Statistics say heartbreak isn’t a medical condition. But if you watched a woman get erased inside a room packed with people who once called her family, you’d start to question the experts.

The loneliest place in the world isn’t a quiet apartment at midnight. It’s a crowded hall where laughter ricochets off crystal chandeliers, where champagne fizzes like it’s celebrating you, and where nobody meets your eyes.

That was where Faye Yost sat, alone, at the far end of the ballroom of The Harborlight Hotel in Newport, Rhode Island, a place built for glossy photos and perfect beginnings. Tonight was supposed to be one of those postcard weddings, the kind that ends up framed in the foyer of a house with wide windows and no secrets.

Instead, Faye’s presence felt like a secret everyone had agreed to keep.

She’d chosen her seat carefully.

Close enough to the action that no one could accuse her of being dramatic by hiding, far enough that she wouldn’t have to catch too many people glancing at her like she was a stain they couldn’t scrub out. Her dress was a simple rust-colored wrap, tasteful and modest, the kind you wear when you don’t want to be noticed. It wasn’t the dress she’d imagined for weddings, back when she was still invited to them with warmth instead of obligation.

Her fingers traced the rim of a water glass she hadn’t touched. A waiter passed with a tray of champagne flutes, the bubbles lifting like little hopeful prayers. The tray never angled toward her.

At the head table, the bride’s father, Earl Gold, lifted his glass for another toast, booming with that polished confidence that came from decades of being the loudest man in a room.

“To love,” he declared, “the kind that survives any storm.”

Applause scattered through the ballroom like thrown confetti. Faye lifted her glass halfway, just enough to mimic the ritual. It looked like participation from a distance. Up close, it was a woman going through motions so nobody could say she hadn’t tried.

Behind her, two women she’d grown up calling “Aunt” in every way except blood leaned closer together.

“Look at her,” one whispered, with the sugary cruelty of a voice trained to smile. “Bold as ever, showing up after everything.”

“She should’ve stayed home,” the other replied. “If I were her, I’d disappear.”

Faye kept her gaze on the stemware. If she turned around, if she defended herself, their whispers would grow into a performance. If she stayed still, she could pretend she was made of stone.

Three months ago, her name had been attached to disgrace the way a burr clings to wool.

Her uncle, Byron Yost, had been arrested on federal fraud charges so loud they might as well have been broadcast on the hotel’s speaker system. Byron wasn’t just family, he’d been her guardian after her parents died, her only real anchor in a world of careful smiles. He’d built a contracting business that fed half the county’s construction projects. Then, in a single week, investigators raided his offices, seized records, and held press conferences with phrases like embezzlement, bribery, kickbacks, and stolen funds meant for disaster relief.

He’d denied everything right up until the judge’s gavel sounded like a nail sealing a coffin.

The evidence had looked overwhelming to everyone who wanted it to be. Documents with his signature. Emails from his account. A hidden ledger in a safe that wasn’t supposed to exist. Photos of him meeting with men who looked like trouble in expensive suits.

And Byron, stubborn to the end, had stood in court and said, “I’m being set up,” as if truth were a thing you could hold up like an umbrella and stay dry beneath.

He’d been sentenced quickly. Too quickly.

Then came the quieter punishment: the world’s decision that Faye was collateral damage worth spending.

Her savings evaporated into legal fees and debts Byron’s business couldn’t pay once contracts were frozen. Friends stopped calling. Neighbors stopped waving. Her childhood best friend, Ingrid Fair, had walked right past her at the grocery store as if Faye had become a product she couldn’t afford.

Now, in this ballroom, she watched Ingrid at a nearby table, laughing with a groomsman, head thrown back, hair shimmering under warm lights. Ingrid’s eyes skimmed over Faye and slid away like Faye was part of the décor.

Faye’s throat tightened. She’d expected anger. She’d prepared for insults. She hadn’t prepared for this slow erasing, this social exile where no one even bothered to throw stones because silence was cheaper.

The band shifted into a brighter song, something with clapping and the promise of dancing. Couples began to rise. A few older relatives swayed near their chairs. Bridesmaids adjusted their dresses and smiled like they’d been born knowing where to stand.

Faye stayed seated.

Her chair felt too small for the weight inside her.

She told herself she could endure it. She’d endured worse than whispers. She’d endured standing outside a courthouse with cameras pointed like weapons. She’d endured reading comment sections that treated her family name like entertainment. She could endure one wedding.

Then the room changed, the way weather changes when clouds slide in front of the sun.

A shadow fell across her table.

Heavy footsteps approached, not loud, just unmistakable, as if the floor itself had learned to give way.

Faye looked up.

The man standing beside her chair seemed like he’d stepped out of a different story.

He was huge, not in the gym-bro way, but in the way an old oak is huge: broad-shouldered, steady, impossible to ignore. He wore a black suit that looked custom, not flashy, just clean and sharp. His hands were scarred, knuckles mapped with pale lines like forgotten battles. His hair was dark, cut short, and his jaw carried the roughness of a man who didn’t care much about polishing himself for other people.

But it was his eyes that made her forget to breathe.

Storm-gray, steady, and strangely kind.

He leaned down, close enough that she could smell soap and cedar and something like cold air after rain, and he whispered four words that sounded like a lifeline thrown into deep water.

“Act like you’re with me.”

Faye blinked. “Excuse me?”

His mouth barely moved as he spoke again, still low, as if they were sharing a secret rather than a plan. “You’re sitting alone. People are circling you like you’re a problem they want to solve by ignoring. I can fix that. For tonight, at least.”

“Why would you…” Her voice cracked, and she hated herself for it. “You don’t even know me.”

“I know the look,” he said. “The one that says you’re trying to be invisible so nobody has to decide what to do with you.”

Faye’s fingers tightened around the stem of her glass. “This is… inappropriate. It’ll cause gossip.”

His expression softened, almost amused. “They’re already gossiping. I’m just giving them a better topic.”

She glanced around, and sure enough, heads had begun to tilt. People noticed a man like this, a man built like a wall. A few women leaned in to whisper. A few men watched him with that reflexive measuring look men get when another man enters the room and changes the temperature.

Faye swallowed. “Who are you?”

He extended a hand, palm up, as if offering her a choice rather than a command. “Rafe Thunder.”

The name sounded ridiculous in a ballroom full of names like Earl and Ingrid and Marjorie, but it fit him in the way some names feel carved rather than given.

“And you?” he asked.

“Faye,” she said, then hesitated. Her last name felt like a bruise. Still, she forced it out. “Faye Yost.”

If he reacted to it, he didn’t show it. No flinch, no polite tightening, no quick retreat.

Instead, he nodded, like that was simply information.

“Okay, Faye,” he said. “Act like you’re with me.”

She stared at his hand.

Taking it would mean stepping into the light. It would mean accepting attention in a room that had been starving her of it. It would also mean painting a target on herself again, and maybe on him too.

“This is madness,” she whispered.

“Most things worth doing are,” he replied, and there was no corny grin in it, just a calm certainty that made it hard to argue.

Faye surprised herself by placing her hand in his.

His fingers closed around hers with surprising gentleness, warm and steady, as if he’d held scared hands before and knew how not to squeeze too tight.

He pulled her to her feet in one smooth motion.

The band’s music kept going, but conversation stuttered. Heads turned. A hush rippled outward and dissolved into whispers.

Rafe guided her toward the dance floor as if this were normal, as if she belonged in the center of the room instead of at its far edge.

“Breathe,” he murmured, leaning close enough that only she could hear. “You’re doing fine.”

“I feel like I’m walking onto a stage,” she said through her teeth.

“Good,” he answered. “Let them see you exist.”

He placed one hand at her waist, the other holding hers. His palm was calloused, rough in a way that felt honest. And then, like the world had been waiting for permission, they moved.

He was surprisingly graceful, leading her with quiet confidence. Not showy, not stiff. Just steady. The kind of dancing that wasn’t about performance, but about being present.

Faye’s body remembered how to move before her mind could keep up. She’d danced at weddings before. She’d laughed before. She’d let herself be seen before.

For a few precious minutes, the shame loosened its grip.

When the song ended, Rafe didn’t let go right away.

He looked down at her, eyes steady. “Still want to run back to the wall?”

Faye’s throat tightened again, but this time it wasn’t from humiliation.

“Thank you,” she said.

“The night’s not over,” he replied.

They returned to her table together, and the air around that table felt different now. Not warmer exactly, but charged, as if the room had been forced to acknowledge a fact it had tried to deny.

They sat. A waiter appeared, suddenly remembering his job existed.

“Champagne?” the waiter asked, eyes flicking nervously between them.

“Yes,” Rafe said, calm as a king. “Two.”

As the flutes arrived, Faye felt the weight of eyes. She also felt something new: the shock of being defended without having to beg for it.

A man in a navy tux approached, smiling too wide. “Rafe Thunder,” he said, as if tasting the name. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

Rafe’s gaze lifted. “Earl.”

So this was the bride’s father.

Earl Gold’s smile sharpened, his eyes sliding toward Faye. “And I didn’t expect you to… mingle in that direction.”

Faye’s stomach clenched. Here it was. The moment she’d feared. Her presence turning into a public issue.

Rafe didn’t move fast, didn’t raise his voice. He simply placed his hand over Faye’s for a second, an anchor, then looked back at Earl.

“Careful,” Rafe said.

Earl chuckled. “It’s a wedding. No need for threats.”

“I’m not threatening,” Rafe replied. “I’m advising.”

Earl’s eyes narrowed, then he forced another laugh, all charm and performance. “Enjoy the party.”

He walked away, but his words lingered like smoke.

Faye stared at the champagne bubbles. “You shouldn’t have sat with me,” she whispered. “He’ll make your life difficult.”

Rafe lifted his glass, studied it briefly, then met her eyes. “My life has survived worse than a man who thinks he owns a room because he rented it.”

She let out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh.

“Who are you really?” she asked quietly. “Because you’re not just… someone’s friend.”

He watched the dance floor, expression unreadable for a moment. “Just someone who recognizes a crowded-room kind of loneliness.”

That answer was gentle, but it didn’t feel complete.

Faye sensed layers under him, hidden currents. And for a moment, a dangerous thought flared.

What if this wasn’t just kindness?

What if there was a reason?

The band shifted to a slower song. A few couples moved closer together. The lights softened.

Rafe turned back to her. “One more dance.”

Faye hesitated, then nodded. “Okay.”

This time, when they stepped onto the floor, she lifted her chin. She met people’s eyes. Not to challenge them, not to beg, but to remind them she existed.

And she realized something odd, something sharp and true.

Being stared at was painful, yes. But being ignored had been worse.

After the dance, they slipped outside to the balcony where the ocean air cut through the perfume and heat of the ballroom. Newport’s harbor glittered with docked boats like scattered jewelry. The night was cold enough to wake a person up.

Faye hugged her arms. Rafe shrugged off his suit jacket and draped it over her shoulders without asking.

It smelled like cedar and clean fabric. Like safety.

“You keep doing that,” she said softly.

“Doing what?”

“Showing up,” she answered. “Like it costs you nothing.”

He leaned against the railing, looking out at the dark water. “It costs something.”

Faye turned toward him. “Then why pay it?”

Rafe’s jaw tightened briefly, as if he was deciding how much truth to give her. “Because I know what it looks like when a story has been written about you and nobody asked if the plot was real.”

Her pulse skipped. “You know about my uncle.”

“I know what people say,” he replied. “I also know what people say is often a shortcut.”

Faye’s throat tightened again, this time with something like hope that scared her more than shame ever had.

“You think he might not have done it,” she said.

Rafe’s eyes returned to her, steady as a lighthouse. “I think you don’t believe he did.”

Faye felt exposed. “I… I don’t know what I believe anymore.”

“Yes, you do,” he said quietly. “You’ve just been punished for saying it out loud.”

The balcony door opened. A woman stepped out, face tight with irritation. Ingrid.

She froze when she saw them.

For a second, her expression flickered with something like guilt, quickly buried beneath social armor. “Faye,” she said, as if tasting the name like it was old food.

“Ingrid,” Faye replied.

Ingrid’s eyes slid to Rafe. “I didn’t know you were… accompanied.”

Rafe’s gaze didn’t soften. “Now you do.”

Ingrid forced a laugh. “Look, Faye, people are just… cautious. There’s been a lot of talk. You can’t blame them.”

Faye’s hands tightened around the edges of Rafe’s jacket. She felt old anger rise, but it wasn’t hot anymore. It was cold and clean.

“I can blame you,” Faye said, voice quiet but steady. “You didn’t have to defend me. But you didn’t have to erase me either.”

Ingrid’s cheeks flushed. “It’s complicated.”

“It’s convenient,” Faye answered.

Ingrid’s gaze sharpened. “If you really cared about the family, you’d stop showing your face at events like this. You make everyone uncomfortable.”

Faye almost laughed, not from humor but from the sheer audacity. “I didn’t commit a crime, Ingrid.”

Ingrid’s voice dropped, crueler. “No, you just share the blood.”

Rafe moved, subtle and immediate, stepping slightly in front of Faye like a shield made of bone and calm.

“That’s enough,” he said.

Ingrid looked up at him, and for the first time her confidence wavered. “This isn’t your business.”

Rafe’s eyes were ice now. “It is when someone is trying to convince an innocent person to vanish for your comfort.”

Ingrid opened her mouth, then closed it, then spun back toward the door, heels clicking like angry punctuation.

When she was gone, Faye realized her hands were shaking.

Rafe turned, softer again. “You okay?”

Faye nodded, but tears stung her eyes anyway. “It’s ridiculous,” she whispered. “That one conversation hurts more than all the internet comments.”

“Because it was someone you loved,” Rafe said, simply.

The words landed with weight.

Faye looked out at the harbor lights and felt something inside her shift. A small pivot, like a key turning in a lock.

“Rafe,” she said, “if you’re doing this out of pity…”

He cut in gently. “I’m not.”

She swallowed. “Then what is it?”

Rafe’s throat bobbed, and for a second the giant stranger looked almost… uncertain.

“Maybe,” he said, “I’m tired of watching good people get sacrificed so powerful people can keep their narratives tidy.”

“And why would that matter to you?” she asked.

He looked at her for a long moment, then said the quiet truth that made her lungs forget their job.

“Because pretending I’m with you doesn’t feel like pretending.”

Faye’s heart thudded hard, as if trying to break free.

She should have stepped back. She should have reminded herself of reality, of investigations and whispers and how dangerous hope can be when you’re starving.

Instead, she stayed.

When they went back inside, the ballroom felt smaller, like the walls had moved inward to listen.

Rafe stayed beside her through dinner, through speeches, through the cutting of cake. He didn’t hover. He didn’t claim. He simply stayed, and that steadiness gave Faye something she hadn’t had in months.

Permission to breathe.

Later, as the party loosened into laughter and dance, Earl Gold approached again, this time with a man in an expensive gray suit whose smile didn’t reach his eyes.

“This,” Earl said, “is Grant Riker. He works with the state.”

Grant’s handshake was cold. “Ms. Yost,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to speak with you.”

Faye’s stomach dropped. “About what?”

Grant smiled politely. “Your uncle. New developments. We may need you to answer a few questions.”

The room blurred slightly at the edges.

Rafe’s hand settled lightly at the small of her back. Not forceful. Just present.

Grant’s eyes flicked to Rafe, calculating.

“And you are?” Grant asked.

Rafe’s voice was calm. “Someone who doesn’t like ambush conversations at weddings.”

Grant’s smile sharpened. “It’s not an ambush. It’s due process.”

Faye’s mouth went dry. Due process. The phrase that sounded clean while it crushed people.

Grant continued, “It’s possible there are still active connections to your uncle’s… activities. If so, it would be best for you to cooperate quickly.”

Faye heard the threat tucked inside the politeness. She could almost feel the old trap closing again: blame by association, punishment by proximity.

Rafe’s voice lowered. “Who sent you?”

Grant’s eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”

Rafe smiled without warmth. “I asked who sent you, not what you’re calling it.”

Earl cleared his throat. “Rafe, let’s not make a scene.”

Rafe turned to Earl slowly. “You invited a state investigator to a wedding to corner a woman who hasn’t been charged with anything. Earl, you already made the scene. You just hoped she’d be too quiet to name it.”

The words drew glances. Nearby conversations slowed.

Grant’s politeness thinned. “Ms. Yost, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

Faye’s hands shook, but her voice came out steadier than she expected. “I’ll speak with my lawyer.”

Grant’s eyes flashed. “Your uncle’s lawyer? The one he can’t afford anymore?”

Faye’s face burned.

Rafe’s posture changed, a subtle tightening, like a door locking. “That’s enough.”

Grant bristled. “You’re obstructing an investigation.”

Rafe leaned in slightly, just enough to make Grant remember he was smaller. “No. I’m preventing intimidation.”

Earl’s smile cracked. “Rafe, you’re overreacting.”

Rafe’s gaze cut to Earl, sharp as a blade. “I’m reacting appropriately to bullies with official stationery.”

Grant stepped back, deciding not to escalate in public. He nodded once, stiffly. “You’ll be contacted,” he said to Faye, then walked off.

Faye’s knees felt weak. She grabbed the edge of the table.

Rafe looked down at her. “Come with me.”

“Where?” she whispered.

“A quieter place,” he replied. “Before the room swallows you again.”

They left the ballroom and moved through a side hallway lined with framed photos of sailboats. The quiet felt like stepping underwater.

In the empty corridor, Faye finally let her breath shake.

“I can’t do this,” she whispered. “I can’t keep being punished for his name.”

Rafe’s face softened. “Then don’t.”

Faye let out a bitter laugh. “Easy for you to say.”

Rafe hesitated, then made a decision. He reached into his inner jacket pocket and pulled out a small leather wallet, not money, not a business card, but an ID.

He held it out.

Faye stared, confused, then read the words and felt her entire body go cold.

U.S. Department of Justice.

Rafe watched her carefully. “My real name is Rafael Erickson. People call me Rafe Thunder because it keeps conversations simple. I’m part of a federal internal oversight unit. I came here because I’ve been investigating corruption tied to disaster relief contracts.”

Faye’s mouth went dry. “My uncle’s case…”

“Is dirty,” Rafe said. “Or at least, parts of it are. I couldn’t prove it yet. I needed a pressure point. Someone brave enough to exist where they wanted her invisible.”

Faye’s hands trembled. “So you approached me because…”

“Because you were alone,” he said, voice low. “Because you looked like you were drowning. And because you’re the only person in that room who might tell me what didn’t make sense.”

Faye swallowed hard. “You’re using me.”

Rafe’s eyes held hers, steady and regretful. “At first, I thought I was. Then I sat down beside you and realized how wrong that was.”

Silence stretched.

Faye’s heart felt like a room full of doors slamming open and closed.

“Why should I trust you?” she asked.

Rafe exhaled. “You shouldn’t. Not automatically. You should trust evidence. You should trust what you know in your bones.”

Faye’s throat tightened. Then she whispered, “I found something.”

Rafe went still. “What?”

Faye looked both ways down the hallway, then reached into her clutch. She pulled out a folded paper, worn at the edges.

“I kept this,” she said. “It’s the warrant that started everything. The first document. I read it a hundred times, torturing myself. But… the seal. The formatting. I used to work in my uncle’s office. I’ve seen official paperwork. This looked… too perfect.”

Rafe took it gently, scanning it with fast, trained eyes. His jaw tightened.

“This isn’t standard,” he said quietly. “And the signature block…”

Faye’s voice shook. “The lead investigator on Byron’s case was Grant Riker. And the approvals came from someone above him. Someone untouchable.”

Rafe’s gaze lifted, sharp now. “Do you know who?”

Faye swallowed. The name tasted like danger. “Ragnar Dane.”

Rafe’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not his real name.”

“It’s what he goes by,” Faye whispered. “He’s a state-level ‘fixer.’ Everyone calls him the Truth-Seeker like it’s a joke. He’s the one who showed up with the evidence that buried my uncle.”

Rafe’s face went very still. “If Dane is involved, this is bigger than I thought.”

Faye’s stomach twisted. “What happens now?”

Rafe folded the paper carefully and handed it back. “Now we stop pretending.”

Faye’s voice came out small. “And if they come after me harder?”

Rafe’s eyes softened. “Then they’ll have to come through me.”

That should have sounded romantic, like a line in a movie.

Instead, it sounded like a promise made by a man who understood consequences and chose them anyway.

The next morning, the hotel lobby buzzed with checkout carts and leftover flowers. The wedding guests scattered like a tide receding, leaving behind napkins and rumors.

Faye sat in a quiet breakfast nook with cold coffee, staring at her phone.

A message popped up from an unknown number.

COME IN TODAY. BRING EVERYTHING YOU HAVE. DO NOT TALK TO ANYONE ELSE.

Her blood chilled.

Rafe appeared beside her table, coat on, hair damp from a shower, eyes alert. He read the message, then looked up.

“They’re moving,” he said.

Faye’s voice shook. “I don’t want to go to some interrogation room again.”

“You won’t,” Rafe replied. “Not alone, and not unprepared.”

He slid a folder across the table.

Inside were photos, documents, call logs, and one damning ledger that made Faye’s breath stop.

Payments. Dates. Names. Disaster relief funds redirected. Contracts awarded to shell companies.

At the center of it all, a signature that looked too smooth to be real.

Grant Riker.

And above him, approvals marked by a stamp that read:

R. DANE

Faye’s hands trembled. “You already had this.”

“I had pieces,” Rafe corrected. “You gave me the missing confirmation that the original warrant was forged. That’s what ties it together.”

Faye stared at the evidence, dizzy. “So my uncle…”

Rafe nodded once. “He was set up to cover someone else’s theft. Byron’s company was a convenient scapegoat. Someone needed a fall guy with enough access and enough visibility that people would believe it.”

Faye’s eyes filled. The grief that had been rotting inside her for months shifted shape, becoming anger with direction.

“What do we do?” she asked.

Rafe’s mouth set. “We go public with the truth, but the right way. We present it where they can’t bury it.”

“Where?” Faye whispered.

Rafe’s eyes hardened. “A hearing. A recorded statement. Witnesses. And we do it today, before they have time to scrub their tracks.”

Faye’s stomach flipped. “Today?”

Rafe nodded. “They already threatened you at a wedding. They won’t stop. The safest place for you is in the light.”

Faye thought of the ballroom, the silence, the way her existence had been treated like an inconvenience.

Then she thought of Rafe’s hand, steady, warm, refusing to let her sink.

She inhaled. “Okay,” she said, and her voice surprised her with its strength. “Let’s do it.”

The hearing took place in a county building that smelled like paper and old coffee. Cameras lined the back wall. Reporters sat hunched like predators waiting for a mistake.

Faye’s palms were sweaty. Her heart hammered. But she walked into the room with her shoulders back.

Rafe sat beside her, not touching, just present. His badge was visible now. No more hiding behind a nickname.

Grant Riker sat across the room, face polished, jaw tight. Earl Gold was there too, seated behind him, expression carefully neutral, as if he’d wandered into this by accident.

When the committee chair called the meeting to order, Faye’s throat went dry.

Rafe leaned in and whispered, “Breathe.”

The chair began with procedural questions. Then Rafe stood, submitted the evidence, and spoke with the calm authority of a man who had spent years watching lies collapse.

Finally, the chair turned to Faye. “Ms. Yost, do you have anything to add?”

Faye rose.

She looked at Grant.

She looked at Earl.

And she felt, for the first time in months, not small.

“Yes,” she said clearly. “I do.”

She held up the forged warrant, then the records Rafe had compiled.

“My uncle was loud. Stubborn. Sometimes difficult,” she said. “But he was not a thief. He was not a traitor. He was used because someone wanted a clean story, and because everyone in my community decided it was easier to believe the worst than to ask questions.”

Her voice steadied as she continued, anger sharpening her words into truth.

“I sat alone in a wedding hall because people thought shame was contagious,” she said. “But shame belongs to the guilty. Not to the ones who survive them.”

Grant shifted, trying to interrupt, but the chair held up a hand.

Faye looked straight at the cameras.

“If you’re watching this,” she said, “and you’ve ever been erased because someone else needed you silent, I want you to know something. Silence is how they win. Not because you’re weak, but because they make you tired.”

Her voice caught for a heartbeat, then steadied again.

“I’m not tired anymore.”

There was a pause so deep it felt like the room itself was listening.

Then the chair nodded. “Thank you, Ms. Yost.”

Within hours, the story broke.

Not the old one. The new one.

The one where Grant Riker was suspended pending investigation. The one where Ragnar Dane’s name appeared on warrants for fraud and obstruction. The one where Byron Yost’s conviction was set for review.

Faye didn’t feel instant joy. Vindication doesn’t arrive like fireworks. It arrives like sunrise, slow and almost unbelievable.

That evening, she stood outside the building in cold air, watching reporters scatter, phones pressed to ears.

Rafe approached, hands in his coat pockets. “You did it,” he said.

Faye exhaled, shaking. “I didn’t think I could.”

Rafe’s eyes softened. “You were doing it long before I showed up. You just didn’t have anyone standing close enough to remind you.”

Faye looked up at him, the giant stranger who had started as a pretend companion and ended up being something more dangerous.

Real.

“What happens now?” she asked.

Rafe’s mouth curved slightly. “Now we keep going until the truth is finished.”

Faye’s lips trembled into a small smile. “And after?”

Rafe hesitated, then lifted a hand and brushed a strand of hair away from her face, gentle, like he was touching something precious rather than fragile.

“After,” he said softly, “we figure out what we’ve been building while everyone else was watching us like a rumor.”

Faye’s chest tightened.

For a moment, she thought of that first dance, her fear, the room’s stares, the way his voice had cut through the noise.

Act like you’re with me.

And she realized the secret truth she’d been circling for weeks.

She didn’t have to act anymore.

She took his hand, not as a performance, not as defiance, but as choice.

“Okay,” she whispered. “But this time, we’re not pretending.”

Rafe squeezed her fingers, steady as a promise.

“Good,” he said. “I’m terrible at pretending anyway.”

Faye laughed, and the sound startled her, like hearing her own voice after a long winter.

The night was cold, the road ahead messy, the consequences still real.

But for the first time in a long time, she wasn’t alone in a crowded world.

And that, she realized, was how healing began.

THE END