Updated Jan 14, 2026 • ~10 min read
POV: Hailey
I lied.
I told Morgan I was fine. Told her the four days trapped with Reid had been manageable, survivable, fine.
I lied through my teeth with my performance smile and my bright voice and my everything’s-perfect act.
And Morgan, bless her, saw right through it.
“Hailey,” she said after an hour of me deflecting questions with cheerful efficiency, “what actually happened in that cabin?”
“Nothing! We just—we survived the storm. Worked together. It was fine.”
“You’ve said ‘fine’ seventeen times in the last hour. You only do that when things are very not fine.”
Damn it. She knew me too well.
We were in my room at the inn—me supposedly unpacking, really just moving things around to avoid conversation. But Morgan sat on the bed, patient and persistent, waiting for truth.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” I said finally. “It was four days. We talked. We survived. That’s—that’s it.”
“Did something happen?”
“No. Nothing—nothing inappropriate happened. We just—we talked. A lot. About hard things. Real things. Things I don’t usually talk about.”
“Like your foster care stuff?”
“Yeah. And he—he told me about Seattle. About why he left. About—” I stopped. That was his story. His privacy. “About things he’s been carrying.”
Morgan’s expression softened. “You connected.”
“I—yeah. We connected. Which is ridiculous because we have nothing in common. He’s a grumpy isolated mountain man and I’m a—”
“A compulsively optimistic event planner who’s terrified of being alone?”
Ouch. Accurate, but ouch.
“Yeah. That.”
“So you’re opposites who understand each other’s damage. That’s—that’s actually a really strong foundation, Hails.”
“Foundation for what? We’re not—it’s not like that. He’s here. I’m in Seattle. This was just—cabin fever. Forced proximity. Temporary—”
“Hailey, you’re spiraling.”
I was. I could feel it. That familiar panic rising, the need to control spinning out of reach, the fear that I’d felt something real and now I’d lose it, always lose it, always—
“I need air,” I said abruptly.
“Hailey—”
“I’m fine. I just need—I’ll be right back.”
I grabbed my coat—well, Reid’s coat that he’d let me borrow and I’d forgotten to return—and headed outside.
The town was beautiful. Covered in snow, Christmas lights twinkling, that perfect small-town postcard aesthetic. I walked with no destination, just movement, trying to outpace the thoughts chasing me.
I’d felt safe with Reid. Seen. Chosen.
And now I was back in the real world where that probably didn’t mean anything. Where it was probably just—just circumstance. Just trauma bonding. Just—
Just me reading into things because I was desperate to be wanted.
God, I was pathetic.
My phone buzzed. Reid: You okay? Morgan texted. Said you ran off.
Of course Morgan had texted him. Because apparently they had each other’s numbers now and were conspiring.
Me: Fine. Just needed air.
Reid: You say ‘fine’ a lot.
Me: Because I am fine.
Reid: Liar.
The word hit harder than it should have. Because he was right. I was lying. To him, to Morgan, to myself.
My phone rang. Reid calling.
I almost didn’t answer. Almost kept walking, kept lying, kept performing.
But something about the last four days—the vulnerability, the honesty, the being seen—made me answer.
“Hey,” I said.
“Where are you?” he asked, voice rough with concern.
“Walking. In town. I’m fine—”
“Stop saying you’re fine. Where exactly are you?”
“Near the general store. Why?”
“Stay there. I’m coming.”
“Reid, you don’t have to—”
“Stay there, Hailey.”
He hung up.
I stood outside Rose’s store, hugging myself in his too-big coat, and waited.
Ten minutes later, his truck pulled up. He got out, took one look at my face, and said: “Get in.”
“I’m fine—”
“Hailey, I swear to god, if you say ‘fine’ one more time—” He stopped. Breathed. “Please. Just get in the truck.”
I got in.
He drove in silence—not back toward the inn, but toward the mountain. Toward his cabin. Toward—
Toward the place where I’d been real for four days.
“What are we doing?” I asked.
“You’re spiraling. I can tell. You need—you need space to not be fine. So I’m taking you somewhere you can do that.”
“Reid—”
“Do you want to talk? Or do you want to drive?”
I didn’t know what I wanted. Didn’t know what I felt. Didn’t know—
“Drive,” I said finally. “Just—drive.”
He drove. Up the mountain, through the snow, toward the cabin where everything had changed.
When we arrived, he didn’t say anything. Just got out, came around, opened my door. Offered his hand.
I took it.
Inside, the cabin was cold—no fire, no warmth, just empty space and memories. He immediately started building a fire while I stood in the middle of the room, lost.
“Sit,” he said, gesturing to the couch.
I sat.
He finished with the fire, then sat beside me—close but not touching. Waiting.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I said finally.
“Do what?”
“Not perform. Not—not be fine. I’ve spent so long being the happy one, the optimistic one, the one who makes everything okay, that I don’t—I don’t know how to just—” My voice cracked. “To just be.”
“You did it here. For four days. You were real with me.”
“That was different. We were trapped. There was no choice. But now—now we’re back in the world and I have to be Hailey the event planner, Hailey who has everything together, Hailey who—”
“Who performs happiness so people will keep her,” he finished quietly.
“Yeah.”
“And it’s exhausting.”
“So exhausting.” The admission broke something open. “I’m so tired, Reid. I’m so tired of pretending. Of being cheerful when I’m falling apart. Of acting like I’m fine when I’m—when I’m drowning. I’m just—I’m so tired.”
“So stop.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because if I stop performing, if I let people see how not-fine I am, they’ll—they’ll know. They’ll see that I’m too much and not enough and they’ll—”
“They’ll what? Leave? Send you back? Hailey, you’re twenty-seven years old. No one can send you back.”
“But they can leave. They can decide I’m too damaged, too needy, too—too much. Just like Vanessa decided about you. Just like—”
“Just like you’re terrified I’ll decide about you,” he finished.
And there it was. The fear underneath everything.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “You saw me. Really saw me. The anxious, controlling, desperate-to-be-useful me. And I’m terrified that now that we’re back in the real world, you’ll realize—you’ll realize I’m not worth the effort. That I’m too complicated. That—”
“That you’re too much,” he said gently. “Just like I’m terrified you’ll realize I’m broken and unavailable and isolated and not worth trying for.”
We stared at each other, two terrified people caught in the same fear.
“You’re worth trying for,” I said.
“So are you.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you held me while I broke. Because you told me I wasn’t broken. Because you—because you saw the worst of me and didn’t run. That’s worth trying for. That’s worth—everything.”
“But what if I can’t stop performing? What if I’m so used to being happy-Hailey that I don’t know how to be anything else?”
“Then we figure it out. Together. You learn to be real, I learn to not isolate. We’re both—we’re both learning. Growing. Healing. That’s—that’s what this is.”
“What is this?” I asked. The question I’d been avoiding. The one that terrified me most.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I know I don’t want it to end. I know—I know I spent four days with you and for the first time in three years, I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted—I wanted you there. Want you here. Want—want to try. Whatever this is. If you do.”
“I do. I want—” My voice broke. “I want to try. But I’m scared. I’m so scared I’ll screw this up. That I’ll be too much or not enough or I’ll perform instead of being real or I’ll—I’ll ruin this before it even starts.”
“Then we’ll screw it up together. And we’ll figure it out. Because Hailey—” He turned to face me fully. “I’ve spent three years not trying. Not risking. Not—not living. And in four days with you, I remembered what it felt like to want to try. To want to risk. To want—to want more than just survival.”
“What do you want?”
“You. I want you. However this works. Whatever this becomes. I want—I want to try.”
The words landed in my chest like something precious. Something I’d been waiting my whole life to hear.
Someone choosing me. Not because I was useful or cheerful or perfect. But because—
Because I was me. Messy, scared, performing me. And he wanted to try anyway.
“I want to try too,” I whispered. “Even though I’m terrified. Even though I don’t know how to do this. Even though—even though I might mess this up spectacularly. I want to try.”
“Good.” He reached for my hand. “Because you’re worth trying for. And I’m going to keep saying that until you believe it.”
“That might take a while.”
“I’ve got time.”
“You’re very patient for a grumpy mountain man.”
“You’re very real for an aggressively optimistic event planner.”
I laughed—real laughter, through tears I hadn’t realized I was crying. “I don’t know how to do this. The real thing. The trying thing. I’ve never—no one’s ever wanted to try with me before.”
“Me neither. So we’ll figure it out. Together. Messily. Imperfectly. But—together.”
“Together,” I repeated. Testing the word. The promise. The possibility.
He pulled me close—tucked me against his side, arm around my shoulders, solid and warm and safe. I rested my head on his chest, listened to his heartbeat, and felt something I’d never felt before.
Chosen. Not because I’d performed perfectly. Not because I’d been useful. But because—
Because I was me. And that was enough.
More than enough.
Everything.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“For what?”
“For seeing me. The real me. And not running.”
“Thank you for the same.”
We sat like that as the fire crackled, as the afternoon light faded, as the world outside continued without us. Two people who’d been trapped together and found something neither of us had been looking for.
Something real. Something worth trying for.
Something that felt like—
Like home.
Not a place. Not a building. But—
But a person. A connection. A choice.
Home was Reid Foster seeing me fall apart and saying “me too.”
Home was being able to say “I’m not fine” and having someone stay anyway.
Home was—
Was this. Finally. Completely.
This.
“Reid?” I said after a long silence.
“Yeah?”
“I’m really glad I got trapped with you.”
“I’m really glad I found you in that storm.”
“Even though I’m a lot?”
“Especially because you’re a lot. You’re—you’re exactly right.”
I smiled into his chest, felt his arms tighten around me, and thought:
Maybe I’d been looking for home in the wrong places.
Maybe home wasn’t Seattle or a promotion or proving I was worth keeping.
Maybe home was this. This man. This moment. This—
This choice to be real instead of perfect.
To be seen instead of performed.
To be enough exactly as I was.
Maybe that was what I’d been searching for all along.
And maybe—
Maybe I’d finally found it.
In a cabin. In a storm. In the arms of a grumpy mountain man who saw my broken parts and said “me too.”
Maybe that was everything.
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