Page 55 of Her Unending Horizon

The overlook wasn’t much to anyone who’d grown up in the Rockies or whatever. Just a big, flat rock outcropping where the hill dropped away in a steep slope down to the creek. From here, you could see the water rushing between boulders, flashing white and dark. In the other direction, if you turned, you could just make out the curve of town through the trees—rooftops, the church steeple, the faint suggestion of the square.

I stood on the rock and looked down at the water.

For a long time, I didn’t think anything.

That wasn’t true, of course. Saying I “wasn’t thinking” was like saying the creek “wasn’t moving.”

I was thinking of Chloe.

Of the way she’d moved around my kitchen like she belonged there, messing up my towel lines, not apologizing for existing. Of how the whole house had felt different with her shoes by the door, like it remembered what it was built for.

Of the way her face had fallen when I’d told her she should go.

She’d gone.

She’d put her hand over my heart, told me she wasn’t giving up on me, and then she’d left anyway. Shoulders straight. Head high. Like she’d finally realized she could walk away and not break in half.

The water rushed over rock, churning around obstacles before smoothing out again downstream.

“You’re an idiot,” I told myself, the trees, the creek. Hell, maybe the birds were listening… judging.

The breeze didn’t answer. A bird called somewhere to my right, sharp and brief. Yep, they were judging. The little bastards.

I thought about the babies we’d lost. About Kristen, the one who’d gotten a name and a face in my head, even if she’d never taken a breath. I thought about the night out here when I’d decided maybe following her sounded easier than going home to an empty house.

I’d stepped close to the edge that night. Closer than I’d ever admit to another living soul.

I looked down now and my stomach dipped, remembering. It wasn’t a pull, exactly, not like before. More a sick twist at the idea that I’d come that damn close to erasing myself from the world that held Chloe.

“You’re still here,” I muttered. “You didn’t take that step. Congratulations on the bare minimum.”

Again the birds chirped.

I didn’t know if coming up here was helping or if I was just rubbing my nose in all the places I’d once felt joy with her by my side.

Maybe it was both.

The sun started to slide lower, turning the treeline at my back into a dark wall. Down in the hollow, shadows stretched long over town. The air cooled another few degrees, enough that I could feel the temperature difference in my lungs.

I checked the sky out of habit—old firefighter reflex. Cloud cover was thickening; the moon wouldn’t be much help tonight.

I huffed out a laugh at myself.

Yeah, I might have some self-destructive ideations still bouncing around in the back of my skull, but I wasn’t so far gone that I was going to hike down a steep slope in the dark on a moonless night with shit ribs and a meeting on my calendar.

So, I turned away from the water and headed back the way I’d come, taking it slow, placing each foot carefully. I made it back to the main trail before the light really started to fade, and back to the truck with just enough time to get home, shower, and drive to Knoxville.

After all, I had a meeting with a man to keep.

And maybe, just maybe, a mess to step into with my eyes open for once.

Kellerman’s was the kind of place truckers stopped when they didn’t want to deal with chain restaurant bullshit.

Neon sign buzzing out front, gravel parking lot, big plate-glass windows sweating from the heat inside. The kind of diner that smelled like coffee, bleach, and a thousand fried breakfasts cooked on the same grill.

I got there ten minutes early.

Maurice Benson was already there.