“I know how to do all that,” she said, taking a bite of fish and grinning.

“And you do it pretty damn well,” he said.

“My dad wanted to make sure that I was never going to go hungry. So I learned how to be self-sufficient.” She blinked, unexpected emotion pressing down against her eyes. “I learned how to be self-sufficient. I’m not sure I ever learned how to need anyone. Or...how to be comfortable needing people. And sometimes I...I feel like I really do need people and I don’t know how to tell them.”

Suddenly, Gabe’s arms were around her. She set her plate down on a stump by her feet and let him hold her. “You said earlier you felt like you had a hole. Like you were missing a certain kind of love. But I think... Jamie, I think love is pretty much love. And there’s a whole lot of people in your life who love you.”

“I wish I had hers.” Her throat tightened all the way to closed, and tears started to pour down her face.

She never cried for her mother like this. Because there had never been anyone to answer those cries. She let him hold her, and she cried.

She cried like a motherless child, because that was what she was.

Tears that she’d never allowed to exist, coming from a grief she had told herself was pointless to have.

But maybe, just maybe, some things didn’t need to be fixed. Maybe some things just needed to be felt. And this needed to be felt. With all of her. From the deepest part of her soul. And it was like that hole she’d been talking about was filled with tears, filled with pain, but filled. And Gabe’s arms held her, rough and tight and comforting. “I need you,” she whispered. “I really do need you.”

She’d been afraid of this. Of this need. Needing another person. But she needed him, and she’d admitted it. And the world hadn’t fallen to pieces. The world was just fine. And she might be a little broken in it, but he was holding her together, so she wouldn’t fall apart. Not totally. He angled her head and kissed her, and she let him kiss her. She let him comfort her. Let him see her. See how wounded she was. How badly in need of healing.

She wasn’t going to get up and wipe the blood off.

She was just going to bleed for a while. With him.

When Jamie finished crying, they finished dinner in relative silence. They worked together to get everything cleaned up, to get everything that might attract a bear dealt with. Their sleeping bags were already unrolled inside the tent and zipped together, because his mother—though a problem for him right now—had not raised him to be a fool.

He hung a Coleman lantern up in the center of the tent, the light raining down in strange, wavy lines.

While he’d been out making sure the fire was dead, Jamie had changed into soft-looking pajamas, which covered a bit much of her body for his taste, but also looked soft and made him want to touch her. So as far as he was concerned, that was a decent enough trade-off.