Page 168 of Tessa and Nash

Every muscle in my shoulders locks.

He thinks this is my doing.

My chest tightens so fast it almost hurts.

“I didn’t do anything,” I say too quickly.

Thomas waves a hand as if details are beneath him. “You stayed close. You listened. You made the situation visible. That matters.”

Visible.

The word catches under my ribs.

Because yes, the situation is visible now, the land, the questions, the fractures in the story both families told themselves because the truth was messier than either side wanted to admit.

But that visibility came in a way he never intended.

He thinks I helped him corner Nash.

And that makes me feel sick.

I move farther into the room and pull out a chair. “You seem very pleased.”

“I am pleased,” he says plainly. “Why shouldn’t I be?”

I don’t answer.

If I answer honestly, I will say that his satisfaction is built on suspicion and half-truths, and that he seems far more interested in winning than in being fair.

I cannot say that here.

Thomas sets his mug down. “This is what I’ve been trying to tell you. The moment the town slows down long enough to think, the McCoy plan begins to unravel.”

I stare at the grain of the table for one dangerous second too long.

Because all I can see is Nash’s face in my memory. His mouth against mine. His voice rough and unsteady on Old Mill Road.

I love you.

The words still feel radioactive. I haven’t managed to touch them directly without burning.

And then I ran.

I left him standing there with the truth hanging between us like exposed wire, and this morning I dressed with shaking hands and went to work as if I hadn’t detonated my own life in the snow.

Thomas mistakes my silence for agreement.

“They should have stalled him sooner,” he continues. “But better late than never.”

My fingers curl under the table, nails pressing into my palm. “It isn’t over.”

“No,” he agrees. “But momentum matters. Doubt matters. Once people start looking closely, they won’t stop.”

My throat tightens.

Because that part is true.

Once you start looking closely, the simpler version of the story stops working. Not after the journal and the map. After my grandmother quietly admitted what pride and fear did to both families.