The Trestle Bridge looked different in the rearview mirror than it did through the windshield. When I had arrived weeks ago, it had been a set of iron jaws ready to snap shut behind me. Now, as I idled my car at the edge of the gorge, it just looked like a bridge. Rusted, ancient, and indifferent.
The Oakhaven Shroud was lifting. For the first time in twenty years, I could see the water of the Blackwood River churning three hundred feet below, a ribbon of white violence cutting through the stone.
I wasn’t alone.
A solitary figure was leaning against the railing at the midpoint of the span. He was wearing a long coat that flapped in the canyon wind, and he was resting his weight on a simple wooden cane.
I killed the engine. The silence that rushed into the car wasn’t heavy anymore. It was just quiet.
I stepped out onto the metal grating. The vibration of the river came up through the soles of my boots, a low-frequency hum that felt like the earth purring.
I walked toward him.
Julian didn’t turn around as I approached. He was watching the water, his knuckles white where they gripped the cane. He looked older than he had a month ago. The gray at his temples had spread, and there was a new, jagged scar running along his jawline—a souvenir from the night the sawmill burned.
“You sold it,” he said, his voice rough, carrying over the wind.
I stopped beside him, leaning my elbows on the cold iron railing. “Keys are with the realtor. Furniture is gone. It’s just a glass box now.”
“Good,” he said. “It never suited you. You were always too loud for that much glass.”
I smiled, a small, fractured thing. “Is that a compliment?”
“It’s a fact.”
We stood in silence for a moment, watching a hawk circle the thermal currents above the water. It was hunting. Life went on. The ecosystem didn’t care about our tragedies.
“How is the leg?” I asked, glancing at the cane.
“Stiff,” Julian admitted. He shifted his weight, wincing slightly. “Doctors say I’ll always have a limp. A reminder not to jump off balconies.”
“You saved my life, Julian.”
“We saved each other,” he corrected. He turned to look at me then, his green eyes searching my face. He was looking for the cracks, I knew. He was checking to see if the glue was holding. “You look… lighter.”
“I feel lighter,” I said. “I buried him, Julian. I buried the memory of the boy I loved, and I buried the monster he became. I don’t have to carry both of them anymore.”
“I wish I could say the same,” he murmured, looking back at the town.
Oakhaven was waking up. I could see the smoke rising from chimneys in the valley. The school bus was winding its way down Route 9. It looked peaceful. It looked innocent. But we knew better. We knew what was buried in the roots of those trees.
“Come with me,” I said.
The words tumbled out before I could check them. They hung in the damp air between us, fragile and desperate.
Julian went still. “Elara…”
“I’m serious,” I pressed, turning to face him fully. I grabbed the lapel of his coat. “Come to Seattle. Pack a bag. Leave the badge on the desk. You don’t owe this town anything, Julian. They hated your father. They ignored your brother. They almost killed you.”
“I can’t,” he said softly.
“Why? Because of duty? Because of some misplaced sense of loyalty to a zip code?”
“Because of Elias,” he said.
I let go of his coat. The name still had the power to suck the oxygen out of the air.
“Elias is gone,” I whispered.
“His body is gone,” Julian said. “But the mess he left? The trauma? That’s still here. Mrs. Gable is in custody, but she wasn’t the only one who failed him. The whole town failed him. We created a monster by looking the other way.”
He gestured with his cane toward the rooftops of the town.
“If I leave now, Elara, the rot just grows back. Someone has to stay. Someone has to make sure we don’t bury any more boys in the woods.”
“It doesn’t have to be you,” I argued, though I knew I was losing. “You’ve paid your dues. You’ve bled for them.”
“It has to be a Thorne,” he said. “My father broke this place. My brother tried to kill it. It’s on me to fix it.”
I looked at him, at the stubborn set of his jaw that I had once kissed a thousand times. He was a martyr. He was a protector. He was the Sheriff this town didn’t deserve, but the one it desperately needed.
“You’ll be alone,” I said. My voice cracked.
“I’m used to it,” he said. A sad smile touched his lips. “Besides, I’ll have the ghosts to keep me company.”
“Julian…”
“Go, Elara,” he said gently. He reached out and brushed a stray lock of hair from my face. His fingers were warm, rough with calluses. “Go back to the city. Write your stories. Find a man who doesn’t dream of dead girls.”
“I don’t want another man,” I whispered.
“I know,” he said. “But you can’t heal here. Oakhaven is poison to you. You need to run, Elara. You need to run and never look back.”
I leaned into his hand. I closed my eyes, memorizing the texture of his skin, the smell of rain and gun oil that clung to him. I wanted to stay. God, I wanted to stay and help him rebuild the world.
But he was right. Every time I looked at the woods, I saw the tea party. Every time I looked at the river, I saw the shoe. If I stayed, I would drown.
“I love you,” I said. It wasn’t a question. It was a confession.
“I know,” he said. He leaned down and kissed me.
It wasn’t a passionate kiss. It wasn’t the desperate, hungry kissing of our youth. It was a goodbye. It tasted of salt and finality.
He pulled away, his eyes wet.
“Go,” he repeated.
I stepped back. The wind whipped my hair across my face, blinding me for a second.
I turned and walked to my car. My boots rang against the metal grating. Clang. Clang. Clang. The sound of a door closing.
I got in and started the engine.
I looked out the window. Julian hadn’t moved. He was standing in the center of the bridge, a sentinel guarding the line between the living and the dead.
I put the car in drive.
I drove across the bridge. The tires hummed on the steel.
I reached the other side. The road stretched out before me, smooth and gray, leading to the interstate, to the city, to the future.
I looked in the rearview mirror.
Julian raised his hand. A slow, steady wave.
I didn’t wave back. I couldn’t.
I pressed the gas, and the bridge disappeared around the bend.
The fog was gone. The sun was breaking over the horizon, blinding and bright.
I was leaving Oakhaven.
But as the miles ticked by, I knew the truth. You never really leave. You just carry the pieces of it with you, sewn into the lining of your coat, hidden in the static of your mind.
Julian stayed to fix the town.
I was leaving to fix myself.
And maybe, one day, when the scars had faded to white, the bridge would be strong enough to carry me back.