Page 8 of Let it Burn
She turns toward me slowly, her face still close to mine, and I catch the tiniest twitch at the corner of her lips—something like a smile. Not quite. But close.
“Okay,” she says. “Let’s get that one.”
After she agrees to the system, something shifts between us. It’s subtle, but I feel it in the way she lets her shoulders drop, the way she lets the silence stretch out a little longer without rushing to fill it. We talk more after that—nothing deep at first. Just easy things. Her favorite kind of coffee. The small clinic she works at. I tell her about the firehouse and Maddox being a pain in my ass half the time. She actually laughs—quiet, but real. And it does something to me. Makes me want to earn more of those laughs.
I show her a lock option for her door, and she leans forward to see better, her arm brushing mine briefly as she takes the phone from me. The contact is fleeting, but every nerve in me stands at attention.
“You can control everything from your phone, but it’s completely secure so no one can hack in. There’s even a panicfeature in case you see that creep again. I’m sure he’s long gone, though, there’s no reason for him to stick around after what I did to him,” I reassure her.
Her fingers pause on the screen, and I see her hesitate. When she lifts her eyes to mine, they’re no longer casual. There’s something in them—something that’s been waiting to be said.
“I do know him. I know who it is I mean. I didn’t even really date him,” she says quietly, her voice almost too soft to catch. “We had like three dates. If you can even call it that.”
I don’t interrupt. I stay still, let her set the pace. Even though I wonder why she didn’t tell Jake she knew him.
“He was nice at first. Charming. Knew what to say, how to listen. But after that second date, I started getting this feeling—like he wanted to control everything. Even told me I need to change my shifts at the hospital so they could sync with his working hours. Third date I told him we were done. But he didn’t listen to me. Then he was everywhere. He’d show up outside my building. Or at the grocery store. At the hospital. Even once at my mom’s place.”
She swallows hard. Her grip on the phone loosens slightly, but she doesn’t let it go. “When I told him he needed to leave me alone, he lost it. Caused a scene at my job. Yelled at me. Accused me of things. Said I’d led him on. He caused so many scenes at work, they fired me.”
“You got fired because of him?” My voice is low, even, but the anger is there. Controlled, for now.
She nods. “They said I was creating an unsafe work environment. That it was better if I stepped down. He never laid a hand on me, and the calls he made to work were anonymous, so the restraining order I had on him went nowhere. My friends tried to help, but after a while, even they thought I was crazybecause every shadow freaked me out. And I would constantly be talking about him, but he was so charming, I don’t know if they believed what I was saying. And one by one, they just drifted out of my life. So, he got his way after all—I was totally isolated.”
A fire lights up in my chest. This woman—strong, quiet, carrying all this on her own.
“But I didn’t go to him. I ran. Changed my number. Found a new place. Started over. It seemed so quiet and hidden here. I didn’t tell anyone where I was, not even my mom. And for a little while, it worked. Till he found me. And I knew the whole thing would start all over again.”
“So that’s why you didn’t tell Jake you knew him? You thought he wouldn’t believe you?”
“The police thought I was crazy. It’s like I was imagining everything. Why should things be any different here?”
Her voice cracks on the last sentence, and I rest my hands on her shoulders, giving her time to pull away if she wants to, but she doesn’t.
“I believe you, Lena,” I murmur, "he had no right to take your peace.”
I feel the shift in her before I see it. A breath leaves her, shaky but fuller than before, like she’s been carrying the weight of it too long and maybe just maybe—she doesn’t have to carry it alone anymore.
Her chin trembles, and she blinks back tears—guilt, shame, exhaustion all flickering behind her beautiful brown eyes. Then she whispers, almost too soft to hear, “It’s just... I’m so tired. I can’t do this again, Jake. Where do I even go?”
I don’t think. I just open my arms.
And to my absolute disbelief, she comes to me.
She leans forward, her arms slipping around my shoulders, and I pull her in, gently wrapping my arms around her like I’ve wanted to since the night I found her, broken in her apartment. She’s not crying, but the way she holds me—tight, silent, desperate—it does something deeper. It tells me how much she’s been holding in. How much she’s needed this. Needed someone to be there for her.
I don’t let go. Not for a long time. And when she finally pulls back, her face is close to mine, her eyes soft and glassy, her voice barely above a whisper. “Thank you.”
She doesn’t need to say more.
“You’re not going anywhere as long as I’m around, okay?”
“But he could hurt–”
“He’s never coming near you again. I’m here now.”
She pulls back slowly, her arms lingering around my shoulders longer than necessary before she sits upright again. I settle beside her, and for a moment, we just sit. No talking. No movement. The kind of quiet that feels like something sacred passed between us.
Then the first crack of thunder splits the silence.
