Page 161 of The Exit Strategy

I press his grandmother’s ring to my heart and hold it there, watching the man I’ve loved since before I could drive, and I have no idea how any of us will proceed now that the wall of lies has come crashing down.

28

BROODING

COLE

There shouldn’t bea chill in the air at this time of year, but it’s settled in, bone-deep, like a fever that won’t break.

The sky should be turning shades of pink and orange by now, but it’s clinging to the gray like a fucked-up metaphor for my life.

The award that Nana Mae collected on my behalf sits beside me—a monument to what I’ve lost. I’m not even sure why I kept it except to punish myself.

Junie never turned on her lights, but I know she’s up there. I feel her.

She’s either asleep or she’s been sitting in the dark, and I’m not sure which option is worse. My eyes feel like sandpaper because I’ve been staring at her window since I stumbled out of the car.

Not once did her curtains move. Not a flicker of a shadow or hint of manufactured light.

It takes every ounce of self-control I possess not to cross the driveway, but this is a promise I have to keep.

I don’t go to her.

I don’t call.

But I do set in motion the takedown of Natalie’s career by filing a grievance with the American Institute of Architects. Contacting the AIA board has been phase two of my plan, but my plan’s gone to shit, so now I’m all in. And this is just the beginning. Fen’s typically the one to go scorched earth, but my earth is already on fire, and now I’m the gasoline.

The squeak of the screen door behind me breaks the painful silence.

Nana Mae steps out onto the porch in a bathrobe and slippers. Her gray hair is undone for the first time I can remember in years, and she sets a coffee mug down beside me without a word.

She doesn’t sit, but her heavy hand rests on my shoulder for a long minute. I have a feeling that she’s staring at Junie’s darkened window too.

The touch causes flashbacks to when I was five years old—sitting on a sofa with her—finding out she was now my entire world.

“Cole.”

I crane my head to peer up at her.

“I’m going to say something, then I’m going to make breakfast because the boys will start arriving soon, and you’re going to need food before they get here.”

“How do you?—”

“Hudson’s been sending updates to Fen since the receiving line. Don’t let your emotions cloud your judgment. Hudson Tenney doesn’t chaperone the women in his family without aplan. They started mobilizing the moment your walls began cracking.”

She’s right, I’m not thinking clearly. When one of us falls, we rally. It’s been this way since elementary school. Itmakes my years of silence feel more weaponized than I’d intended.

“What did you want to say?”

She squeezes my shoulder this time—I had no idea she still had this kind of strength.

“Sometimes asking for help doesn’t feel like a victory. It feels like falling. You have to learn the difference between falling and failing, Cole. They’re not the same thing.”

I stare up at the woman who raised me—always so wise and straight to the point.

“I want you to be straight with me now. Are we going to lose Papa’s land?”

Guilt makes bile rise in my throat. I never told her I took out a loan against that land. It appears Hudson has been busy.