Page 20 of Let Me In

The air’s shifting. A cold front pushing in off the ocean. The ridge catches it early.

I make the rounds anyway.

Not because I expect anything. Just because I always do. The land’s mine, and I know how to read it. The slope. The breaks in the trees. The small turns animals make when no one’s watching. I walk it every day. At different times. Never the same rhythm.

I carry the binoculars. Not for surveillance—just clarity. A way to see without guessing. The hills give a clear view down to the cove if you know where to stand.

And I do.

Today, I pause halfway through the loop. Something catches in the corner of my eye—movement by the shoreline, where the grass curls close to the water.

I raise the glass.

It’s her.

Far enough I can’t see her face. But I don’t need to.

There’s something in the way she walks now, shoulders a little higher, like she’s bracing. Tension where ease should live. Something in the line of her spine that makes me shift my weight—like I’m already halfway to her before I’ve decided to move.

My body reads it before my mind does. Something’s off. And I feel it.

The two shapes darting around her—one bounding ahead, the other staying close. The bounding one, light and eager. The other, small and watchful. Like it’s reading her too, mirroring that low current of tension I can feel from all the way up here. They’re not just playing. They’re keeping pace. Guarding in their own way. Just like I am.

I saw them once before. On a screen, weeks ago. I told myself it was just caution—just curiosity. Wanting to know more about the woman with wide eyes who didn’t flinch, but still looked like she might bolt.

One quick look. A name. A profile. And there they were.

The dogs. One tucked against her side in a photo, the other mid-leap behind her. She was laughing. Wind in her hair. Like nothing in the world had touched her yet.

I didn’t look again. I couldn’t. One glimpse was already too much to carry.

But seeing them now—real, alive, moving with her like she’s gravity—it hits something deep. Like something I was already certain of, made real. Like they can’t help but be pulled toward her, same as I am. And for a second, I wonder if this is what surrender feels like; quiet, inevitable, and already done before you notice.

Of course she has dogs.

Of course they follow her like she’s the only safe thing they’ve ever known.

They know what I know.

I stay still.

Don’t call. Don’t move.

She’s sitting now. Curled down into herself, just enough to tell me something’s wrong.

She wouldn’t want to be seen like that.

But I see her anyway.

And I stay there for a long time, watching over the field, breathing slowly and steadily, like the rhythm of my breath might reach her across the distance.

Because she doesn’t need rescuing.

She just needs someone to stay.

And I will.

9

---