I cry, covering it with another growl. No one.

I’m stronger than you. There’s nothing you can do to me.

“What the hell?” I hear someone shout. “What the fuck is going on?”

Someone grabs me, pulling the pipe out of my hands, and I whip around, seeing Jake. His shirt is open, and his feet are bare, and Noah hangs back by the door, watching in horror.

Jake looks between his son and me, breathing hard.

I clench my fists, a beautiful numbness seeping down over me.

Kaleb holds my gaze for a moment, the pulse in his neck throbbing, but then turns and grabs clothes off the dryer, finishing getting dressed. He doesn’t even have his boots tied before he slips on his coat and grabs his stocked pack, heading for the door.

“Wait, what the fuck is going on?” Jake grabs his son.

Kaleb jerks out of his hold and continues walking.

“You’re not going anywhere in this weather!” he yells at Kaleb.

Kaleb stops, turns, and looks at me. His eyes falter for a moment, looking sorry or some shit, and for a moment I think he’s going to come back.

He simply holds my eyes, lays his hand flat on his chest, and taps it twice.

I don’t know what it means, and I don’t fucking care.

Without sparing another moment, he turns and leaves, disappearing into the cold night.

Tiernan

I take a bite of my toast, holding it between my fingers as I prop the book open at the table. Their eyes burn my cheeks, but I avoid their gazes as I copy notes from the text into my notebook.

I take another bite.

“Are you okay?” Jake asks.

I flip the notebook over, continuing the sentence I’m writing. “I’m fine.”

The wind howls outside, and the snow kicks up and taps at the windows. The animals have been tended to, but we won’t be doing much else outside today. It’s below zero.

Not that I’ve been helping much lately anyway, and I don’t really care what Jake has to say about it. I dare him to pick a fight.

“You’re fine,” Noah repeats. “You’ve said that every day for the past week. And yet, you’ll barely talk to us.”

Guilt pricks at me, and I forget what I’m writing. It takes a moment to remember the word I was jotting down and continue.

Noah doesn’t deserve my silent treatment. Neither does Jake, really.

It just hurts. I don’t know what hurts exactly or why it hurts, but I’m angry, and I can’t pretend I’m not. Jake followed Kaleb that night, and I went directly to the shower that was still left running, sitting in there for a half hour before my shivers and tears subsided.

When he came back, though, he came back alone, and I haven’t cried since. We haven’t seen Kaleb.

“I’m sorry he did that to your piece,” Jake tells me, holding his cup of coffee.

But I just shrug. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not like I was taking it with me in April anyway.”

“April?” Noah blurts out, and I hear him shift in his chair. “College doesn’t start until August.”

“I’ll be finished with my course work soon,” I tell them, not looking up. “As soon as the roads are clear, I’m going home.”

I’m eighteen, I’m financially independent, and I don’t belong here. Why would I stay?

I feel Jake lean in, tense. “This is your home.”

My eyes burn, and I flex my jaw to keep my emotions from betraying that I kind of like hearing that.

“We love you,” he adds.

But I just snicker. “So what did you think?” I ask, still writing. “I’d bed-hop every night for the rest of my life, as if we weren’t all completely insane? I was never going to stay.”

What did he expect to happen? I’d marry one of them? Live in the boonies and have all their babies?

Or maybe we’d just go back to being a family. Uncle, cousins, niece? I’d bring my husband here someday to meet them, the poor guy never knowing I’d screwed everyone in this house?

How did Jake think this was going to end?

“We would’ve backed off,” he says. “Kaleb is in love with you.”

“Kaleb…” I breathe out a laugh. “Is an animal. I’d be surprised if he remembered the color of my eyes right now. Like any girl, I only matter as much as his next piece of ass. That’s what I’m good for to him.”

I finish writing my sentence.

“He wasn’t right.” Jake watches me as Noah sits quietly across from me. “And he communicates by losing his temper. He was wrong, yes, but he was hurt. The only woman he ever loved forgot about him. Almost killed him.” He pauses. “He’s in love with you, Tiernan. He was jealous.”

Tears spring up, a cry I won’t let out aching in my throat. I want to shake my head. I want to yell and tell them it doesn’t matter. He can’t treat people like that, and it’s his choice how he communicates. No one is stopping him from saying what he needs to say.

So, he’s jealous. So, his father and brother are in the way. He didn’t have an issue sharing me the night of the fire. Am I supposed to read his mind whenever he suddenly changes it? He’s not a human. He’s a bear. His love feels like shit.

I straighten, slamming my book closed and picking up my stuff as I rise from the table. I walk around the kitchen, quickly pushing the thoughts from my head as I leave.

“Tiernan,” Jake calls after me.

I stop, hesitating a moment before I turn my head.

Jake sits in his chair, looking at me. “When Kaleb stopped talking, I tried to use sign language with him,” he tells me. “I still remember some of it.”

And then he puts his palm to his chest and taps twice, imitating the gesture Kaleb made before he left last week.

“This…” he says, “means ‘mine’.”

Steam drifts out of my mouth, clouding into the air. The peak lies ahead, the view so much the same as the first time I stood on this balcony back in August. But so different, too.

The chill has seeped through my white knit hat, and I hug myself with the brown plaid blanket Mirai sent me in the fall wrapped around me and a mug of cocoa in my hands.

My teeth chatter. The wind chill is well below zero.

And for a moment, I let my guard down and wonder. Where is he?

I stare out at the view, the snow-covered trees spread out all the way to the snow-capped peak, beautiful and desolate. Cold and lonely.

There’s only two directions he would’ve gone. Deeper into the forest, to the fishing cabin. Or to town.

Kaleb hates town.

The frigid air stings my lips. Another minus twelve degrees and frostbite can happen in as few as fifteen minutes. My fingers soak up the warmth of the mug, but even now, the blood is running cold, making them hard to stretch.

I try to stay longer, to feel what he might be feeling out there, but it’s too cold. I love the snow, but when it gets to this temperature it’s not fun anymore. I turn around, the snow on my balcony crunching under my hard-soled slippers.

Sliding the glass door open, I kick off my shoes just inside and step into my bedroom, closing and locking the door behind me. The fire crackles to my right.

I walk over to my bed and pick up my pillow, smelling the case. It smells like Snuggle. I washed the sheets after Kaleb left, but his smell was still here somehow. Now, it’s gone.