Page 18

The campfire crackled on the sanctuary’s upper observation deck, its light casting a warm amber glow over the worn deck planks and the faces gathered around it.

Mason sat a little apart from the others, his back braced against a cedar beam, hands wrapped around a chipped enamel mug of coffee that had long since gone cold.

Natalie, seated next to him, leaned into the firelight, her fingers loosely tangled with his.

Volunteers were filtering away in twos and threes, their conversations drifting off into the darkness along the winding trail toward the lodge.

By the time the last voice faded, only Mason and Natalie remained beneath the stars.

Above them, the sky stretched wide and silent, the Milky Way swirling like mist above the tree line.

Somewhere in the distance, a bird called, a soft, warbled echo that settled into the stillness.

There was something playing on Natalie’s mind, life changing, unavoidable so without delay she turned to face Mason and just blurted it out.

“I had an email. It was waiting for me when I got back to the cabin, from a lawyer. Giles wants a divorce and to sell the house. All I have to do is say the word and my old life will be packed up and sold off. Simple as signing on the dotted line.” Seeing the words in black and white had rocked her almost perfect world and reminding her that she couldn’t hide from making a decision forever.

Mason sucked in air, and she could tell he was trying to think of the right words to say. His thumb brushed the edge of his cup as waited.

“I thought you were quiet tonight,” he said softly.

She nodded, then shrugged, the firelight catching on the edge of her jaw. “I’ve been thinking it all over.”

“That’s dangerous,” he teased gently and offered a small smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Maybe I need to say some stuff, that might help you decide. About things I haven’t said before.”

Natalie’s expression shifted, softening into something serious, open. “Okay.”

He looked out at the treetops for a long moment. “You know the story I told you about the woman I was with? The baby we lost?”

“Yes.”

“I left some things out.”

The fire crackled, casting shifting shadows across his face.

“We didn’t just lose the baby,” he said.

“We lost everything in one long, unraveling stretch. I didn’t know how to grieve.

But she did. She cried, she screamed, she mourned.

I watched it all and couldn’t make sense of any of it.

And instead of standing beside her, I shut down.

I built walls so high, even I couldn’t see over them. ”

Natalie listened without interrupting.

“One night, she came home late. She looked different. Worn out. I asked her where she’d been. She said she needed space. That someone else understood what she was feeling. She didn’t say it, but I knew. There was someone else. And I didn’t blame her.”

His voice was tight. “The thing is, I didn’t fight. I let her go. I thought I was sparing us both. I told myself that if I stayed, I’d do more harm than good. So, I packed my things and disappeared.”

He looked down into his mug. “That’s how I ended up here.

Olivia took me in and gave me a place to stay, and even then, after she was kind, I was carrying so much anger I still messed up and left.

I think maybe the whole town cheered. And then when I came back she gave me a second chance but most of all, she let me be me, left me alone to work it all out. ”

Natalie reached for his hand again. He let her take it, his fingers wrapping over hers.

“I’ve spent years convincing myself I’m better alone. That I wasn’t meant to be anyone’s husband, or father, or anything else that asks for more than I know how to give. But then you showed up. And every day since, I’ve been questioning everything I used to believe about myself.”

He glanced at her, his expression unguarded. “You make me want things I’d stopped letting myself want.”

She touched his cheek, her thumb brushing gently over his skin. “That’s not weakness, Mason.”

“I’m afraid of breaking it,” he whispered. “Of breaking us. But I want us more than I’ve wanting anything before.”

“You won’t break us, Mason. I won’t let that happen.”

They sat in silence, the fire’s glow warming their faces, the stars overhead bearing witness to a confession long overdue. And when Mason finally rested his head against Natalie’s shoulder, it was not with the weight of shame, but with the relief and release of truth.

The night closed gently around them, blanketing the deck in quiet reverence. They weren’t just holding hands anymore. They were holding history. And they were no longer afraid of what came next. Not together.

The morning after the campfire, Natalie rose before dawn, the firelight of the night still burning in her chest. She wandered the sanctuary trails alone for a while, letting the stillness of the woods speak to the questions moving through her.

Mason had shared his pain, the edges of a past she could feel still marked him.

She’d felt it in the way he hesitated, the moments his hand tightened slightly around hers, like he still feared the collapse of what they were building.

But as much as it brought them closer, it stirred something in her, too, a quiet ache she’d kept carefully hidden.

She’d spent so much of her adult life strong, capable, determined not to need anyone. She had become the woman others could lean on, while quietly locking away her own need for reassurance, for safety, for love she could trust not to unravel. And trust, she’d learned, came at a cost.

Later that morning, she joined Olivia on the back deck of the lodge. The older woman was already there, her cane laid across her lap, a mug of tea warming her hands.

“You look like you didn’t sleep,” Olivia said, not unkindly.

Natalie gave a small laugh. “I slept. Just not peacefully.”

They sat in companionable silence for a while, watching the forest slowly come to life.

“Can I ask you something?” Natalie said at last.

Olivia nodded, sipping her tea.

“It’s about Davey.”

Olivia stiffened slightly but nodded again. “Alright.”

“I’ve heard whispers. From town. I haven’t asked because I didn’t think it was my place. But now... I think it might help him if someone else knew. If it wasn’t a secret. ”

Olivia didn’t respond immediately. Her gaze was fixed on the horizon, where the mist rolled gently through the pines.

"He’s not a bad kid," she said finally.

“I know.”

"But he did something that gave them a reason to label him."

Natalie waited.

“He got into a fight,” Olivia said. “At college. A serious one.”

Natalie’s brows lifted, but she didn’t interrupt.

Olivia’s voice was steady, but low. “There was a girl in one of his classes. She’d come to him more than once about a guy who wouldn’t leave her alone.

Told him she was scared. Davey encouraged her to go to the administration, but she said she didn’t feel safe making it official. So, Davey kept an eye out."

She paused, and Natalie saw the tightness in her grip around the mug.

“One night, he found the guy cornering her after a party. She was crying. Davey pulled him off her. The guy threw a punch. Davey hit him back. Hard. Knocked the guy clean out and he ended up in ER.”

“Did she speak up?” Natalie asked softly.

“She tried. But it became a ‘he said, she said.’ The guy’s family had money. Lawyers. Influence. Davey didn’t. And he refused to apologize. He said he’d do it again.”

“They expelled him.”

Olivia nodded. “Just like that. My son, who acted out of instinct and protection, was labeled violent. Dangerous. The family had too many connections and deep purses, you know how it goes.”

Natalie felt the knot in her chest tighten. She could picture it—the quiet anger in Davey’s eyes, the burden he’d carried without explanation, the guilt that didn’t belong to him but lived there anyway.

“And the worst part?” Olivia added, her voice trembling just slightly. “He’s been carrying it like it defines him. Like maybe they’re right."

"He’s ashamed about being kicked out."

Olivia nodded. "And I couldn’t fix it. I couldn’t make it go away. I didn’t know how."

The pain in her voice settled over them like fog. Natalie took her hand and held it.

“He protected someone,” she said. “That matters.”

Olivia’s jaw clenched, her eyes filling. “I know it does. But the town doesn’t. Not all of them. They see a quiet boy with a checkered past and fill in the blanks. They see him through the lens of what they’ve heard, not who he is.”

Natalie felt that truth settle deep in her chest.

That afternoon, Natalie found Davey in the storage barn, organizing supply bins.

“Hey,” she said, leaning on the doorframe.

He glanced up, his expression wary.

“Your mom told me,” she said gently.

His eyes darkened. “Told you what?”

“About school. About what really happened.”

He looked away.

“Davey,” she said, stepping closer. “You don’t have to be ashamed of that. You did what you thought was right.”

“I hit someone,” he said flatly. “That’s what everyone sees. And he got off with it all.”

“And that’s unfair, but I don’t care about him or his parents who couldn’t see what their son was and failed to teach him a life lesson. All I see is someone who stood up when it mattered. Who didn’t look away. He’s the person I care about.”

He swallowed hard, blinking against something.

“I just... I don’t want that to be the first thing people know about me. "

"Then help them see the rest," she said. "Let them see the man you’re becoming, not the boy they only heard about."

He nodded slowly, and for the first time in weeks, she saw his shoulders lower. Just a little.

That night, under the stars, Natalie sat again with Mason by the fire, the shadows of old wounds still lingering, but the light between them growing stronger.

“We all have ghosts,” she said. “But we get to decide if they haunt us... or teach us.”

Mason looked at her, his eyes steady.

“And you? What have yours taught you?”

She hesitated.

“That I’m allowed to need someone,” she said. “And that it doesn’t make me weak.”

He kissed her then, gently, reverently, like the world might stop and start again in the space between them. And in some ways, it did.