Updated Apr 11, 2026 • ~8 min read
Chapter 26: She Came Back
Jackson
She’s been here for three hours, and I’m still waiting for my brain to catch up with reality.
Sloane is here. Actually here. Not a dream, not my imagination, but real and solid and currently unpacking her belongings in my cabin like she belongs here.
Because she does belong here.
But the panic is still there, bubbling under my skin, threatening to break through.
“You’ll regret this,” I blurt out, and she pauses in the middle of hanging up her clothes. “Sloane, you gave up EVERYTHING. Your career, your apartment, your entire life. What if you regret it?”
She turns to look at me, and there’s patience in her eyes mixed with exasperation. “I won’t regret it.”
“You don’t know that—”
“I do know that!” She sets down the clothes and walks over to me. “Jackson, I gave up a job that made me miserable, an apartment that felt like a prison, and a life that was slowly killing me. I didn’t give up anything worth keeping.”
“But what if this doesn’t work?” The words come out desperate, panicked. “What if I can’t give you what you need? What if I’m not enough?”
“You ARE what I need!” She grabs my shoulders, forcing me to look at her. “You’re exactly what I need. Don’t you get that?”
“I’m damaged!” The confession bursts out of me. “I have PTSD! I live in the WOODS! I can barely function in civilization! What kind of life is that to offer someone?”
“It’s the life I want!” She’s yelling now, and I’ve never been more grateful for her stubbornness. “I know you’re damaged! I know you have PTSD! I know you live in the woods! I knew all of that when I quit my job and sold my apartment and drove halfway across the country to be here! None of it is news to me, Jackson!”
“But—”
“I love you ANYWAY!” The words ring through the cabin, and I freeze. “I love you with your nightmares and your panic attacks and your need for isolation. I love you because of who you are, not in spite of it. Why can’t you believe that?”
I stare at her, and something inside me finally breaks—not in a bad way, but in the way that lets light in. All the walls I’ve been holding up, all the protection I’ve been trying to maintain, it all just… crumbles.
“You love me?” I whisper, even though she’s said it before, even though I know the answer.
“Yes, you idiot!” She’s crying now, frustrated tears streaming down her face. “I love you! I’m in love with you! I have been since you taught me to make fire and talked me down from your nightmare and made me believe that I could be more than just a lawyer grinding through billable hours!”
“I don’t understand why,” I admit. “I don’t understand what you see in me that’s worth all of this.”
“Then let me tell you.” She cups my face in her hands, and her touch is so gentle it makes my chest ache. “I see a man who survived hell and came out the other side still trying to be good. I see someone who saves lost hikers even when he’d rather be alone. I see patience and kindness and strength wrapped up in self-doubt and fear. I see a man who taught me how to survive and then taught me how to live. That’s what I see, Jackson. That’s who you are to me.”
“I’m terrified,” I confess. “I’m so terrified of losing you that I can barely breathe sometimes.”
“Then breathe with me.” She presses her forehead to mine. “Be terrified with me. We’ll figure it out together.”
“What if I have a bad PTSD day and push you away?”
“Then I’ll come back the next day and the day after that until you believe I’m not going anywhere.”
“What if you get lonely? The isolation—”
“I’ll drive to town. Visit the library. Make friends with the rangers. Jackson, I’m choosing this life with my eyes wide open. I know what I’m signing up for.”
“What if—”
“Stop.” She kisses me, cutting off my spiral of what-ifs. “Stop trying to find reasons why this won’t work and just… let it work. Let me love you. Let yourself love me back. Let us build this life together without sabotaging it before it even starts.”
I look at her—really look at her—and I see the certainty in her eyes, the determination, the love. She’s not going to leave just because it gets hard. She’s not going to run at the first sign of my damage. She’s here, choosing me, choosing this, choosing us.
And maybe it’s time I started choosing it too.
“I love you,” I say, and this time it doesn’t feel like a confession or a surrender. It feels like a promise. “I love you, and I’m going to spend every day trying to be worthy of that choice you made.”
“You already are worthy,” she says softly. “You just have to believe it.”
“I’ll try.” I pull her into my arms, holding her tight. “I’ll try to believe it. Try to trust this. Try to be brave enough to let you love me.”
“That’s all I’m asking.” She wraps her arms around me, and it feels like coming home. “Just try. We’ll figure out the rest as we go.”
We stand there for a long moment, just holding each other, and I feel something shift inside me. The fear is still there—probably always will be—but it’s not overwhelming anymore. It’s manageable. Because I’m not facing it alone.
“So you’re really staying?” I ask, and I can hear the vulnerability in my own voice.
“I’m really staying.” She pulls back to smile at me. “You’re stuck with me, Torres. Better get used to it.”
“I think I can manage that.” I kiss her, soft and sweet. “But you need to know—I’m going to be bad at this. At the relationship thing. I’m going to panic and push you away and probably fuck up more times than I can count.”
“Good thing I’m a lawyer then. I’m very good at arguing my case.” She grins. “Every time you try to push me away, I’m going to argue why you should let me stay. And I’ve never lost a case I actually cared about.”
“That’s terrifying.”
“Good. You should be scared.” But she’s laughing now. “I’m very persuasive.”
“I’ve noticed.” I run my hands through her hair, still half-convinced she’s going to disappear. “When do you officially move in? Because I think you said something about a car full of stuff at the ranger station.”
“Tomorrow. Mike said he’d help us haul it out here on the ATV trailer.” She bites her lip. “Is that okay? Am I moving too fast?”
“You quit your job and drove across the country to live in a cabin with no running water.” I raise an eyebrow. “I think the pace has already been set.”
“Fair point.” She moves back to her unpacking, and I watch her integrate her belongings into my space—our space now. “Oh, I almost forgot.”
She digs through her bag and pulls out something red. My flannel. The one she took, the one she said she’d bring back.
“You kept it,” I say, taking it from her.
“Of course I kept it. It smells like you.” She blushes. “I slept in it every night in New York. Helped me remember why I was doing all of this.”
I pull her close and kiss her again, and this time there’s no panic, no fear. Just gratitude that she came back, that she fought for us, that she was brave enough for both of us when I couldn’t be.
“Thank you,” I whisper against her lips. “For not giving up on me. For believing in us even when I couldn’t.”
“Always,” she says. “That’s what love is, right? Believing in someone even when they can’t believe in themselves?”
“If you say so. I’m new at this.”
“We’re both new at this.” She grins. “But we’ll figure it out together.”
Together.
I’m starting to really like that word.
And for the first time in seven weeks—hell, maybe for the first time in five years—I let myself believe that this could actually work.
That maybe, somehow, we can build a life together.
That maybe I don’t have to be alone anymore.
And it’s terrifying.
But it’s also the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
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