Page 120 of Tessa and Nash

To the story I was raised on.

To the bitterness that shaped my whole life, like it was an inheritance.

Grandma folds her hands on the table, fingers still strong despite her age.

“Fear happened,” she says.

And because she is Nell Long, she says it like fear is a disease and she’s naming it clinically.

“The land was supposed to be shared,” she continues. “Worked together, settled properly later. It was survival. It was practical. It was… human.”

I stare down at the journal, the ink faded, the handwriting pressed hard into paper like the man writing it had been trying to hold everything together.

“But later never came,” I whisper.

Grandma’s eyes soften. “No.”

I lift my gaze to hers. “Why?”

She’s quiet, as if choosing between kindness and truth.

She chooses truth.

“After Jonah Long died, the family panicked,” she says. “Debt was pressing in. The Long name wasn’t enough to keep the roof up, not always. And grief… grief makes people feral, Tessa. It makes them cling.”

My throat tightens.

“The McCoys were terrified too,” she adds. “They had cattle. They had mouths to feed. Another winter like that one could have ruined them. They took the option that protected them fastest.”

“Not the one that was fair?”

Grandma nods. “Not the one that was fair.”

I’ve lived in the aftermath of that unfairness my whole life without knowing it.

“And then bitterness hardened the story,” Grandma says. “People needed an enemy to feel righteous. It’s easier to say they stole from us than it is to admit we were afraid and made choices we regret.”

I stare at the map, at the signatures. McCoy. Long. Two names at the bottom with a promise.

“Silence became easier than compromise,” Grandma adds.

“And pride kept everyone locked in place,” I finish, because the truth is settling into my bones as cold.

Grandma’s eyes lift to mine. “Yes.”

My hands curl into fists on my lap, nails digging into my palms.

All this time, I thought I was protecting my family’s legacy.

But maybe I’ve just been protecting an old lie because it was easier than untangling it.

I swallow hard. “Thomas is going to burn Buckhorn down if he finds out I know about this.”

Grandma’s expression tightens. “Thomas believes the past is something you can weaponize if you hold it tightly enough.”

“And he thinks control is the same thing as safety,” I say, the words coming out flat because they’re too true.

Grandma nods once. “Yes.”