Page 68 of When the Smoke Clears

“I know,” he says softly. “Just making sure you’re taken care of.”

I take the glass, our fingers brushing. For a heartbeat, I forget why I came out here at all.

“Thanks.”

The silence stretches between us—awkward, humming, heavy with things neither of us wants to touch.

“I’m gonna go back to bed,” I blurt.

He nods once. “Goodnight, Isla.”

“Night.”

I escape to the guest room and shut the door harder than necessary.

After twenty minutes of wrestling with my pillow, I sit up and punch it into a lumpy cloud. Everything is wrong. The cotton case scratches my cheek. The blanket is too hot and too cold.

My thoughts circle. My mother, Doc’s call, Luke, the last forty-eight hours.

Grief slams into me like waves pounding a cliff. I’m that cliff, and I’m battered, alone, eroding one storm at a time.

Can grown adults even be orphans? Because that’s what I am.

Beyond Erin, the only person who truly understands me is the grumpy sheriff on the other side of the wall.

Before I can reconsider, I swing my legs out of bed and pad across the room. My hand shakes as I rest it on the cool metal door handle to Luke’s room.

I turn the knob.

“Luke?” I whisper into the dim room. “Are you asleep?”

“Are you okay?” he responds instantly.

“Yes,” I lie, my voice thick. “I just…was hoping we could talk.”

“What’s going on?”

“I miss my mom.” A sob breaks free with the words, raw and strangled. Luke is out of bed in a breath, catching my hand and tugging me gently toward him.

He pulls me against his chest, arms wrapping around me, anchoring me. His heartbeat pounds steadily under my cheek.

“I don’t have the right to miss her,” I choke. “I cut her out of my life.”

His arm tightens around me, lips brushing my forehead in the softest ghost of a kiss. “Of course you do. She was your mother.”

“Our relationship was a disaster,” I whisper, the words scraping out of me. “She blamed me for destroying things with my dad. He vanished the second she told him she was pregnant, and she never, ever let me forget it.”

He exhales slowly. “I know.”

Of course, he knows. He knows everything.

“And when I left…God, it was a relief not being around her anymore. The drinking. The neglect. All of it.” My voice trembles. “So I didn’t reach out. Not really. Even when she finally started trying.”

I swallow hard, blinking back the burn in my eyes. “I just hope—” My breath fractures. “I hope she knew I loved her.”

“She did.” His reply is immediate, firm, almost fierce. “You couldn’t tell her the real reason you left. That choice was taken from you.”

Anger and grief surge together, twisting sharply in my chest. “I hate whoever did this. To me. To her. To all of us.”