Page 35 of Max Bannon

I nodded. “Just taking it all in.”

She looked around and smiled. “It’s kind of beautiful, huh?”

“You’re kind of beautiful,” I said before I could stop myself.

She rolled her eyes but leaned into my side, her head resting against my arm.

“Hey,” her dad called from behind us. “I think I want to buy something up here. Nothing big—just a little place to stay when we visit. You think there’s anything for sale around here?”

Tessa’s jaw dropped. “Wait, seriously?”

“Dead serious. I can’t believe you live in a place like this. I’d come up every month if I could.”

I glanced down at her and saw it—the shimmer of tears she was trying to blink away.

And in that moment, I knew it wasn’t just about the mountain.

It was about them seeing her—reallyseeing her.

Happy.

Whole.

Home.

And I got to be part of that.

Not by rescuing her. Not by fixing anything.

But by justbeing here.

For once in my life, I wasn’t trying to outrun anything or fix the past.

I was just living the kind of moment that makes you stop and say,Yeah. This is it.

Tessa’s dad and brother wandered back up the trail after lunch by the falls, saying something about checking out town and grabbing ice cream. Tessa stayed behind, her bare feet dipping in the edge of the water, fingers trailing across the surface like she was drawing something only she could see.

I sat beside her, close enough that our legs brushed but not so close that I broke the spell.

She looked peaceful.

And I didn’t want to break that either.

“You ever get tired of it?” she asked, not looking at me.

“The view?”

“The quiet.”

I shook my head. “Not once.”

She smiled, still watching the water. “It used to scare me. Too much stillness meant too much time to think.”

“And now?”

She glanced over at me. “Now I don’t mind thinking. As long as I’m not doing it alone.”

That did it.

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