turn around, the snow on my balcony crunching under my hard-soled slippers.
Sliding the glass door open, I kick off my shoes just inside and step into my bedroom, closing and locking the door behind me. The fire crackles to my right.
I walk over to my bed and pick up my pillow, smelling the case. It smells like Snuggle. I washed the sheets after Kaleb left, but his smell was still here somehow. Now, it’s gone.
Tossing the pillow down, I drop my blanket to the bed and pull off my hat, standing there for about three seconds before I just let my feet carry me. Drifting out of my room, I loiter in the hall, shuffling my feet for a moment before I disappear up Kaleb’s stairs. It’s only about three in the afternoon, and despite the tense talk at the breakfast table this morning, Jake and Noah are happily working in the shop, pulling together in Kaleb’s absence. How are they not more worried? I’m pissed at him, but it’s winter. He could die out there. What if he didn’t even make it to the cabin?
Turning the knob, I swing open his bedroom door, the room dark except for the light coming from the window, and step inside.
I close my eyes, inhaling his scent. The world spins behind my lids, and I feel dizzy. Why can’t Noah’s smell do this to me? He’d be so happy to have me in his arms tonight. He’s been good about not being obvious, but I know he wants to hold me. He wants me to look at him.
Walking farther into the room, I step over to the bed and pick up one of Kaleb’s pillows, his sheets rumpled and his blanket half hanging onto the floor. I press the pillow to my nose, the icy coolness of his pillowcase making me shiver before I can breathe him in.
I draw it in, not smelling anything at first, but then it’s there. Still there. The trees and thistles, wood and leather. And something else. Something you only get when you’re buried in his neck. Heat swirls low in my belly, and I sit down on the bed, weak.
It’s cold in here. Dark and dusty. The fireplace is black from years of ash, and even though he didn’t take anything that I would notice, it feels abandoned.
Walking over to the far wall, I stand at the picture window and stare into the woods, the snowy landscape beautiful and peaceful.
I’m still angry.
And if he walked through the door right now and wanted to make amends, I’d probably roll over and lap up any scraps he wanted to offer. He would win.
He’s winning right now. It’s been a week, and I’m right back where I was when I first came here. Making myself unhappy, because…
Because I’m only worth anything if someone wants to love me.
Just like with them.
The tears that have been perpetually burning at the backs of my eyes for the last week dry, and I draw in a long, deep breath, releasing everything and the weight on my shoulders along with it.
I’m bigger than this. I want to live.
Spinning around, I leave the room and close the door, taking one last look at his space before I do.
Then, I head downstairs and into the shop, turning the music the guys are listening to up as I get started on the armoire.
Noah smiles at me, I pull on my goggles, and we all get to work.
