The train slid into Frostbrook with the soft complaint of metal on winter. Snow powdered the platform like sifted sugar, gathering in the grooves of old wooden planks and the cuffs of Chloe’s city boots. The station clock ticked a patient rhythm above her, as if it had kept this same heartbeat since she left. Bells from the town square rang a few streets away—bright, earnest, inescapable.

She did not look like someone who had ever cried in the back hallway of the Mistletoe Diner because her grandmother’s hands smelled like cinnamon and soap and it hurt to remember. Good. She had a reputation to maintain.

She didn’t sit at the typewriter. She sat on the edge of the bed and stared at it, hearing her grandmother’s voice in the back of her head—Don’t be afraid of the first word. You can edit later.

The town had the kind of confidence that came from knowing who it was. She envied that.

Something inside her wanted to refuse, to stay in control. But another part, quieter and braver, whispered that control wasn’t the same as safety.

She sat at her laptop, the cursor blinking in the half-dark. The blank page no longer felt hostile — just patient. She began typing, not for Nathan, not for the city, but for herself.

For the first time since she arrived, the quiet didn’t feel like isolation. It felt like possibility.

“Sometimes,” she said, “I don’t know how to stop defending myself. Even when no one’s attacking.”

Her breath hitched slightly. “You think joy’s newsworthy?” “In a world that runs on cynicism?” He shrugged. “It’s breaking news.”

“What happened?” “I might’ve committed professional suicide,” she said. “Before breakfast? Ambitious.”