Beneath the Pines

William knew these woods, having hunted elk and deer since he was a kid, but the knowledge didn’t slow the pulse at his temple, the sweat crawling down his spine. Douglas fir, Hemlock, Ponderosa Pine. Every tree a repeating pattern. Every turn looping back.

You’re not lost. It was a silent chant. Not lost, just turned around.

It was as if the air had shrunk around him, and with each step, the forest grew a little louder. Sounds carrying the echo of something he had buried, something that clawed at the back of his throat whenever he was alone too long.

The needles whispered above, restless in the wind. They sounded like huddled voices, low and indistinct. He shook his head, hard, as if that would scatter the sound from his skull. Clutching his bow closer, he thought back to when he was on the right path, some little distraction was all it took to get him off track, blackberry vines now clinging to his boots with thorns sharper than blades.

He needed to focus. Find north. His compass was back in the truck. He hadn’t planned to go this far, but still, the trees pressed in, their trunks wet and gleaming. Bark flaked beneath his palm when he touched one, and the sap stuck like glue to his skin. His pulse thundered.

He couldn’t stop thinking of Claire. Her eyes watching him over a stack of pancakes. How she’d said with such tenderness, “You’ve been so far away lately.”

He’d smiled, looked her in the eyes and said he was tired. That part wasn’t a lie. He was always tired.

The rest of the truth sat like a stone pressed against his ribs. Slippery like the river rocks threatening his balance as he splashed through an unfamiliar creek. Dense, like the weight of a single mistake.

He quickened his pace, but the branches began to creep down, tearing at his sleeves and snagging his hair. The light seemed to thin with each step, filtering a sickly greenish-grey until it felt less like sunlight and more like water pressing down, ready to drown him with one wrong move.

A crow shrieked overhead, almost a cackle as it echoed through the darkening light of dusk. His heart lurched, expecting some kind of attack, and he ducked instinctively, arms over his head, yet when he looked up, he saw only the ripple of branches as they swayed in a soft breeze, as if nothing more than a ghost had disturbed them.

You’re fine. You’re fine.

The chant had become a prayer.

But he wasn’t fine. Not because he was lost in the woods but because he had been lost for years. He found himself walking in circles, not just today but in every part of his life, bouncing off the same lie, the same box sealed tight and buried where no one could find it.

He had told himself it was gone. That if he never went back, it would stay silent.

But silence rots.

The forest thinned without warning, and he stumbled into a clearing so sudden it felt staged, as if the trees had drawn back into a crowd to watch him as fate revealed which cards he had drawn.

The air smelled different, fresh and alive.

At the center of the clearing rose a mound. Unnatural. A little too symmetrical, too deliberate. Earth packed bare, the pine needles stripped from its surface.

William froze.

He knew this place. Not with his memory but with a recognition deep in his bones. This was the spot he had pictured so many nights, the box buried under dirt, the weight of silence pressing it down.

He tried to walk towards the truth, but his knees buckled.

“William?” Her voice was a beacon of safety, a flare in the forest.

He looked up to see Claire walking towards him from the trees, and as she smiled, the air detonated, his little pile of dirt erupting into the clearing as if lit from beneath. Rocks, bark, and shards of a life that could have been whistled past his ears, biting into his arms, but the brunt of the shrapnel hit Claire, her chest blooming red as the bouquet he’d bought her two days after breaking his vows. The sound was a silence so complete it split his skull, and William fell backward, covering his head, mouth open in a scream the forest swallowed whole.

When he opened his eyes, the clearing was unrecognizable, a ring of trees splintered outward, roots clawing into the air. The box was gone, obliterated. Only the shadow of Claire remained, and though he ran to her, he was left with only a wisp of smoke slipping through his fingers.

The memories he'd barricaded himself against rushed in as the dam broke. A hotel room. A whiff of jasmine and sweaty skin. Sheets in disarray. A woman’s hair dark against the pillow, her face already half-forgotten. His wedding band left on the nightstand, glinting like an accusation. The rush of guilt followed by the decision, that poisonous, coward’s decision to never tell Claire. To pretend like it never happened.

Claire's face followed, haloed by his silence. She asked him once, “Can I trust you?”

“Forever and always,” he’d promised.

Each memory had been a handful of dirt tamped over the box. Each smile another layer pressing it deeper.

Until now.

He didn't know how long he sat there, but he admitted to himself that he was lost. Not just here, surrounded by trees, but within the labyrinth of lies he couldn’t blame on anyone but himself.

Claire deserved to know. If he didn't tell her, the truth would bleed out of him on its own. He could no longer contain it.

The thought should have gutted him, knowing he was going to lose her. Instead, a strange relief leaked out of the emptiness. The box was gone. He could not bury it again.

He stood, allowing the chaos to creep into the edges of his awareness without running from it.

The forest did not look like a prison anymore. The trunks still towered, shadows still crowded, but everything had shifted, and as he put one foot in front of the other, it wasn't long before a familiar rock formation shimmered in the distance. The tree he carved his initials into as a child stood tall to his left.

He took a step, then another, not sure if he walked further or closer to home, but it didn’t matter. For the first time in years, he wasn’t holding his breath.

Above him, the pines whispered, needles hissing like a tide, crow’s wings slicing through the air, not with menace, but with the release that comes with no longer hiding from the truth.