Page 125 of Chasing the Sun

I had needed that shower more than I realized. After I’d let the water run cold, I pulled a T-shirt over my head and shoved my feet into my boots, notbothering with laces. The screen door of the inn creaked open behind me as I stepped into the thick early-morning air, my breath forming ghostly clouds in front of me. Everything was silvered with dew—the grass, the fence posts, the lower branches of the trees, like the world had been dipped in silence and sealed in glass.

I didn’t have a destination in mind. Just a pull. Like if I kept walking, I might find something worth holding on to out there. Stan walked the land every single morning he was alive, and something about that called to me, so I set out walking.

The orchard stretched ahead of me in neat, winding rows. The fog hung low between the rows, thick and unmoving, like grief with no place to go. The damp air clung to my skin. It didn’t smell like apples yet—not quite—but the earth was sweet with the memory of last year’s harvest. All around me, it felt like everything was holding its breath.

Every scraggly tree felt familiar now, even though I hadn’t planted them. They’d been Stan’s, then Elodie’s. Maybe someday they’d be someone else’s, but for the moment, in the haze of dawn and grief, they felt like mine too.

My boots left dark prints in the grass, wet with dew and regret.

I thought about Wes—strong, loyal Wes—hooked up to machines, unaware that his entire life had just shifted sideways. I thought about the way he’d looked out for me in the Army. The way he still did, even when I didn’t ask.

He hadn’t hesitated.

He’d just shoved Hayes out of the way and taken the hit himself.

I stopped walking, swallowing hard, and leaned a hand against the closest tree.

It was never supposed to be this way. Wes was supposed to be invincible. I remembered him crouched beside me in the dark, desert wind whipping through a busted-out window in Kandahar, his voice low and even as he dressed a bullet graze on my side. “You’ll be fine,” he’d said, steady as hell. “You’re too stubborn to die.”

And now? He was in a hospital bed while the rest of us fell apart. Wes was steady. Reliable. But my friend would never be the same.

None of us would.

I tilted my head back and stared up at the starless morning sky. The fog clung to the air like it belonged there.

I thought about Levi and how he’d looked at me when I told him what had happened—scared but steady. He hadn’t said much when I told him. Just nodded, jaw tight, eyes wide and haunted. I caught him watching me when he thought I wasn’t looking, like he wasn’t sure how to be a kid when the adults around him couldn’t promise they’d keep standing. That scared me more than anything.

I thought about the Drifted Spirit, how hard I’d worked to keep it afloat. And I thought about the restaurant. The big dream. The one that had kept me moving all this time.

But it didn’t shine the same way anymore.

Not since her.

Not since Elodie Darling and her hideous green boots and oversize shirts and the way she looked at this land like it was something holy.

I wondered whether Elodie had slept. The crunch of gravel behind me was soft but certain. I didn’t need to turn to know exactly who it was.

Her scent hit me first—floral and lemon and somethingsweeter underneath. Then came the warmth of her presence, the subtle shift of air as she stepped up beside me.

Elodie didn’t speak but instead held out a steaming mug. Her fingers lingered against mine, just long enough to make the air between us buzz. She looked up at me like she wanted to say something but didn’t trust her voice, so she let the heat from the mug do the talking.

I took it without a word, letting our fingers brush. Her hands were cold from the morning air, but mine were colder.

We stood there for a long minute. Shoulder to shoulder. Two silhouettes in the fog.

The coffee burned my tongue, but I didn’t care.

“You okay?” she asked, her voice soft and low.

I thought about lying and giving her a nod and a smile and telling her everything was fine, but I was tired of pretending.

“No,” I said. “Not really.”

She exhaled quietly. “Me neither.”

We stood like that, not talking, not moving. Just breathing. The fog was starting to lift, the orchard slowly taking shape again in the early light.

I glanced sideways at her. She was wearing a hoodie that swallowed her whole, bare legs peeking out from beneath it, the toes of her boots damp from the grass. Her bare legs were dusted with dew, and the curve of her neck disappeared into the oversize collar. She looked like a dream painted in muted watercolors—and all I could think was how badly I wanted to keep her safe.