Chapter 30(final chapter)
She walked.
Not away.
Not toward.
Just forward.
Past homes that no longer had lights in their windows. Past yards where children's laughter once lived. Past the old bridge that used to hum beneath the weight of too many dreams.
The town didn't try to stop her.
It didn't need to.
It had already taken what it wanted.
All it could.
⸻
The sun broke through the clouds like something wounded. Pale. Uncertain. It touched her skin like it didn't recognize her anymore.
She wondered if she had changed.
If the girl who burned down her past could still be someone who deserved a future.
She didn't have answers.
Only questions that pressed against her ribs like stones.
⸻
She stopped when the church bell rang.
No one pulled the rope.
No one had in years.
But it rang.
Once.
Twice.
Then silence.
It wasn't a call.
It was a farewell.
Lila bowed her head, not in prayer, but in recognition.
The town was saying goodbye too.
The fields were overgrown, the fences broken. Cornstalks bent in unnatural shapes, like they'd grown around the grief instead of despite it.
She stepped through them anyway.
Let them scratch her legs. Let them pull at the fabric of her dress like tiny, grasping hands trying to make her stay.
But she wouldn't.
Couldn't.
Because staying meant surrendering.
And even now—even after all of it—there was still a sliver of light inside her.
Not hope.
Not quite.
Just something stubborn. Some echo of Henry's laugh. Some stubborn ember Olivia had left in her bones.
It hurt to carry it.
But it hurt more to put it down.
—
By midday, the sun burned a hole in the sky.
The clouds hung low, thick and unmoving, like the world was holding its breath. Like even heaven didn't know what came next.
She found the train tracks half-buried under wildflowers and rot.
There used to be a sign there.
WELCOME TO WINDMIRE.
She could still make out the outline, even though the letters had long since peeled away.
It was funny, in a cruel way.
Windmire.
A name that once meant "safe harbor."
But it had never been that.
Not really.
Just a place where time got stuck. Where memory festered. Where people loved each other so hard it broke the ground beneath them.
—
She sat on the tracks.
Not because she wanted to die.
But because she wanted to remember what it felt like to wait.
To hope.
To believe something was coming, even if it never did.
She thought about Henry then.
The way he used to read her poems he didn't understand.
The way his hands always shook before he touched her.
The way he looked at her like she was real—like she mattered—even when the rest of the world forgot her name.
And she let the ache of that wash over her.
Let it settle in her chest like a second heartbeat.
Lila slept curled like a question.
And dreamed of doors.
Thousands of them.
Each one carved with moments she'd lived and lost.
Some opened.
Some stayed locked.
But at the center of it all, there was a door made of glass.
Behind it, she saw herself.
Younger.
Holding Henry's hand.
Laughing.
Alive in the ways she had forgotten she could be.
She didn't reach for it.
She didn't break it.
She simply stood.
And watched.
And somewhere, far beneath the soil—
In the marrow of old bones and the roots of broken trees—
Something stirred.
Something small.
Something sacred.
Not a resurrection.
Not quite.
Just the echo of a voice.
Soft.
Unyielding.
Still hers.
Still his.
Still here.