jette-writer
When a raging wildfire leaves Evan Buckley trapped, injured, and completely cut off from the 118, the world narrows to smoke, fire, and the terrifying certainty that he might not make it out alive. With every breath burning in his lungs and every distant siren fading into nothing, he begins recording goodbye videos for the people he loves most;the family he is certain he will never see again.
But there's one goodbye he keeps putting off, even as the heat closes in and time runs out... Eddie.
With the flames tightening around him and the ground feeling less and less like something he can stand on, Buck finally forces himself to say what he's been swallowing for years. The words come out broken, urgent, like they're being ripped from him before the fire can take everything else. Somewhere along the way, Eddie, Christopher, and Theo stopped being the family he visited and became the only place in the world that ever felt like home; something he only understands now, when it's already too late to matter.
Buck is certain this confession will never be heard. That it will burn with him, lost in the smoke and ash.
Except Buck survives.
And weeks later, when the world has settled and everyone is trying to move forward, Christopher finds the videos that were never meant to see daylight; the ones Buck made when he thought he had no future left to lose.
If Buck was brave enough to confess his love when he believed he was dying, can he be brave enough to choose it now that he's been given the chance to live?