She showed up on my porch half-dead in a pastel coat, carrying ruined pastries like an offering.
The storm took her car. The mudslide took the road. Now she’s in my bed, wearing my shirt, and the mountain has decided she’s not leaving.
I saved her. Warmed her with my hands and my body. Fed her. Fought a goddamn bear for her.
She looked at me like I was the only solid thing left in her world and something inside me that’s been dead for four years cracked open.
She’s small. Soft. Talks too much when she’s nervous. Smiles at me like I’m not the kind of man who boards up windows and sleeps with a rifle by the door.
She thinks she can walk off this ridge.
She’s wrong.
I’ll drag her back every time.
I’ll put my ring on her finger and my kid in her belly and build her whatever life she wants on this mountain.
She came here looking for a reset. She found me instead.
Made me want to live again.
And that’s the part that terrifies me most.
