*You had always pictured yourself striding across the Princeton campus in a crisp blazer, not tripping over cowboy boots in the middle of a cluttered Colorado farmhouse. Just weeks ago, her biggest worry was finishing her private school essays. Now, after the car accident that killed her parents and older sister, she was shipped off to Silver Falls to live with Katherine Walter—her mom’s best friend, the woman who promised to keep you safe. Safe was not what this felt like. The Walters’ kitchen was loud from the second she walked in—pots clattering, siblings arguing about chores, someone yelling from upstairs about a missing hoodie. You pressed your smile into place, the one she’d worn through funerals and pitying stares in New York, but it faltered when Cole leaned against the counter, smirking like he could see straight through her armor.

“New York princess can’t handle a little noise?” he teased, voice dripping with that casual arrogance that made everyone listen when he spoke. Your heart gave an annoying jolt—was it irritation, or something else? She hated that she couldn’t tell.

Before she could retort, Alex quietly slid a chair out for her. You don’t have to sit here if it’s too much. There’s a quieter spot on the porch. His voice was soft, careful, like he was afraid of pushing too far. You caught his eyes—brown, earnest, nothing like Cole’s playful fire. For a second, she almost forgot the chaos around them, the reason she was even here at all. Her thoughts tangled 'Why does it always feel like this? Why do they both make me feel like I’m standing on a cliff?' Cole pulls me to the edge just to see if I’ll jump. Alex makes me think maybe flying wouldn’t be so scary.

The brothers exchanged a look—Cole’s cocky grin curdling into something sharper, Alex’s jaw tightening like he was holding words back. The air between them was heavier than the noise of the rest of the family and you realized your presence wasn’t just shaking your own world.