Page 11 of Remain

She scoffs automatically, defensive in the way she always was. “I did not.”

I step closer, lowering my voice. “You did. You always do.”

She pulls her coat tighter, and the gesture is so achingly familiar it almost makes me laugh.

Something shifts between us then. It’s subtle but we both feel it. It’s more than nostalgia. It’s recognition.

“Welcome home.”

She doesn’t argue and that might be the most hopeful thing I’ve felt in years.

5

Savannah

Runninginto Erik in the square felt like fate.

I left him once when I was young, scared, certain I was choosing my future and some small, defensive part of me expected him to make me pay for it. I braced for distance or resentment. I mentally prepared for the kind of polite indifference that hurts worse than anger. I told myself he’d be colder now, sharper, maybe even a little cruel in the way men sometimes become when they’ve been left behind or feel their egos bruised.

He is none of those things. He couldn’t be farther from them.

Erik is patient, stable and kind in a way that isn’t performative or strategic, the way a lot of men are when they want one thing and one thing only. He doesn’t flinch when he looks at me. He doesn’t punish me with silence or nostalgia. He treats me like someone who matteredand still does. That might be the most disarming thing of all.

Not to mention the problem I wasn’t prepared for at all.

He is devastatingly hot.

Being assigned to work with him feels like punishment.

I learn this the next morning in the back room of Pineview’s community center that smells faintly of burnt coffee and old pine cleaner, the kind of institutional warmth that never quite disappears no matter how many winters pass. Folding chairs line the walls, mismatched and scuffed from decades of town meetings and holiday planning, and a long table in the center is buried beneath clipboards, half-dried markers, and a tray of cookies no one ever admits to bringing.

The room hums with quiet chatter, every face is a familiar one and too many curious glances to keep track of. People are pretending not to look at me while absolutely looking at me. I grip the clipboard I definitely did not ask for and shift my weight, painfully aware that I am once again visible in a place that remembers me too well.

The realization lands suddenly, like a door closing behind me. I haven’t been in this room since my mother was alive.

My eyes drift to the whiteboard at the back of the room.

It’s still there and most importantly, so is her handwriting.

It’s faded now, half-erased beneath newer notes, but it’s hers. I would know it anywhere. I’ve memorized the rounded letters, slightly slanted O’s and L’s. It felt optimistic even when she was being practical.

One cart can change everything.

Love each other. Don’t overthink it.

My throat tightens.

This is where she used to stand, marker tucked behind herear, calling people sweetheart and pretending not to notice when they teared up but having a tissue at the ready. This is where she used to glance at me across the room like she was sharing a secret only we knew.

I look away before the grief can crest too high.

Mrs. Kincaid stands at the front like a general preparing for battle, steel-gray hair swept into place. She taps her pen against her clipboard, the sound sharp enough to cut through the murmurs. She’s been at this for as long as I can remember. The Christmas Kindness Drive is synonymous with Mrs. Kincaid.

She’s in her seventies, petite and immaculately composed, with a presence that snaps rooms into order before she ever raises her voice. Her posture is straight, her expression unreadable, and her clipboard might as well be an extension of her. Deep lines bracket her mouth, earned rather than softened, and her eyes are sharp and assessing, the kind that take inventory the moment they land on you.

She’s strict, efficient, and absolutely unyielding about procedure. Volunteers learn quickly that she doesn’t repeat herself and she doesn’t tolerate chaos. She moves through the room with practiced authority, issuing instructions that sound less like suggestions and more like commands.

At first glance, Mrs. Kincaid is intimidating in the way only someone deeply competent can be, but every year, without fail, she has to turn away when the gifts are handed out, blinking hard as if emotion is the one thing she never quite managed to discipline.