Page 12 of Second Chance with the Half-Elf

AERON

T he first thing I register is the cold.

Not the chill in the air, though the draft from the broken window hinge still whistles when the wind shifts. Not the cool wood beneath my back where I’ve slid halfway off the couch. No—this cold is quieter. Meaner. A space that used to be warm that suddenly isn’t.

I blink, heart already racing, and reach for her.

But the blanket’s empty.

No Evie.

Just the faint scent of her skin on the throw—the salt and wildflowers and storm—fading by the second.

I sit up too fast. My shoulder protests. The fire’s died to embers. The living room’s dim, gray morning filtering in through sea-glass windows.

“Evie?” I call, low, even though I know the answer.

Nothing.

I rub a hand down my face, grit grinding against my palms. Her boots are gone. Bag, too. No note. No sound. Not even a damn whisper on the air.

I stare at the space she used to be in, trying to make sense of the hollow it’s left behind. And then I do the one thing I swore I’d never do again.

I blame myself.

I knew better than to think one night would change anything. That touching her—holding her—would undo years of absence. Running. Silence so sharp it still bleeds when I breathe too deep.

She’s like the sea. Beautiful. Wild. Unruly.

And no matter how much you learn its moods, sometimes it just swallows things whole.

So I don’t chase her.

Instead, I stand, pull on my shirt slow, and tell myself to let her go again.

Because what else can I do?

The harbor’s already buzzing when I get there.

Vendors shouting, gulls screaming bloody murder overhead, the thrum of generators kicking up dust from the gravel lot. Rowan’s halfway through yelling at a teenager trying to string fairy lights from a beam with painter’s tape when I walk up.

“You want those to hold through a sea breeze?” she snaps. “That’s wishful thinking, not engineering.”

The kid mutters an apology and scurries off.

She turns and sees me.

Pauses.

“Rough night?” she asks, voice gentler than usual.

I grunt. “Didn’t sleep much.”

“Didn’t look like you were trying to when you left here yesterday.”

I shoot her a look. She lifts her palms like she’s innocent.

“Not judging,” she says. “Just observing.”

I ignore that and start checking the lantern rig wiring.

She leans a hip against the crate beside me. “You see her?”

“Briefly,” I say, voice low.

Rowan narrows her eyes. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Liar.”

I yank the cord a little harder than I need to. “She was gone before sunrise. Didn’t leave a note.”

Rowan exhales slowly. “Evie’s got a PhD in fleeing when shit gets real.”

“Yeah, well, maybe she should apply for tenure,” I mutter.

She watches me for a beat. “You know she’s thinking about selling the house.”

I still.

The breath I was halfway through taking catches and sticks in my throat like bone.

“What?”

Rowan nods. “She asked Liara for a contractor rec. Said she might need to get the place prepped for market.”

My jaw clenches. “She didn’t mention that.”

“She wouldn’t. Not if she thought it might make you ask her to stay.”

“She thinks I’d ask her to stay?”

Rowan gives me a look . “Wouldn’t you?”

My mouth opens. Then shuts.

I don’t have an answer that doesn’t taste like regret.

“I’m not gonna beg someone to love me back,” I say finally, quieter. “Not even her.”

Rowan softens, all the fire draining out of her shoulders. “I know. But she’s not thinking straight. She’s scared.”

“We’re all scared.”

“Sure,” she says. “But she thinks staying means being vulnerable. And being vulnerable means getting broken. Again.”

I stare out at the water. The gulls. The tide dragging seaweed back out like it’s tired of pretending to be still.

“She’s not the only one,” I say.

Rowan smiles, sad and knowing. “I didn’t say she was.”

I throw myself into the festival work like it might save me.

By mid-afternoon, my hands are raw. The skin along my thumb’s split from rewiring the main lantern string without gloves. There’s sawdust in my boots. Salt crust under my nails. A kink in my spine from hauling scaffolding to the north pavilion.

Perfect.

Physical pain is easy. It obeys rules. Heals in days. Doesn’t leave pictures in your head that replay every time you blink.

Everywhere I go, I see her.

There in the middle of the square—snapping shots of a mermaid dunk tank with that camera strap looped twice around her wrist like a tether.

And over there—behind the sound booth—laughing at something Liara says, her eyes soft and unguarded in a way I haven’t seen in years.

Every time I look away too slow, it hits me all over again.

How fast she crawled back under my skin.

And how helpless I am against it.

At dusk, I head down to the lower docks to finish repairs on the float for the monster parade. Some kid rigged a pulley system that’s half rope, half chewing gum, and entirely doomed.

The air down here tastes like old wood and regret. I work in silence, sweat dripping down my neck, ignoring the ache in my chest.

The tide doesn’t stop. Neither will I.

By the time I finish retying the last line and bracing the mast, the sun’s bleeding out over the horizon.

Still no sign of her. Not that I’m looking.

Much.

As I pack up, a voice calls out behind me.

“Thalen!”

I turn. Drokhaz, looming like a storm in a tailored vest, holding two cold beers.

“Figured you could use one,” he says, tossing it underhand.

I catch it without thinking.

I pop the cap on the dock rail and take a long swig.

Drokhaz studies me. “You look like someone tore out your mast and left you adrift.”

I grunt. “You always this poetic after hours?”

“Only when I see a man pretending he’s not heart-punched.”

I shoot him a glare.

He raises his bottle. “To pretending.”

I clink mine against his.

And try not to think about the girl with hurricane eyes and a tendency to vanish just when things start to feel real.

But the tide’s already changed.

And I don’t know how to stop following it.