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The vision comes too fast. Too easy.

Too much.

“You… bought a house?” My voice shakes. “Why?”

He laughs, rubbing the back of his neck. “Because I love the cottage, but it’s not really mine. I want to build something permanent. With you. With Kingston and Kody. A real home.”

His eyes are shining with hope, with certainty. But all I can feel is the panic clawing its way up my throat.

I step back. “Fletch…”

“No,” he says quickly. “Don’t do that. Don’t go there.”

“I’m not,” I lie. “I just—I didn’t expect this. It’s a lot.”

“You’ve had a lot, I know. But this—us—it doesn’t scare me anymore.”

It’s quiet for a beat too long. My hands shake, so I shove them in the pockets of my coat. “It scares me,” I whisper.

And he steps closer, crowding my space in the best way. “I know. But I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. I bought this place because I finally see forever and it looks like you.”

I don’t know how long I stand there in the center of that quiet, echoing house.

Long enough to imagine our twins toddling across the floor, sticky-fingered and giggling. Long enough to picture Fletch barefoot in the kitchen, flipping pancakes while music hums from a speaker on the windowsill. Long enough for the dream to start curling itself around my ribs like ivy.

And that’s when the panic hits.

It starts low in my gut and rises like smoke—slow but suffocating. My throat tightens, my skin prickles, and suddenly the walls feel too close, the air too thick.

I turn on my heel and walk out the front door.

Not run. Not storm. Just… move.

Because if I stay inside that house another second, I’m going to start believing it’s mine. That we’re real. That this life he’s building isn’t just another illusion set to collapse the second I let myself reach for it.

The porch creaks beneath my boots as I step out into the cold. I suck in a breath, sharp and biting, trying to calm the buzz beneath my skin. Trying to get my lungs to work. Trying to stop the flood of memories clawing up from the place I buried them.

I grip the railing like it might keep me from unraveling.

The door clicks open behind me.

“Mya?” Fletch’s voice is careful. Quiet. Like he already knows I’m halfway to falling apart. “What’s going on?”

I don’t turn around. I stare out at the trees instead, bare-limbed and brittle against the slate-grey sky. Everything is still. Quiet. Too quiet.

“I had a dream last night,” I whisper.

He doesn’t respond. I know he’s listening.

“You walked away,” I say. “Didn’t look back. Didn’t say anything. Just left.”

Another breath, sharp and shaky.

“And the worst part is, I didn’t wake up mad. I woke up scared. Because I remembered exactly what that felt like. Not knowing where I stood with you. Wanting so badly for you to be someone I could count on and⁠—”

My voice cracks.

“I don’t know how to do this again,” I admit, raw and small and completely unguarded. “To believe in something just for it to fall apart. To let myself want this—you—and end up standing there with nothing but empty hands and a broken heart.”