Page 133 of The Story Between Us

He walked past the chairs. Stood at the very edge, where the weathered boards met the darkness.

The cold seeped through his jacket, his Henley, his skin.

He thought about the manuscript. The ending he’d written.

He knew it wasn’t right. He’d thought readers might like a final battle, but maybe a heroic death for Aldric wasn’t the right answer.

He closed his eyes. Lifted his face to the sky.

And the psalm from yesterday filled his mind.

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted…

He’d read the entire psalm, and some of it rose in his mind. I will extol the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips…I sought the Lord, and he answered me. He delivered me from all my fears.

This poor man called, and the Lord heard him; he saved him out of all his troubles.

The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them.

And the words simply caught him up, swept into the hollow inside.

The poor man called, and the Lord heard him…

Yes. He pressed his hands to his face. Swallowed.

And for the first time in three years, he prayed.

Not words, exactly. More like a release. A letting go of everything he’d been carrying—the grief like a stone in his chest, the guilt that whispered in the dark hours, the fear that he wasn’t enough and never would be.

I don’t know what to do.

The words rose from somewhere deep.

I finished the book. I tried to do the right thing. And I still lost her. I still pushed her away.

The cold stung his cheeks. His breath fogged and disappeared into the darkness.

Silence. The lap of water.

And then—not a voice. More like words surfacing in the stillness. Words he’d read once, long ago, in Emma’s Bible, when he’d sat by her hospital bed while she slept and he’d picked it up just to have something to hold.

Blessed is the one who trusts in Him.

He didn’t open his eyes. Didn’t move.

He will lack no good thing.

The words kept coming. Rising from somewhere deeper than memory.

The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous. His ears are open to their cry.

Tears tracked down his cheeks. Cold in the night air.

He rescues the brokenhearted. He saves the crushed in spirit.

Emma’s face in his mind. Her smile—the real one, not the brave one she’d worn for their parents. Her voice saying The story is yours now. It always was.

He is our refuge and salvation.