Josiah
I heard the wind before I heard anything else, the house exhaling as if the world had shifted under its feet. The smell of the cemetery lingered on my tongue: damp earth and a faint metallic tang that set my nerves awake. I had sworn at a grave, and the vow had carved itself into the inside of my chest. I had promised to chase her, to win her back, to make right what had been fouled.
I had promised her mother that I would make everything right.
The moment the car vanished over the horizon I felt something like an animal panic, small and pure and structural. It did not come from proof or policy; it came from shame. I had lived long enough to recognize that shame is the cousin of guilt, and both are good company for a man who has been careless. I do not like either of them.
I shou
