Page 7

SKYE

T he sun dipped low over the lake, casting a copper shimmer across the water. Crickets hummed in the grass, and the pines swayed gently in the breeze like they were whispering secrets only the trees understood.

Shaniqua and I sat side by side on the edge of the dock, our bare feet dangling in the cool lake water. It felt like heaven against my swollen ankles. The pressure in my legs eased just a little as tiny ripples fanned around our toes.

“Three months,” I murmured, watching a dragonfly skim the surface of the water.

Shaniqua grinned beside me, biting into a piece of watermelon she’d brought in a Tupperware. “You made it longer than most folks expected.”

I laughed quietly. “Including me.”

Silence settled between us, comfortable like an old sweater. I drew in a deep breath—the clean air, the scent of pine and moss, the subtle sweetness of early summer blooms. No sirens. No shouting. No high heels slamming against trailer steps .

Just peace.

I turned to her, my chest swelling with something deeper than gratitude. “Hey... can I ask you something?”

Shaniqua nodded, flicking a seed into the water. “Shoot.”

“How are you such a good friend? Why would you take me in like this… when we’d never met in person. Just a few FaceTimes from our school laptops over the years?” I asked. “Back when you sent Malik. How did you know to send him to save us…?”

She didn’t answer right away. Her eyes stayed on the lake, blinking slow like she was watching something far off and long ago.

“When I got your first letter in eighth grade,” she said softly, “I was sitting alone in the cafeteria. Again. Nobody would sit with me. They said my clothes smelled like the laundry room and I didn’t have the right sneakers.

Some girl said my mom probably worked at the gas station because I had ‘gas station hair.’”

My stomach twisted. “I’m so sorry.”

Shaniqua shrugged. “I was used to it. But that day, our homeroom teacher handed me your pen pal letter. You told me you liked frogs and reading mystery books and that you hoped one day you could learn to paint even though you were awful at it.”

I laughed, remembering how I used to sign those letters with doodles of sunflowers and little frogs in top hats.

“You told me about the trailer you lived in. About the way your mom forgot to buy bread but always remembered the dog food. About how sometimes the stars felt closer than the people around you.”

Tears welled in my eyes. “I didn’t know those letters mattered so much. ”

“They saved me,” she said simply. “I was gonna run away that year. I had fifty-three dollars and a bus route to Charlotte printed out. But your letters made me feel like someone saw me. Like someone understood.”

I blinked hard, tears slipping down anyway.

“So,” she said, nudging me with her shoulder, “when I read between the lines in your email you sent from a new account you made from the town library’s computer with the subject line SOS— I need to disappear.

I knew. I knew those words. That fear. I remembered how it felt when the world turned ugly on Malik.

I didn’t wait. I called him. I knew he’d know how to escape your silver spoon millionaire boyfriend and his family of vultures. ”

I covered my face with both hands and cried—not the shaking, gut-punched kind I’d known in the desert, but the kind that comes when someone reaches in and cradles the broken pieces you didn’t think anyone else could see.

“I didn’t save you, Skye,” Shaniqua said gently. “You saved me first.”

We sat in silence after that, feet in the water, the lake calm and wide before us. A heron called out in the distance, slow and mournful.

Eventually, Shaniqua broke the stillness. “Your baby’s gonna have a hell of a story to grow up with.”

I smiled, hand resting on my belly. “They’re going to know what real friendship looks like. What love looks like when it shows up without asking anything in return.”

Shaniqua passed me another slice of watermelon. “Damn right.”

And as the sun slipped behind the trees, setting fire to the sky, I finally believed what I’d only dared to hope these past three months .

Clarissa would never find us. Our baby would be safe and grow up somewhere magical.

“It’s been a long day. I’m going to head in. Love ya,” I squeezed her arm as I stood.

The screen door creaked shut behind me, the final sound of the day falling into the stillness of the night. The cabin was quiet, bathed in moonlight spilling through the open windows. Crickets chirped, soft and rhythmic. The wind whispered through the pines like a lullaby for the lonely.

I peeled off my shorts, every inch of me aching—from my calves to my lower back, from standing too long and carrying too much. The baby was quiet tonight, letting me feel my exhaustion without interruption. I rubbed my belly gently and whispered, “We made it another day.”

The old cotton sheets were cool and soft when I slipped between them, carrying the scent of fresh air and lavender. But even as my body melted into the mattress, my mind wouldn’t still. My bones were heavy. My eyes burned. But my chest—my chest felt hollow.

JD.

God, I missed him.

I closed my eyes and there he was, like he never left.

His silhouette standing tall under a setting desert sun.

Golden skin, a little dusty, his grin crooked like he knew every secret I was too scared to speak out loud.

His hands—the way they used to grip my waist like I was the only thing holding him steady.

That look in his eyes, right before he kissed me like the world could end and he’d still be happy, as long as I was in his arms.

I ached.

In my dreams, I let myself go where I couldn't in the light of day. In my dreams, I wasn’t hiding. I was his again .

His hands cupped my face, callused thumbs brushing under my cheekbones. His lips found mine—slow, patient, reverent. His kiss was like remembering how to breathe after drowning. My whole body came alive, nerves igniting under phantom fingertips.

His voice was low, a graveled whisper against my ear. “I still feel you, baby. I still taste you.”

My thighs pressed together under the covers, the need unbearable. My hips arched into nothing, into memory, into heat that pulsed from the center of me out.

His mouth moved to my neck, trailing down, every kiss a prayer. I gasped in my sleep, fingers curling into the sheets as the dream deepened, became wetter, hotter.

His hands knew me—knew exactly how to undo me. How to pull moans from my throat like music. How to make me beg with just a look.

I could almost feel the scrape of his stubble against my skin, the weight of his body over mine, the way he’d pause—always—just long enough to make sure I wanted it. I always did. I always would.

“Skye…” he breathed, right before he pushed inside me, filling me, completing me.

I whimpered, curling on my side in the bed. My body flushed, slick with sweat and longing. There was no JD. Not here. Just me and the echo of him, the echo of us.

I woke with tears on my cheeks and the sheets twisted around my legs. My hand rested low on my belly, where our baby moved softly, as if they felt it too—the ache, the absence, the love I hadn’t outrun.

The night wrapped around me again.

And I whispered into it, “I still love you.”

But only the wind answered back.