It’s thirty seconds of Buckhorn joy set to a cheesy love song I would’ve rolled my eyes at in the city.
The comments come in immediately.
This is adorable.
Where is Buckhorn, and can I move there?
My wife is making me drive here next year.
The cocoa looks incredible.
Is that Jet from the diner?? We LOVE Jet!
Jet sees the last one and snorts. “As they should.”
I don’t even feel the familiar dread when I watch the numbers climb. No panic about whether it’s “right.” No voice in my head saying,Careful. Don’t take up space. Don’t be seen too much.
Because Buckhorn doesn’t punish you for being visible.
It hands you a cookie and asks if you want marshmallows.
By mid-afternoon, the square is a living thing. Music playing softly, laughter rising and falling, people lingering because no one wants to be the first to leave.
I catch myself standing still, phone lowered, just breathing.
The cold air fills my lungs. The lights overhead glow against the snow. My hands ache from holding my phone and fixing signage and waving people toward the cocoa station like I’m directing a parade.
And I feel… good.
Not numb. Not high on adrenaline.
Good in my bones.
Like I did something, and it mattered, and no one had to twist my arm to make it happen.
“Faith!” Lila barrels into me, cheeks red, hair a fluffy mess under her hat. “I need you.”
My stomach flips. “Okay. Is this an emergency or a ‘kid emergency’?”
“Kid emergency,” she announces solemnly. “The Love Tree is unbalanced.”
I blink. “The Love Tree is… unbalanced.”
“Yes,” she says, as if I should’ve noticed. “All the hearts are on one side. Love will topple.”
“Tragic,” I whisper. “We can’t have that.”
She grabs my hand and drags me toward the tree with the urgency of someone who believes this is life or death, and I follow because apparently I’m the kind of person who gets kidnapped by a five-year-old for a craft crisis and thinks,This is nice.
Dallas is already there when we get to the tree, crouched down, tightening the rope around the base so it doesn’t lean.
He looks up at me, eyebrows lifting. “Love Tree trouble?”
“Catastrophic,” I confirm.
He huffs a laugh, then reaches up and plucks a paper heart off a low branch. It’s lopsided and covered in glitter.
“What’s this one say?” he asks.
