Page 163 of The Lumberjack and the City Slicker

When I hang up, my hands are shaking.

Not from doubt.

From finality.

Kelly finds me like that—still at the table, staring into space.

“You okay?” she asks gently.

I look up at her. Just the woman I want to see.

“Yeah, um, sit down a sec. I think I’m about to do something insane.”

She laughs softly. “Okay, well, is it good insane or bad insane?”

“I think good—for the both of us.”

I tell her about the apartment.

About the calls.

About how Manhattan suddenly feels like a life I survived instead of a life I want.

Her eyes soften.

“You’re not doing this just for Greyson, right?”

The question is careful. Protective.

“No,” I answer immediately. And I mean it. “I’m doing it because I feel different here. Lighter. Like I’m not performing all the time.”

I glance out the window at the mountain line in the distance.

“I write better here,” I admit. “I breathe better here.”

Kelly studies me.

“You belong wherever you feel steady,” Kelly says finally. “Not where you feel obligated.”

That lands somewhere deep.

Because Manhattan didn’t make me steady.

It made me polished.

It made me impressive.

It made me good at smiling through discomfort and swallowing disappointment and telling myself that compromise was maturity.

It made me feel obligated—to be the good daughter, the strategic fiancée, the socially acceptable woman who doesn’t rock boats or demand more.

Woodhaven doesn’t make me impressive.

It makes me honest.

It makes me grounded.

It makes me feel like I can exhale.