Page 55 of At First Flight (Coral Bell Cove #1)

The stars are out by the time I slip my shoes on and step onto Ashvi’s porch. The night smells like honeysuckle and warm asphalt, and my headache has dulled to a manageable throb for the first time all day. My body still feels like it’s carrying the weight of too many truths. And one giant mistake.

I stare out at the street, wondering if he’s home. Wondering if Evelyn has asked for me. Wondering if Oliver picked out a new rock for his collection and left it on the windowsill for me to find.

The guilt claws up my throat again. Because everything Ashvi said when I showed up last night was right.

I left. And I didn’t just leave a man I care about—I left two small hearts who didn’t understand why.

My phone’s still on the counter inside, unanswered. I’ve turned it over more times than I can count, waiting for his name to pop up. But it doesn’t.

He’s probably angry. Maybe he’s heartbroken. He’s unquestionably realizing that he deserves someone braver than me.

I wrap my arms around myself, breathing deep, and I whisper into the night, “I’m sorry.”

And I hope—God, I hope—that somehow, that’s enough.

The silence tonight is different. It isn’t peaceful—it’s thick and pressing.

It wraps around me like a wet blanket, too heavy, too warm, suffocating.

I keep thinking if I just breathe deeper, it’ll lift.

That my chest won’t feel like it’s shrinking every time I think about Dean’s face when I walked away.

I left. I keep saying it like it’s a fact, like repeating it might numb the truth. But it doesn’t.

I left, and now I’m sitting on my best friend’s deck in someone else’s borrowed pajama pants, sipping on tea I don’t want, staring at a sky that used to feel full of possibility and now it feels like it’s holding its breath.

What did I think would happen? That Dean would chase me? That he’d show up at Ashvi’s door with Evelyn on his hip and Oliver holding a drawing that said We miss you, Lila in crayon?

God, I’m such an idiot.

He has enough on his plate without chasing the woman who couldn’t even look him in the eye when she said goodbye. And that’s the thing—I didn’t. Not really. I didn’t say goodbye. Not the kind that means something. Because I didn’t want it to be goodbye.

I just wanted space. Clarity. One moment of silence away from the warmth of those kids, the way Evelyn curls into my side when she’s tired, the way Oliver saves his best rocks for me and tells me secrets he won’t even tell Dean.

I wanted to feel like me again—just Lila.

Not the Lila who makes pancakes and kisses bruises and falls asleep in a man’s arms with her heart too full.

I wanted space to remember who I was before all this.

But instead, all I’ve done is sit in it. The silence. The distance. And now it’s not helping. It’s hurting. Because this isn’t what I want. What I want is messy. Complicated. Full of children and dirt and love so big it scares me. What I want is Dean and I might have just broken him.

The screen door creaks behind me, and Ashvi steps out, barefoot and holding two mugs.

“Still thinking?” she asks, handing me a fresh cup that smells like cinnamon and apology.

“I don’t know how to stop.”

She sinks into the deck chair beside me. “You were scared. That’s not a sin.”

“I didn’t say goodbye.”

She hums into her mug. “That might be.”

We sit in silence for a minute, the kind that only happens between best friends and feels safe even when everything else is unraveling.

“You know,” she says after a while, “for a woman who spends all her time studying cause and effect, you’re really bad at letting yourself feel .”

That makes me laugh, but it comes out wet and broken.

“I thought leaving would make me feel free again,” I admit. “Like maybe I’d get my edge back.”

“Did it?”

I shake my head. “It made me feel like I lost everything I didn’t even realize I’d been building.”

She watches me over the rim of her mug. “So what now?”

“I don’t know.”

“You love him?”

I nod.

“And the kids?”

My chest tightens. “More than I should.”

“There’s no such thing.”

I look down at my hands, the chipped polish on my fingernails, and how my skin still smells faintly of their shampoo.

“I just don’t know if he wants me anymore,” I whisper, the words raw in my throat. “If I’ve already broken too much for him to want the rest. All I’ve done since he’s known me is go back and forth in relationship ping-pong.”

Ashvi doesn’t look at me with pity, thank God. She just exhales, long and steady, like she’s been holding it in the whole time.

“That man?” she says, eyes sharp with knowing. “He’s probably out in that field right now, shirt half off, covered in sweat and pacing like a lunatic, kicking himself for letting you go.”

A laugh bubbles up despite the ache in my chest. “That’s oddly specific.”

She grins. “He told Rowan he’s just trying to be good enough. Said if he’s patient, if he stays steady, maybe you’ll come back to him.”

The fragile parts of me tremble at that. Because Dean was always good enough. He didn’t need to prove a thing. I was the one clawing at perfection, measuring myself against some invisible scale of womanhood that said I had to be one thing or the other.

Brilliant or nurturing. Independent or loving. Career-driven or family-focused.

But maybe… I don’t have to choose. Maybe I can be both.

Women all over the world are doing it—building empires, raising babies, loving deeply, and chasing dreams. I’ve just been so afraid of losing myself in someone else’s life again that I forgot I get to write this one. I get to choose how it looks.

Dean never asked me to shrink myself. He never asked me to give anything up. I did that all on my own out of fear. And when I handed him my worst, my jagged pieces, he didn’t flinch.

He held them with devotion.

And it could be that’s the thing. Love isn’t just soft and romantic, it’s resilient. Maybe I don’t have to compartmentalize myself to fit neatly into someone else’s world. Because Dean didn’t ask me to fit. He just made space.

It’s time I stop running and stop trying to be less. Because I can be brilliant and soft. Strong and supported. Fierce and deeply loved. And Dean? He’ll still be there, holding steady, just like he always promised he would.