All Chapters of Storm-Worn Hearts: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

The thing about memory is that it doesn’t knock.It just walks in, mud on its boots, rain in its hair and suddenly you’re seventeen again, sitting at the Lane family table, your hands folded too neatly in your lap as if posture could hide the loudness of your heart.Liberty’s mom had cooked like it was a holiday. Pot roast falling apart in tender shreds, carrots glazed with honey, rolls still steaming in their basket. The air was thick with warmth and onions and the kind of comfort you don’t recognize as rare until you’re older.Across from me sat Dawson Lane.He was only twenty, one then, but he already carried himself like the world had asked things of him early and he’d answered without complaint. Broad shoulders straining the seams of a simple button down, dark hair still damp from a shower, the beginnings of a serious jawline that would someday look like it had been carved from stubborn stone.He laughed at something Liberty said, some dramatic retelling of a teacher mispronounci

ICU rooms have their own weather.Not the kind you can see through windows, rain, sun, snow but the kind that clings to the skin. A hush threaded with machine song. The soft tyranny of fluorescent light. The stale aftertaste of fear that has nowhere to go, because everyone inside is too tired to scream.Dawson’s room was dimmer than most, the blinds tilted to spare his eyes. The monitors cast green and blue glows over his face, making him look like a man half made of moonlight and war.I stood in the doorway for a second too long, my hand still on the frame as if I needed something physical to keep myself steady.Patient, I reminded myself. He is your patient.But my mind kept layering the past over the present like tracing paper: Dawson at thirteen year old Liberty’s birthday party, Dawson carrying three grocery bags for his mom without being asked, Dawson leaning against the hood of his first car with that easy grin I pretended didn’t undo me.Now he lay still, IV lines taped to his

Dawson’s house looked like a man had bought it because it was the logical next step, not because he’d ever pictured himself living inside it.Neat lawn. Solid porch. Windows like steady eyes.No warmth spilling out.When he unlocked the door, he did it quickly, shoulders angled as if the quiet street might suddenly decide to become a threat. He stepped in first, paused, listening, scanning, then held the door open for me with the reflexive courtesy of someone raised right.“After you,” he said.The words were polite. The way he watched the threshold wasn’t.I walked in, and the air inside hit me: cool, stale, faintly metallic, like the house had been waiting too long for a heartbeat.It was clean in the way that didn’t feel lived in. Not messy, clean like Liberty’s apartment above her bakery, where flour dusted everything like soft snow and the sink always held a brave stack of dishes. This was controlled-clean. The kind you keep when you don’t want anything out of place because out o

The police arrived with the kind of quiet that still felt like intrusion.Two uniformed officers, one woman with kind, tired eyes and one man whose expression looked permanently set to “let’s get through this.” Their boots made polite sounds on Dawson’s porch, but I watched Dawson flinch anyway, subtle, almost imperceptible, at the sudden presence of authority near his front door.It wasn’t fear of them.It was his body remembering a thousand moments where a knock meant danger.Dawson opened the door before they could knock twice, posture squared, jaw locked, wearing calm like armour.“Officers,” he said.I stood just behind him, phone in my hand with the screenshots ready, my stomach tight enough to feel like it had swallowed a fist.The female officer offered a small nod. “We’re responding to a report of harassment and threatening messages?”“Yes,” I said, stepping forward. “I’m Dr. Mia Halstead. The messages

Liberty chose a baking show the way she chose men: loudly, impulsively, with unearned confidence.“This one,” she declared, remote pointed like a wand. “It’s the holiday episode. People cry over ganache. It’s art.”Dawson sat in the armchair, posture straight, hands clasped, watching the TV like it might attack him if he blinked. He’d changed into sweatpants and a dark T shirt, but the softness of the clothing didn’t soften the vigilance in his bones.I sat on the couch beside Liberty, close enough to feel her warmth, but far enough that I could pretend my life wasn’t shifting under my feet.The house held three of us now, three heartbeats, three sets of breath, and it felt… different. Not safe, exactly, not yet. But less hollow. Less like a place that only knew how to wait.Liberty shoved a bowl of popcorn into my lap. “Eat.”“I ate dinner,” I protested weakly.“You ate trauma,” she corrected. “Now eat salt.”D