CHAPTER TWELV—The Weight Andrew Carried
The air in Whispering Creek felt oddly still that morning, as if the town itself was holding its breath. Elena felt it too, a quiet heaviness that clung to her skin like mist. She didn't sleep well. Her dreams had tangled themselves in shadows and voices she thought she had buried years ago. Caleb noticed the exhaustion in her eyes the moment she walked into the bakery, but he didn't comment. He only gave her a gentle nod, the kind that told her he was paying attention even when he wasn't speaking.
But Andrew was speaking. Or rather, pacing behind the old courthouse, mumbling to himself as though the truth he carried was clawing at his ribs.
Elena saw him when she stepped out for a breath of air. His back was to her, his shoulders tense, his hands trembling as he tried to light a cigarette he didn't seem to want. She hadn't meant to cross paths with him again so soon. She wasn't ready. The sight of him brought a throb to her chest that felt too familiar, too raw.
For a moment she simply watched him. There was something heartbreakingly recognizable in the way he held himself, like a man trying to keep his insides from spilling out. She wondered if he had always looked this fragile and she had just never noticed.
She took a breath that didn't steady her at all.
Andrew.
Daniel's brother.
A ghost of a ghost she wasn't ready to face.
He turned at the sound of her footsteps, and for a moment his eyes softened, as if he'd been waiting for her. But then something else flickered across his expression. Guilt, maybe. Or fear. Or something darker she couldn't name.
You shouldn't be here, she thought. Not yet. Not like this.
But she didn't say it.
"Elena," he whispered, as though saying her name hurt him. "I didn't expect to see you this early."
She folded her arms, partly from the cold, partly from instinct. "This is a small town. It's hard to avoid anyone."
He let out a short, humorless laugh. "Yeah. Whispering Creek has a way of cornering you whether you want it to or not."
She studied him carefully. Up close, the details were sharper, more alarming. His eyes were rimmed with red as if he hadn't slept. His jaw was tight. His fingers were unsteady. Andrew used to be composed, the kind of man who pretended nothing could touch him. But now he looked as if everything had touched him, all at once.
Maybe grief does that.
Maybe guilt does too.
"What are you doing here, Andrew?" she asked softly.
He didn't answer. Instead, he pulled something from his jacket pocket. A small silver key. He turned it over in his palm, staring at it as though it was the only thing keeping him tied together.
"I keep thinking about that night," he murmured, his voice unsteady. "About what I should've done differently. About what I didn't say. What I didn't see."
Elena's stomach tightened. She wasn't ready for this conversation. Not here. Not anywhere. Her heart still clenched whenever she heard Daniel's name, even in her own thoughts. She didn't want to remember the way his laughter filled the sunlit kitchen, or the way he held her hand like a promise he intended to keep. She didn't want to remember the day he was taken from her in a way that made no sense.
"You don't have to talk about it," she said gently.
Andrew's gaze flicked up. "But you need to hear it."
The words chilled her.
She stepped back a little, instinctively. There was something in his voice, not threatening exactly, but tightly coiled. Like he was holding onto something he wasn't sure he wanted to release.
"Andrew," she said slowly, "you're not making sense."
He swallowed hard and looked away. "I'm not sure I'm supposed to."
Her pulse quickened. She didn't know what to do with him. Part of her wanted to walk away, to protect herself from the storm she felt gathering around him. Another part of her felt the painful tug of old love and loyalty. Andrew wasn't Daniel, but he was a piece of him, and that alone made it hard to turn away.
"Caleb's looking for you," she said after a moment, hoping to shift the moment, or at least ground it. "He's worried."
Andrew's jaw twitched. "Caleb has no reason to worry about me."
"He cares. Even if you don't see it."
Andrew let out a small, uneven breath. "He shouldn't." He paused. "You shouldn't either."
Something in those words scraped against a raw place inside her.
"Why would you say that?" she whispered.
He looked at her then, really looked at her, and the emotion in his expression was so tangled she couldn't untangle it. There was longing in it. And regret. And something close to fear.
"Because I don't know what I'm going to do," he murmured, voice hoarse. "Not anymore."
The honesty in his tone struck her like a cold wave. She didn't know what he meant, but she knew instability when she heard it. She had seen it before, up close, in people who carried grief like a sickness. But this felt different. This felt dangerous not in a violent sense, but in an emotional one.
She took a slow breath. "Andrew… whatever you're holding onto, you don't have to carry it alone."
He flinched, almost like the words hurt him.
"You don't understand," he said softly. "If I tell you what I know, nothing will be the same."
A chill ran through her. "What do you know?"
He shook his head, backing away slightly. "Not now. I'm not ready."
Then he did something that made her heart twist. He reached out, lifted her hand gently, and pressed the silver key into her palm. She stared at it, confused.
"What is this?" she whispered.
"Something you should've had a long time ago," he said. "Something Daniel left behind."
Her breath caught.
Daniel.
Her Daniel.
Something he left?
She opened her mouth to ask more, but Andrew stepped back, his expression pained.
"I'll explain soon," he whispered. "Just… don't lose it."
Before she could stop him, he turned and walked away, disappearing behind the courthouse. Elena stared after him, her heart pounding, the cold metal key warm in her fist.
She didn't know why, but she felt as if she had just been handed the beginning of something she wasn't ready to understand.
And the end of something else.
She closed her eyes, feeling the tremor in her hands. She wanted Caleb. She needed his steadiness, his grounded presence. But she didn't move. Not yet. Because something told her that if she took one step, everything around her might shift.
She looked down at the key again.
Silver. Simple. And terrifying in its silence.
What did Daniel leave?
And why had Andrew waited until now to give it to her?
A soft wind stirred the leaves around her feet, almost as if the town itself was whispering a warning.
Some truths don't stay buried forever.
And some return in the form of a trembling hand and a silver key