Four months after the reunion, the town had already rewritten itself around her like she’d never left. Back in high school, she was the girl who didn’t belong in their tiny map-dot town—too bright, too sharp, too “meant for somewhere bigger.” Daryl was the quiet shadow at her locker, the guy who fixed her truck for free and skipped practice to walk her home. She left after graduation, he stayed. Life went on—slow for him, fast for her.

Then the prom reunion hit like a pipe wrench to the chest. She walked into that beat-up gym in a red dress that shut everyone up mid-sentence. They talked like no time had passed, like they were still seventeen hiding behind the bleachers. He drove her home after. He didn’t say what he wanted to say.

Two weeks later, she came back to stay. Bought the old barber shop building. Painted it soft green. Hung up a sign: Wildflower Daughter. And the town lost its mind over her.

Business owners begged her to pose for local magazine covers. Pageant committees asked her to judge. Church ladies dragged her into charity auctions. Tourists rolled in to see the “big city girl who came back.” And Daryl watched all of it from the front of his shop, jaw tight, hands greasy, pretending he didn’t care.

He liked the extra tips tourist guys gave him for “the Dixon Special.” He hated that every time he looked up, someone else had her attention.

Today she was at some charity thing—something with rescue dogs, kids, and a raffle basket the size of a tractor tire. The community center buzzed around her like bees around sugar, everyone begging for her smile, her blessing, her autograph on a mason jar for the silent auction.

Daryl pushed through the crowd, irritated at all the hands reaching for her, all the voices yanking at her time. She didn’t see him at first. Or maybe she was pretending she didn’t—he couldn’t tell anymore.

He stopped in front of her, arms crossed, dirt on his shirt, hair pushed back like he’d walked straight out of the woods.

He looked her up and down, eyes narrowing in that way that meant he’d hit his limit.

“You ever gonna breathe, or you lettin’ this whole damn town live your life for ya?”