Page 67 of Don't Cross the Blue Line
“I don’t forgive the framing. I’m not there yet.” I hold his gaze. “But I understand why you did it. I know that feeling—the feeling like you have to cheat to matter, like if the numbers dropped, you’d disappear. So yeah. I get it.”
His eyes fill silently. “I’m sorry,” he says. Two words. Stripped of everything.
“I know.” I turn toward the front of the store, back on sentry duty. “Get some sleep, Cole. I’ll wake you up when it’s your turn to watch.”
Within minutes, his breathing deepens, and a weight slips from my shoulders. Maybe we really aren’t as alone as we believe.
I move to the snowmobile because the tent is small and my thoughts are large. The polar bear watches me from its fake snow, my companion for the night.
I’m tired in a way that has nothing to do with sleep. Bone deep. Identity deep. Twenty-three years of performing—strong for Mom, grateful for Coach, untouchable for the team, clean for the organization. One night in the dark, and I feel more seen than I have in years.
I don’t know how much time goes by before she shows up. An hour or two.
I don’t hear her come out. But I feel her. The way I’ve felt her all night.
“Mind if I join you?” Everly says.
I scoot over, making room for her on the snowmobile.
She sits. Pulls her blanket tight around herself. Her breath is visible, small silver clouds.
“It’s too bad about Cole’s mom,” she says.
“You heard all that?”
She leans into me just slightly, her shoulder brushing mine. “It’s a familiar story, the lie beneath it all.”
“What lie?”
“That you’re only worth what you produce.” She says it simply. “Cole gambles because he’s terrified of being cut. You took enhancers because you were terrified of being average. I build pen names because I’m terrified of being seen.” She pauses. “Different costumes. Same lie. If I’m not performing, I’m not valuable.”
It’s a truth so precise it almost hurts—having something you’ve carried for twenty years named by someone who’s been carrying it too.
“My mom used to say something.” The words surface the way deep things do when the filters are dissolved. “After my dad died. I’d come home from practice, wrecked, convinced I wasn’t good enough. She’d be doing dishes, and she’d say, ‘Beckett, stop worrying about your performance and just be yourself. That’s enough.’”
Everly goes still.
“She had this hymn that my dad loved. Something about the vain things that charm me most. I was eight. I didn’t really know what it meant at the time.”
Something shifts in her face—recognition so sudden it’s almost physical.
“My dad has that hymn,” she says. “He had it hung up in his home office.”
“Your dad has that hymn?”
“He started going to church after he and Mom split up. I guess it was his way of finding ground.” She pulls a knee up. “What are vain things, anyway?”
“Maybe the things we think make us valuable—the books, the brands, the performance—are the vain things.”
“And if we could let them go…”
“What’s left?”
“I don’t know. Maybe that’s the point. You have to let go before you find out.” She pauses. “I’m not great at faith. I’m a plotter—I’ve got to get the whole story lined up before my pen hits the page. Letting go of control is not really in my skill set.”
“Oh, I know.” I give her shoulder a nudge, but I don’t pull back.
She chuckles, leaning back into me. Her head rests on my shoulder, her hair brushing my neck.
