He shook his head and reached for a couple of bowls, his steps slower, but steady. When he set mine down in front of me, it was with a kind of care that made me ache in a way I didn't have a name for. Like the act itself—feeding someone—was its own quiet apology for the parts of himself he didn't know how to show.

The fire cracked low behind us, throwing light against the kitchen walls in that flickering way that made everything feel like it belonged to another time. I stirred the chili with my spoon, watching it swirl, thick and rich.

Then I looked down at my hands. Pale scars traced over knuckles, some faded to ghost lines, others still catching light when I turned them just right. I touched one, almost absently, and felt something stir in my chest.

"I wasn't always left-handed," I said, voice low.

I didn't look up right away. Didn't need to. I could feel the way his attention shifted—how he paused with the spoon halfway to his mouth, set it down without a word, and waited. Not to interrupt. Just to let me speak if I wanted to.

"Oh?" Colt's voice was low, not pressing—just steady, like he was easing the door open in case I wanted to walk through it.

I nodded once, slow. Let my thumb trace the rim of my bowl before I spoke again. "My daddy didn't like it. Said left-handedness was weak. Wrong." The words came out quieter than I expected, like the air itself didn't want to hold them. "He'd tie my left hand behind my back. Said I needed to learn discipline. Said it'd make me better." I paused, eyes fixed on the grain of the wood beneath my fingers. "Guess I believed him. When you're a kid, you think pain means you're bein' shaped into somethin' good."

The room was still. I didn't look up, but I felt the shift in Colt—how he stopped moving altogether, how that silence between us thickened. Not with discomfort. With presence. That kind of quiet men like him carried when they were listening close, the way a soldier scans for movement in the dark.

"He stopped after Mama passed," I added, breath catching a little. "Not sure if it was grief or guilt or just exhaustion, but by then I'd already switched. I wrote with my right hand. Did chores with my left. Eventually it stuck."

The scrape of Colt's spoon setting down was soft, but I heard it like it echoed. When I finally looked up, he was leaning back slightly, eyes steady on mine, jaw tight, like he was keeping something in his teeth. I could see it then—how it worked on him. Not just what I'd said, but the way I'd said it. Not angry. Not bitter. Just true.

"Your daddy really did that?" he asked, but it didn't sound like a question. More like a reckoning.

I gave a small nod. "He thought it made me tougher. And maybe it did, in some twisted way." I let a breath out slow, like it'd been waiting years to leave. "Later, I found out he was born left-handed too. His daddy beat it outta him. Guess he thought passin' that down was a kind of love."

Colt leaned back slow, arms folded across his chest, that furrow deep between his brows like he was trying to work something loose in his head. He didn't speak right away—he never did when it mattered. Just sat there, watching me with that steady kind of quiet that felt more like a presence than a silence. Like he wasn't waiting for me to finish, but holding space for whatever else I needed to say.

"Generational, then," he said. "Ain't that somethin'. Folks always say blood runs deep. They just don't talk about what's buried in it."

That struck somewhere I wasn't ready for. Not painful. Just honest. Like he'd pulled a thread I didn't know I'd left loose.

I nodded faintly, fingers brushing the rim of my bowl again. "They think it makes you strong," I murmured. "Like takin' away a piece of us would somehow prepare us for all the other things that'd get taken later."

He didn't respond right away. Just leaned back again, staring at the fire like it might explain something the world never could.

"Did it?" he asked finally, voice softer than before. "Make you stronger?"

I sat with that a second. Could've lied. Could've made it neat. But the truth was messier than that. I let my gaze fall to my hands, to the scars that lived there—quiet, permanent.

"I don't know," I said honestly. "It made me quieter. Made me figure things out without askin'. Made me good at holdin' things in." I paused. "But strong?" I shook my head a little. "I think it just made me hard to reach."

That settled between us, heavy but not suffocating. Like we were both sorting through pieces we hadn't dusted off in a long time.

Colt's eyes stayed on the fire, his jaw tight, like he was working something out he didn't know how to say yet. Finally, he spoke, slow and deliberate. "You think he ever regretted it? The way he went about it."

I stared at the flickering shadows on the far wall, let the question sit with me a moment. It was one I'd carried for years but never asked out loud—not to myself, not to anyone else. I exhaled, steady but quiet.

"Maybe," I said. "Maybe by the end, he just didn't have the fight left in him to pretend it mattered. When Mama died, everything changed. He looked older overnight. Quieter. Mean softened into tired. I think he realized too late how much time he'd wasted tryin' to shape people instead of seein' 'em."

The firelight flickered soft across Colt's face, carving shadows into the quiet set of his jaw. He didn't speak. Just sat there, hands still, eyes tracing the flames like they might burn a hole through whatever he was holding in.

I didn't rush it. Just leaned back, let the chair creak beneath me, the weight of my own body grounding me in the room. Some kinds of silence don't beg to be filled. They ask to be witnessed.

Then I reached across the table, slow. Let my fingers skim his—barely a touch at first, light as a question. "Let me teach you," I said, softer than I meant, steadier than I felt. "Or try to. I ain't no expert either, but I figure two busted-up people learning side by side's better than one losing his mind alone."

His hand didn't pull away. But it didn't fold into mine either—not yet. He stared at the space where we touched, like it held a truth he wasn't sure how to hold. Then his gaze lifted to meet mine, clear and searching. His eyes had that same look they always did when he was riding hurt—focused, quiet, trying not to show how deep it went.

"You really think you can teach me?" he asked, voice low, raw at the edges. "Or are we just talkin' comfort for the sake of it?"

I shook my head, no hesitation. "I ain't sayin' it'll be easy. And I sure as hell don't think I've got all the answers. But I've been where you are. Or close enough. And I know the road feels longer when you're walking it by yourself."

He looked down, thumb brushing his palm like he was still trying to find the nerve endings. "This ain't how I saw this year goin'," he muttered.

"Me neither," I said, meaning it in more ways than I could count.

There was a flicker of something—maybe surrender, maybe just quiet acceptance—as he let out a breath and nodded once. "Alright," he said. "Long as you know I'm a slow learner," he said, his voice lower now. "And I cuss when I get frustrated."

"I figured that was part of the curriculum."

He huffed, that dry sound that passed for a laugh most days. "You sure about this?"

"No," I said truthfully. "But neither are you. So we're even."

Before either of us could speak again, Colt shifted in his seat. He stretched his back slow, his shoulders rolling like he was trying to shake off the weight that had settled on them somewhere between my story and the fire.

Then, in that quiet, half-cleared voice he used when he didn't want to make a thing out of something, he said, "Caleb and Wyatt are headin' to a bonfire tonight. Out past the ridge—just a small one. Nothin' wild." He paused, eyes still on the flames. "I was thinkin' about goin'. Figured... maybe you'd wanna come."

At first, I thought I'd misheard him.

A bonfire.

I hadn't been to one since before Mama died. Not since those hollow months where grief hollowed me out so clean it felt like there wasn't anything left to burn.

"A bonfire?" I asked, not suspicious—just stunned.

He gave a small nod, like he wasn't sure if he should say more or let it hang.

"Could do us some good," he added, slower now. "Change of pace. Might feel nice to be around folks who ain't askin' questions or waitin' for you to fall apart."

There was no pressure in his voice, no pushing. Just an opening. Like he was holding a gate wide, but not stepping through unless I did too.

I leaned back in the chair, rubbing my thumb over the seam in my jeans. That part of me—the part that always felt safer staying behind, keeping my distance—wanted to say no. But the part that had just watched Colt listen to my pain like it was something sacred, that part didn't want to be alone tonight. Not in the house. Not in my own head.

"I haven't been out like that in a long time," I admitted, eyes still on the fire. "Not sure I remember how."

"That's kinda the point," he said, and this time there was the smallest flicker of warmth in his voice. "We don't gotta remember. Just gotta show up."

I looked over at him, and he met my gaze the way he always did—steady. Like he'd be alright if I said no, but he was damn well hoping I'd say yes.

Something softened in me then.

"Alright," I said, my voice quieter than I meant, but certain. "I'll come."

His mouth tugged into something like a smile—not wide, not cocky. Just honest. And that look in his eyes—relief, maybe—caught me off guard. Not because it was loud, but because it wasn't.

He stood, slower than he used to, like the day hadn't quite let go of him yet. His movements were careful, measured—the kind of slow that comes from pain you don't talk about. Still, there was something in the way he reached for his jacket hanging on the back of the chair, like he'd already made up his mind about this night and wasn't giving it room to change.

"We won't stay long," he said as he slid one arm into the sleeve, then the other, the fabric tugging slightly at his healing shoulder. "Just enough to remind ourselves there's more out there than this table and that barn."

As he stepped toward the door, I rose too, reaching for my coat. Our hands met on the handle, fingers brushing—not rushed, not hesitant, just that quiet in-between where nobody pulled away.

He was close then. Closer than I meant for him to be. Close enough I had to tilt my chin slightly to look up at him. His silhouette filled the space in that doorway like he belonged there, like the house had already made room for his shape. And I knew this wasn't new—this standing close, this silence—but something about it felt sharper tonight. More real.

The scent of him drifted up, slow and warm—cedarwood and horses and a hint of smoke from the fire. Familiar now. A kind of comfort I didn't know I'd been reaching for until it was already wrapped around me.

"Thanks for tellin' me that story," he said, quiet and sure, like the words mattered more than he let on.

I nodded, the space between us humming with something I didn't know how to name. "Thanks for listening."

His eyes stayed on mine for a beat longer. Blue and steady, that kind of gaze that didn't look through you but right at you—and not in a way that demanded anything. Just... saw.

We didn't move. Not yet. And maybe we didn't need to. There was something in the way he stood there—solid, protective, but open too. Like he was letting me see the parts of him he usually kept tucked behind quiet gruffness and stubborn pride.

And me—I didn't say it out loud, but I knew it then. If I ever came apart again, it might just be in the space between his shoulders and the way he breathed when he wasn't trying to hold everything in.

Eventually, he reached past me and opened the door, slow. The cold met us like a reminder. We stepped into it side by side.