Chapter Six: The Cabin in the Pines

The trees didn’t speak, but they carried memory.

Lucas drove in silence, one hand steady on the wheel, the other resting in his lap. The road wound through the pines like it always had narrow, familiar, lined with damp moss and gravel. Branches reached over the car like arms, as if the forest were trying to bring them home. No cars. No sound but the tires crunching the earth. Just them and the trees.

Elias stared out the window, quiet. He hadn’t said much since they passed the last town.

Lucas exhaled slowly as the wooden gate came into view.

“We’re here,” he said, voice rough.

Elias leaned forward, peering through the windshield. “It’s… quiet. Looks like a painting.”

Lucas didn’t answer. He parked. Got out. The gate stuck the way it always did, creaking when he pushed it open. The cabin sat back behind the trees same weathered cedar, same slope of the roof, still a little crooked from the storm three winters ago. Moss had spread across one side. The porch sagged slightly. The windows were fogged at the edges.

It wasn’t perfect. But it was theirs.

Or had been.

Elias stepped beside him, taking a breath. “Smells like woodsmoke and wet pine.”

Lucas looked over. “You used to say that every time.”

Elias glanced at him. A flicker of something passed through his eyes. But it vanished before it could land.

They stepped inside together.

Dust lay thick on the furniture. The fireplace was cold. Everything was still in its place the throw blanket they’d always fought over, the half-burned candle on the mantle, the chipped mug on the counter with the faded words El’s Tea. Lucas picked it up. Turned it in his hand. His thumb brushed the painted letters, the ones he’d drawn while laughing too hard to keep his hand steady.

He set it down before it slipped.

“You alright?” Elias asked behind him.

“No,” Lucas said honestly. “But I’m not running.”

They worked in silence for a while. Cleaning. Opening windows. Shaking out the past.

By sunset, it started to feel like a home again. The fire was going. Lucas made dinner just pasta, garlic bread, and wine poured into mismatched mugs. Elias offered to help, but mostly he watched, quiet and focused, like he was trying to absorb the place.

They ate on the porch, wrapped in blankets. The wind rustled the leaves, carrying the smell of smoke and something older. Familiar.

“I don’t think I’ve felt this… grounded in a while,” Elias said, fingers curled around his mug.

Lucas nodded, watching the trees.

He hadn’t told Elias about the tape. Or the ring box. Or the note. It sat buried in his bag, hidden under layers of flannel and old pain.

Maybe he was waiting for the right time.

Maybe he was scared of what it would unravel.

That night, the fire burned low. They sat close on the couch, the quiet settling around them like a second blanket.

Elias’s eyes lingered on the photo above the fireplace. It was a candid Lucas laughing into Elias’s shoulder, mid-movement, not posed. Just alive.

“I want to get back there,” Elias murmured. “Even if I can’t remember it… I miss it. That ease. That lightness.”

Lucas said nothing.

Elias turned to him. “Earlier, in the kitchen. You brushed past me and something… shifted. It was like a door creaked open inside me.”

Lucas’s chest ached. He hadn’t expected this to feel so raw again.

“I’m afraid of what I’ll remember,” Elias added. “Afraid I’ll break whatever’s left.”

“You already broke it,” Lucas said, not cruelly. Just true. “But I stayed.”

Elias reached out, slowly. Their fingers brushed. Not gripping. Just… touching.

It was enough.

“What did I say to you that first night here?” Elias asked after a long pause.

Lucas turned his head, letting the memory rise. “You said, ‘If this is a dream, don’t wake me.’ I kissed you. And you said, ‘Then I guess I’m dreaming forever.’”

Elias closed his eyes, like he could feel it through the air. “I don’t remember the words. But I remember the warmth.”

Lucas swallowed. “Then hold onto that.”

“Will you kiss me?” Elias asked, voice almost shy. “Not because we’re pretending. Just… because I want to know what it felt like. To be yours.”

Lucas didn’t speak.

He leaned in.

Their lips met. Not urgent. Not dramatic. Just soft. Familiar. A remembering. Not of words but of breath, of skin, of being known.

Elias’s hand found Lucas’s cheek. Lucas didn’t pull away. He leaned closer. Just enough.

When they parted, Elias pressed his forehead to Lucas’s. “I know that. I do.”

“Then don’t forget it this time,” Lucas whispered.

They fell asleep like that, wrapped up together, the fire casting slow-moving shadows on the walls. Lucas’s arm curled around Elias’s waist, their legs tangled, the quiet between them deep and full.

It was the first night in a long time that Lucas slept without waiting for something to go wrong.

But it didn’t last.

Just before dawn, Elias screamed.

Lucas woke with a jolt.

Elias was thrashing beside him, caught in the blanket, eyes wide, drenched in sweat.

“El hey. It’s okay. You’re safe. I’m here.”

Elias’s chest heaved. “The car there was a car, someone was chasing me. I couldn’t get away. I couldn’t”

Lucas gripped his shoulders. “What car? Elias, what are you talking about?”

But he was fading again. His breathing slowed. His body sank into the couch like whatever had gripped him had let go.

Lucas sat awake beside him, pulse pounding.

That wasn’t a nightmare.

It was a memory.

The morning came too quietly.

Elias sat outside, staring into the woods, his mug untouched in his hands. The tea had gone cold. Lucas joined him, hands in his lap, waiting.

After a long while, Elias spoke.

“I remember flashes. Headlights. Rain. The sound of tires losing control. I wasn’t alone. I heard a voice. I think… maybe yours.”

Lucas felt his chest tighten. “They told me it was a plane crash.”

Elias shook his head. “That’s what I always believed. But what I see... is a road. A car. And fear. And one thought: I wasn’t supposed to survive.”

Lucas looked out at the trees, but they didn’t feel like they used to. They weren’t sheltering anymore. They were watching.

“What if you weren’t on that plane?” he said. “What if someone made it look like you were?”

Elias turned his head, slow and deliberate.

“I think someone wanted me gone, Lucas.”

And for the first time, Lucas didn’t question it.

Because that scream raw and broken hadn’t come from some vague dream.

It had come from something buried. Something real.

And someone still didn’t want it remembered.