“It’s really incredible.” My throat was tight, though I couldn’t say why. “Wait.” I looked more closely and noted that the dark lines rising up the sides were scorched. “Is that the piece I helped you move?”
“That’s it,” he said.
“Wow. I thought you were going to cut off the burns so only the good stuff was left.”
“Nah. I’ve found the imperfections are what give it the most character. They are what make art the most interesting and expressive. Humans often connect over our scars and wrinkles, don’t you think?”
I shook my head. “You never cease to amaze me.”
“It’s you, Pace,” he said, shy as ever when he shared the deeper themes of his work.
My jaw clenched, trying to hold back a wave of emotion as I leaned closer.
“I can’t explain it well. But it’s what you mean to me. To this town,” he added, a flush at his neck.
I looked again and saw that the missing pieces of wood were parts being shared as other, different woods were coming in.
It wasn’t about loss. It was about exchange.
I certainly wouldn’t ever be able to look at him again. A rising panic in my throat made speech impossible. I didn’t deserve this.
“You made me listen when I didn’t want to hear it,” Levi said gently. His gaze flicked to my boots, where I had been unknowingly backing away. “And I’m doing the same for you. This isn’t just about Sophie, though I think that she really might be your person, and you are at serious risk of losing her. This is about you realizing that you are a good man.”
What was so broken in me that the reassurance poured over me like a soothing balm for my scarred soul?
My head shook before he could even finish speaking. “I’m not enough. I’ve never been enough.”
“That simply isn’t true.” Levi grew angry.
“It is. Kaylee left, andyouleft—” He started to talk, but I cut him off, avoiding his gaze. “I get it, man, you and your mom wereso close. I understand. But if I had done more, or been able to help more, then ...”
“Then what?” Levi questioned, sharp enough that I was forced to look at him. This whole conversation was so deeply uncomfortable that I just wanted it to end. But Levi wasn’t letting that happen. He shook his head, confused, and went on. “Then I wouldn’t have grieved? I wouldn’t have been sad?”
“It sounds stupid when you say it like that, but yeah, I guess. I don’t know. I should have been able to get you out of that damn house sooner. You wouldn’t have dropped off the map and stayed locked up alone in that cabin for so long. You wouldn’t have hurt so bad.” I was horrified to feel tears in my eyes.
I’d gone up to his cabin so many times, terrified for what I’d find. That fear flooded me now. I should have done more for him.
“You did help me, Pace. This is what I’m saying. This is what this means.” He gestured to the art he’d been working on for months. “You checked in regularly when nobody else did. You made me list that rental. You brought Claire into my life.” His throat worked a hard swallow. “But I was always going to be sad. You have to know that. I needed time to just be in the grief. You can’t avoid the bad things. That’s part of living. But you helped pull me back. And then when I almost lost Claire, you got me back from the edge of a turning point I wouldn’t have been able to come back from on my own.”
Emotion burned my nose. I had to blink rapidly, jaw clenched.
“And I’m sorry. You never really let me apologize,” he said.
“For what?” I asked.
“For how I was after Mom died. How I completely shut down.”
My head was shaking back and forth as I rubbed my thumb between my pinched brow. “You don’t need to apologize to mefor that. She was yourmom. And more than that, you two were all you had.”
“No. I had you too. We both did.”
Inexplicably, I felt like I couldn’t swallow. I couldn’t even speak.
I nodded once to confirm.
“You grew up with her too, man,” he went on. “She was your family too. Because we are family.”
Firefighter don’t cry. Firefighter don’t cry. Especially just because their best friend is being kind.I dug my nails into my palms and made some weird, choked sound of understanding.
