Page 22 of Second Chance with the Half-Elf

AERON

T here’s a stillness to the house before the dawn fully breaks, the kind of silence that feels deliberate, like even the wood in the walls is holding its breath.

I come to slowly, my muscles sore from sleep that never quite took.

The air’s cool and damp, wrapping itself around the room like sea mist. The weight beside me is gone.

My eyes open to the echo of it—her absence.

The sheets still carry her shape, her warmth. But it’s fading.

I sit up, blinking toward the window. Pale blue stretches thin across the sky, the ocean not yet gold with sunrise but heavy with the hush of pre-light.

Fog hangs low, fingers curling along the bluff.

It smells like wet cedar and the brine of old salt, like a harbor town not yet stirred from dreaming.

She’s outside.

I feel it before I see her. A tug in my chest, magnetic and quiet.

When I step onto the porch, barefoot on chilled wood, I find her wrapped in one of my old wool blankets—gray and frayed and probably still smelling faintly of fish and firewood.

She’s curled up in the corner of the weatherworn loveseat, mug in hand, her profile sharp against the blur of sea and sky.

Her breath fogs faintly in the morning air.

She doesn’t look over.

“Didn’t mean to wake you,” she says, voice low and cracked from sleep.

“You didn’t,” I answer, my own voice rough from more than just dreams. “Didn’t sleep much anyway.”

I ease down on the other end of the bench. The wood creaks under my weight, and a gull cries somewhere down on the rocks. The tide’s low—so low the kelp beds are visible, slick and glinting in the half-light.

Evie’s eyes are locked on the horizon, where the clouds are stained with the first hints of fire. Her fingers are wrapped around the chipped mug like it’s the only solid thing left.

“It’s too quiet here sometimes,” she murmurs.

I glance around. The porch railing is slick with dew. Moss clings to the edge of the steps. Below us, the sea sighs through the stones, whispering against the pilings like it’s trying to remember a name.

“I used to think that too,” I say. “Before I realized quiet isn’t the same as empty.”

She huffs, but it’s not humor. More like she’s exhaling a truth that still hurts going out.

“When I lived in the city, I used to crave this,” she says. “The stillness. The salt air. Not having to fight to breathe.”

“And now?”

Her fingers tighten on the mug. “Now I don’t know if I fit anywhere.”

The gull cries again, louder this time. A soft wind stirs the porch swing. Below us, waves slap against barnacled stone, steady and tireless.

“You do,” I say. “Even if you don’t believe it yet.”

She looks at me finally. Her eyes are shadowed, rimmed with something that isn’t quite sadness and isn’t quite fear. It’s older than that. Worn.

“You don’t know what I’ve done,” she says.

“No,” I admit. “But I know you showed up anyway.”

Evie pulls the blanket tighter around herself, knees drawn up. “I keep waiting for the feeling to pass. Like I’m trespassing in someone else’s story.”

“This place doesn’t care what came before,” I say. “It only asks if you’re willing to stay when the storms hit.”

She goes quiet. Only the sea speaks now, and the groan of the porch wood beneath us. Somewhere, a buoy clangs faintly, its bell echoing across the water like a call no one ever really answers.

“You ever wish you could go back?” she asks. “Undo all the versions of yourself that got you here?”

I study her face—how the wind toys with her hair, the faint tremble in her jaw.

“No,” I say. “I just wish I’d been braver. Sooner.”

That gets her. Her shoulders stiffen, breath hitching like she wasn’t ready to hear the thing that’s haunted us both.

“I was angry,” she whispers. “All the time. Like it was the only thing keeping me upright.”

“I know,” I say. “I saw it in your eyes.”

“And you still…”

She doesn’t finish. Doesn’t have to.

“I never stopped.”

The ocean swells then, a wave crashing far off against the southern rocks. Sea spray lifts, catching the early light, casting the world in shimmer for one heartbeat.

Evie sets the mug down beside her, hands suddenly free and restless. “I don’t know how to let someone in without bleeding for it.”

“I don’t want you to bleed,” I say. “I want you to breathe.”

She turns fully now, the blanket slipping from one shoulder. The light hits her cheek, revealing a scar I’d forgotten was there. Faint. Faded. But still a map of where she’s been.

I lean forward, forearms braced on my knees.

“I’ll fight for you,” I tell her. “But not against you.”

Her lips part. Her eyes shine.

“I won’t chase you down, Evie. I won’t drag you back here by your ribs. But if you reach for me—if you look back—I’ll be here. Every time.”

She swallows hard, blinking fast.

“I don’t trust easy,” she says, voice a rasp now. “I don’t know how.”

“That’s fine,” I say. “We can build slow.”

The wind picks up, curling around us with the scent of salt and stone and pine. The kind of air that scrapes clean and makes room for something new.

She doesn’t say anything else. Just slides closer, until our knees brush.

It’s not a declaration. But it is a beginning.