The day runs on small jobs. Sue sends me with a roll of tape and a stack of flyers for the community dinner again. I hit the clinic board, the grocery, the post office. Rina idles the truck with the window down and the radio low while I work. The sky can't decide between mist and rain; it gives us both.
On the way back, we pass the low garage with the half-open door. Oil smell, metal clink, music quiet. A laugh slips out from inside, sharp, bigger than the room. It's the kind of laugh people use when they don't want anyone asking if they're okay.
Rina doesn't slow. "Don't stop," she says, same as yesterday.
"I wasn't," I say. I wasn't. My chest still tightens like I was caught doing something.
Back at the hall, Sam reads names off the board and hands out work like wrenches. "Bonfire tonight," he says. "Keep it clean. No fights. No shows." His eyes cut to Paul, then past him to me. "You can be there," he adds, like we're testing a new tool. "Stay at the edge."
"Got it," I say.
Evening drifts in slow. The wind turns and comes off the water, colder than its look. First Beach glows in patches where the driftwood fire throws light. Kids run in circles. A dog steals a hot dog and the owner swears like he forgot he can laugh. Someone's Bluetooth speaker loses a fight with the surf and dies mid-song. It's regular life, messy and loud.
I hang where the sand goes banked and low, shoulder to a bleached log. Close enough to see, not close enough to be a part.
Embry waves when he spots me, grin easy, no call-out. He is good at letting someone be new without being weird. Leah stands with her hands in her jacket pockets and her weight on one hip, watching everything like it might try something. She doesn't look over. I'm grateful.
The boys cluster by the fire, a dark knot of motion—voices overlapping, the kind of rough that wasn't rough. Paul talks with his hands like his mouth isn't big enough. Jared laughs at the wrong parts on purpose. Then he walks up, and somehow the world seems to shift around him.
Jacob is taller than the last time I saw him from a distance. Or maybe he just stands like someone who decided not to fold anymore. He drops between Embry and Quil like he was meant to be there. His hair's pushed back, careless, and still falls right. He grins too wide, too fast. It hits like a door thrown open.
"Yo," Quil says. "Lover boy. You fix that disaster yet?"
"Psh." Jacob knocks shoulders with him. "I fix everything. You're welcome."
"You fix your face?" Paul says, smiling with his teeth. There's no heat on it. Not tonight. Not for him.
They laugh. It's easy laughter. It's real for them. For him, it's louder than it needs to be, riding the top of whatever sits under his chest. He reaches for a stick and pokes at the fire like he can make it do what he wants if he pushes hard enough.
A couple of girls from school wander over, one carrying a thermos, her words flowing. "Hey, Jake," she says, sweet on the surface, jittery underneath.
"Hey," he says, friendly, like he has no idea his name carries a room. "You bring the good stuff or the hot chocolate that lies?"
"Good stuff," she swears, and pours a splash into Embry's cup. Jacob sniffs the steam and fakes a gag.
"Gross," he says. "You tryin' to kill me?"
"Please," she says, rolling her eyes. "You don't die."
He laughs again. Too big. Too bright. Embry gives him a side look a friend gives, a small check, a Are you good? without saying it. Jacob shakes it off with a shrug that says I'm fine, man. He isn't.
I feel it, the thing under the jokes. Not words, weight. A throb he's holding with both hands. My gift doesn't tell me futures; it tells me what's honest. The honesty tonight is that he's trying, hard, and it costs.
After a while Quil starts telling a story about a fish that was definitely not that big. Jared derails it into a bit about someone's truck deciding to become two trucks. Paul heckles both of them, fast, almost joyful. Jacob feeds the fire with words and old jokes and the face he knows they need from him. When he smiles at nothing, it drops too fast. When he drinks from someone else's paper cup, he doesn't taste it.
Leah peels off and crosses to me without hurry. She stands on the other side of my log, looking at the water, not at me.
"Don't," she says, soft enough that the waves could swallow it.
"I wasn't," I say.
"Good." She folds her arms tighter. "He'll bite, and he'll hate himself after."
"I know," I say. I do. The knowing is a small pain, cleaner than the dumb ones.
She glances over, quick and sharp. "You read fast."
"I guess so. Just what's there."
"Yeah," she says. "That's what I mean."
Someone drops a log on the fire and sparks jump. For a second they look like stars trying the ground. They fade out fast. The younger kids scream for no reason except that screaming is free. The dog has found another hot dog. The man pretends to be mad and gives it up.
"Sam's watching," Leah says, eyes moving past me. I don't turn. I don't need to. I can feel the steady of him at the far side of the fire, doing the math on his people. "He's not gonna let stupid happen tonight."
"Good," I say.
She nudges the log with the toe of her boot. "You kept the post clean," she adds. It sounds like nothing. It's not nothing.
"Thanks," I say.
She leaves me to my edge.
Jacob's laugh rides the wind again, bright and wrong. The girl with the thermos touches his arm when she hands him a refill. He doesn't notice the touch, not really. He thanks her like she handed him a socket wrench and goes back to feeding the air a version of himself that doesn't bleed in public.
Embry tries one more quiet check. "You all right, man?"
"Yeah," Jacob says, fast. He claps Embry on the back like the answer can be hammered into shape. "C'mon. It's a party. What're you, ninety?"
Embry lets it be. You can't hand a man help like a hat and demand he wear it.
I think about the book that isn't a book anymore. About a girl with a ring and a boy with a hurt that wanted a bigger name. About the part where he walked away so the rest of the story could happen without him. About a garage where oil and grief trade places.
Don't steer people.
A child runs too close to the fire and trips. Jacob's there in an instant, arms out, catching and steadying her, tossing a joke into the air before a cry can fill it. She laughs, shakily, and runs off again. Jacob watches her go, a look flashing across his face that cracks and seals in a blink. Then he's back with the group, grin snapping on.
My hands itch to do something useless : fold, smooth a sleeve that doesn't need it, flick a crumb off the log. I press my palms flat and let it go.
Across the fire, Paul catches me looking and lifts his chin like a dare. I drop my eyes to the sand. I hear Leah's quiet don't again, even though she's on the other side of the circle now. I choose it.
The moon drags itself up behind clouds. The tide creeps closer. People start to peel away in twos and threes, pulling hoods up, tightening jackets. The Bluetooth speaker attempts a last song and dies with a gallant wheeze. Someone cheers the failure.
Jacob throws one more log on, like he can stall the night. The flames jump, then settle. He stares into them for one long breath like he finally forgot to pretend. It's there, plain as the firelight, the tired, the ache, the piece of him that hurts when he smiles. Then he feels eyes and blinks it off. The mask slips back into place so smooth you'd think it lived there.
I stand when Sam moves. The circle breaks in the practiced way of people who've done this a hundred times. Leah falls in with the cleanup, quiet, quick. Embry waves a last goodnight with his whole arm. Paul doesn't look back. Jared carries the emptied cooler like it stole from him.
Jacob heads for the dark line of the parking lot, hands jammed in his jacket pockets, shoulders set, steps too light for the weight he's carrying.
I could cross the sand and say hey. Offer nothing. Offer presence. Offer the cheap comfort of being seen by someone who won't make a mess of it. He would let me. He would make a joke with it. He would keep walking.
Be kind. Don't fix. Don't steer.
I stay where I am and watch the dark eat him in pieces: the firelight first, then the curve of his shoulder, then the last shine of the wet on his hair. I let the waves fill the gap he leaves behind. It hurts a little. It feels right.
On the way back up the path, Leah's voice catches me without catching. "Good choice," she says.
"Felt bad," I say.
"Good choices usually do," she says, and disappears into the trees.
The smokehouse is colder than the beach. I sit on the edge of the cot and press my hands to my knees until the nerves decide they can rest. The night is a long, gray animal outside the door. Someone's bike coughs and starts and fades. I don't get up.
Interest is easy. It's cheap. Restraint costs. I pay it.
I lie back. The ceiling doesn't move. My breath does.
Interest, held. Restraint, kept.
[
Hello, readers! This fanfic is complete. If you want to read ahead of the public release, you can access my Patreon. Thank you.
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]