Page 57 of Small Town Sizzle

Maya

The morning sun filters through the kitchen window, casting golden light across the counter as I pour my second cup of coffee. George sits at my feet, tail wagging in slow, steady thumps against the tile. The kids are finishing their breakfast, their voices blending into the kind of comfortable rhythm and morning routine we’ve perfected over the last year.

“You guys ready?” I ask, sipping my coffee and glancing at the clock.

“Almost,” Jaz says as she zips up her backpack, her hair still a little crooked from the braid I hurriedly fixed before breakfast.

Alex grabs a Pop-Tart and a banana and slings them into his bag. “We don’t have to go yet. It’s only 7:45.”

“Yes, we do,” I say, smiling at his attempt to stall. “I’m dropping you off early today. You’ll survive.”

I pack them into the car with practiced efficiency, George leaping into the back seat because he insists on being part of every school run. We roll through the neighborhood, sunlightpouring over everything in that soft, forgiving way it only does in the mornings.

Once they’re inside, I let out a long breath, the silence settling over me like a welcome blanket. It’s been months since I’ve taken a day just for myself, and I feel it in every part of me—the tightness in my shoulders, the ever-present weight in my chest. But today is the day that I reset.

Greta’s death stirred up a lot of memories and long-buried grief of my late husband, of Megan, and I’ve felt it pulling me under since she passed. If you add in that I was speeding to get to Carolyn and listening to the entire domestic and subsequent murder over the phone, it brought up a lot of trauma that I shoved into the recesses of my mind to deal with later.

Only I never dealt with any of it. Now, Devon’s come back into town, and I don’t know what to expect from him. I can only hope that he’s hit by a car or disappears without a trace, but that’s usually not the case.

I need to reset. I need to deal with all this stuff in whatever way I can today. If I’ve learned anything over the years, it’s that the universe will keep putting you in situations until you deal with the triggers that are coming up, and the more you ignore them, the louder they get.

They’ve been pretty loud as of late.

I need to deal with all of it, or at least start it, because I feel things for Garrett that I have no business feeling after one time together. If I don’t work through all my trauma and grief, it’s a recipe for disaster for my future. I also know that I need to go through Maya’s box, whether I’m ready for it or not, and this, this is what will help me get closer to doing so.

There’s one place in Hick’s Creek that I can go and feel close to Carson and Megs. It’s what I need right now to clear my head and feel the feelings that I’ve so desperately tried to avoid.

The trailhead is quiet when I arrive, and the parking lot is only half full. George bounds out of the car, and I grab my backpack and water bottle before locking up. The air smells like pine and damp earth, and as I take the first steps onto the trail, I feel some of the tension in my body start to loosen.

The forest wraps around me like a cocoon, the towering trees filtering the sunlight into dappled patterns on the ground. Birds chirp somewhere above, and the sound of my boots crunching on the dirt path mingles with the occasional rustle of leaves. George trots ahead, occasionally stopping to sniff something interesting before bounding back to me with his tongue lolling out.

I hike for hours, losing myself in the trail’s rhythm and the steady cadence of my breathing. The climb is steep in places, but the exertion feels good—a physical release for the mental weight I’ve been carrying. By the time I reach a clearing at the summit, my legs are burning, but the view is worth every step.

George flops onto the ground beside me, panting happily, and I sink onto a flat rock, sipping water and letting the peace of the moment wash over me. Out here, away from everything, it’s easier to think. To feel. To just be.

I sit there, my legs crossed, my arms wrapped around my knees. The wind picks up, running its fingers through my hair, teasing it into tangles, but I don’t care. Below me, the hiking trail winds like a ribbon through the dense trees, their leaves rustling like whispers in the morning breeze. but I feel none of its warmth. Grief is cold. It seeps into my bones, an old friend I never invited but somehow always find myself sitting beside.

Carson has been gone for ten years, and yet, I still wake up expecting to hear his voice, to feel his weight on the other side of the bed. We were the picture-perfect high school sweethearts—the couple everyone rooted for. He was charming, reckless in allthe ways that made life exciting, and he loved me like I was his whole world. But love isn’t always enough, is it?

When he enlisted, I was so proud of him. He wanted to serve, to protect. And then Afghanistan took him, chewed him up, and spit out someone I didn’t recognize. He came home, but he wasn’t really home. He was quieter, his eyes darker, always watching, always waiting for something to happen. I tried to reach him, to hold on to the boy I loved, but it was like holding onto water—it slipped through my fingers no matter how hard I clung.

It’s hard to know someone so well, then watch them become a stranger before your eyes. I couldn’t save him. God, I tried, but love wasn’t enough to pull him from the darkness. And when he took his own life—it shattered something inside me that I never thought could be pieced back together.

So, I closed myself off from love and only attracted emotionally unavailable men. Not only that, I looked for him—the him that was broken and sad—in everyone. The men I dated, the people I befriended. I wanted to fix them, to save them, since I hadn’t been able to save Carson.

And then there was Megs. Megs, who was drowning in her own abyss. I couldn’t save Carson, so I threw everything I had into saving her. She was addicted, lost in a haze of substances that numbed her pain the way nothing ever could for me. But Megs had something Carson never did—she had a fight left in her. When he died, something snapped inside her, and she chose to live. She clawed her way out, got clean, stayed clean. I like to think some part of him helped her do that. Maybe in watching me lose him, she realized just how much she had to live for. But that didn’t mean it hurt any less when I lost her, too.

Tears slip down my cheeks as I close my eyes. The wind carries their warmth away before they can even reach my chin.

And then there’s Greta.

Sweet, steady Greta, who was my anchor when I thought I had nothing left. She picked me up when I was nothing more than a heap of broken pieces and helped me remember who I was. But life is cruel, and loss never seems to let go of me.

Three people. Three pieces of my heart, gone.

I had tried so damn hard to save Carolyn, to get her out of that home with John because I’d somehow always seen things ending the way that they did. It’s taken me a long time to accept that I can’t save everyone and that, in reality, it’s not my job to do so. I was put on earth to leave people better than I found them, but sometimes it’s not always possible.

Having Jaz’s life threatened, seeing in her eyes the fear and the confusion of what I allowed Devon to do to me, was the worst pain I’d ever felt. The mom guilt was so real. It was Greta who helped me understand that the shame I was feeling wasn’t doing me or the kids any good. She helped me get through all of that with her love, patience, and her ability to listen and not judge.

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