We swam in this water. I keep coming back to that. Two years of mornings when the lake was glass and evenings when it caughtfire. We were good. So good I didn't know how to hold it without breaking it, which is exactly what I did.
She's built an entire life in the four years I was gone. San Pedro Eco-Tours. The house in the established neighborhood with the alpine chairs on the porch. Rex, who loves her the way family loves, who threatened to tear me apart and sleep soundly if I hurt her again. She belongs here. She belongs to this lake and this town and this work she's built with her own hands.
I'm the one who walked away from all of it. Not because I was terrified of loving her that much, though I was. Because my family found out about us. Found out about my sealskin. Started using both as leverage to pull me into schemes that would have destroyed her—corrupted her, endangered her, dragged her into darkness she never asked for. I had to leave to protect her from what they would have made her part of.
It didn't destroy me.
Leaving did.
“You good?” Rex says.
I look up. He's watching me with the attention of someone who sees more than he says.
“Aye,” I say. “Just thinking.”
“About the dock.” Not a question.
I don't answer. Don't need to.
Rex nods once, slow. “She felt it too. In case you were wondering.”
I go very still.
“I'm not telling you that so you'll do something about it,” he continues, his voice level and clear. “I'm telling you so you know that not doing something about it is the right call. She needs to choose. Not be chosen. Not be pursued. Not be convinced. She needs to decide for herself what she wants, and she can't do that if you're pushing.”
“I know.”
“Good.” He goes back to the rope. “Because if you fuck this up, I meant what I said at Hip Hops. Every word.”
“I know that too.”
We finish the boats. The sky has cleared to pale blue, washed clean, the kind of light that comes after storms when everything looks new. The tourists are filtering back down from the pavilion, collecting their things, taking photos of the lake in its post-storm beauty. Cora is with them. I can hear her voice, warm and reassuring, turning the weather disruption into part of the experience.
She's good at that. Making things feel intentional even when they're not.
Standing on that dock, feeling the warmth at that distance, seeing her lips part and knowing that she felt it too, that she wanted it too, that if I'd moved forward she might not have moved back.
That's exactly why I didn't move.
Because knowing she felt it means I have to be more careful, not less. The stakes are higher. If I take what isn't freely given, if I use that moment of vulnerability against her, I will have proven that I haven't changed at all.
I'm not that man anymore.
I spent four years becoming someone else. Someone better. Someone who understands that love is not about what you can take but about what you can hold steady while the other person decides whether they want to be held at all.
The only way forward is to earn her trust by showing up every day and doing the work and being the kind of man she can rely on.
Through restraint.
Through letting her choose.
Even if she chooses not to choose me at all.
Rex finishes with the last boat and straightens, rolling his shoulders. “We're good here. I'll handle the rest of the afternoon schedule. You should probably go home, get dry.”
“I can stay.”
“Muir.” He looks at me. “Go home. Process. Come back tomorrow ready to work.”