Page 45 of The Lumberjack and the City Slicker

She sees it.

I know she sees it.

I need her to see it so she stays.

She doesn’t. And I don’t know if I feel relieved or not.

“What are you doing?” I ask, low. “What the hell are you doing here, Clara?”

Her throat moves when she swallows.

Her lips part like she’s deciding whether she’s brave enough to tell me the truth.

Then she lifts her other hand and touches my wrist—the one holding hers—like she’s anchoring herself.

And that should be nothing.

It isn’t.

It’s everything.

“I came to find you,” she whispers.

The words shouldn’t matter.

But they do.

They hit some place in me that hasn’t been touched in a long time—the place that still wants to be chosen for something other than a name on paper.

My grip tightens around her hand before I can stop it.

“That’s a bad idea,” I say, voice hoarse. “You don’t know me.”

Her gaze doesn’t waver.

“I know you, Greyson. I know what your art means to me,” she says, like she hates the honesty but can’t help it. “It makes me feel something. And I need more of that. I need—” Her voice catches. “I need to believe there are still people who make things because they mean it. Not because they’re trying to sell me a filtered version of myself.”

My chest aches at the words, sharp and unexpected.

Because I know that world. I know that hollow, shiny kind of loneliness.

I can see it in the way she holds herself like she’s used to defending her right to take up space.

I should step back.

I should let go.

Instead, my eyes drop to her mouth.

Plump. Pink.

Still a little chapped from the cold.

And I hate myself for wanting it.

Clara takes a breath like she’s about to say more—about the artist, about the willows, about how she found me—I can’t hear it.

I can’t let her make it real.