Always have.
There's something meditative about it—the scrape of sandpaper against wood, the bite of the drill into timber, the way your thoughts settle when your body has something to focus on.
It keeps me from spiraling too far ahead and keeps me grounded in what's right in front of me.
The porch is almost finished now. The railings are up, sanded smooth, each spindle aligned perfectly.
Three years of work. Three years of hope built into every nail, every board, every carefully measured angle.
I'm tightening the last bolt on the corner post when I hear tires on gravel. The sound cuts through the quiet like a chord struck too hard, disrupting the peaceful rhythm of cicadas and birdsong and my own breathing.
I don't look up right away.
Julian's car has a specific kind of arrival—loud, careless, usually followed by music bleeding through closed windows or a dramatic door slam that announces his presence before his voice does.
The car door doesn't slam like it normally does when Julian arrives. It closes softly, carefully, and something about that makes me lift my head.
Everything in my world rearranges itself.
It's not Julian.
It's Nora.
She's standing beside his car like she's unsure whether to move closer or stay where she is, one hand resting on the door frame like she needs it for balance. Her bag is slung over her shoulder, and there's something clutched in her other hand that I can't quite make out from here.
The afternoon sun is behind her, turning her into a silhouette edged in gold. The light catches in her hair and breeze picks up a few strands and brushes them across her face, and she doesn't bother pushing them away.
She's wearing denim cutoffs and a plain white t-shirt, nothing special, nothing fancy. The kind of outfit that shouldn't make my heart stop but it does anyway because it's so completely her. Effortless in a way that has nothing to do with trying and everything to do with just existing.
For a second, I just stare.
Can't do anything else.
Can't move, can't breathe, can't process the fact that she's actually here, standing in front of the house I built for her, looking at me like she's been searching for something and just now found it.
I think my lungs forgot how to work.
Not because I don't know what I'm seeing—but because I've imagined this moment so many times that having it actually happen feels surreal. Like if I blink too hard or breathe too loud,she'll disappear and I'll realize I've been working in the sun too long.
I set the drill down slowly, deliberately, like any sudden movement might startle her. Might break whatever fragile courage brought her here.
My hands are still dusty with sawdust, skin warm from hours in the sun, and my pulse—steady but heavy—thuds in my chest, my throat, my fingertips.
She starts walking toward the porch with each step measured. Careful.
I notice what she's holding.
A stack of letters.
Thick. Worn. Edges soft from being handled over and over again.
The ribbon I'd tied around some of them long gone, replaced by the simple weight of her hands holding them together.
My letters.
The ones I wrote from rehab. The ones Ollie kept from her. The ones that were supposed to stay buried forever.
My throat goes dry. Every breath feels like it has to push past something solid lodged in my chest.
