Page 44 of While the Sun Shines

The sheep scatter, scampering through the woods in a rush of panic.

“Fuck,” Cooper says, jumping out of the water and stamping his feet into his boots.

“I want to come,” Abelardo says, climbing out of the water and running after Cooper.

Drew’s still frozen. In a stupor. A panic, he thinks dimly. “I—”

He slips on the wet log beneath him. Catches his shin and fuck that was too fast to stand up, alcohol spinning the world before his eyes.

“You okay?” Whit asks, with his foot in one boot and his hand reaching out to steady Drew.

“Yeah, just—” Fucking hell, he’s dizzy.

“We got them. It’s okay.” Whit jogs off after Cooper and Abelardo.

“Need help?” Drew shouts. No, he should’ve just gotten up, not bothered asking. It’s his farm, his sheep, his responsibility—

“No,” Whit calls back. “They’re fine, we’re just gonna walk them to the barn.”

Drew nods. Whit can’t see him, of course he can’t. Drew curls his hand over the sting on his shin and calls, “Okay!”

Not fucking okay, he thinks, steadying himself against the spin of the current.

Slowly, he looks up. No, not fucking okay at all because Penny’s staring back at him.

He should move away from her. Put some space between them, float over and take the rock that Whit and Cooper had been perched on.

“Um,” he says.

The corner of her jaw ticks, her mouth tight.

“The sheep,” Drew says. It sounds weak. He should go. Be gone already. He’s frozen, like he’s jammed onto the log he balances on.

“Of course.” Penny flicks water across the small pool with a quick, hard snap of her finger. “The sheep.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?”

“Yeah.” He swallows. “I am.”

“For?”

“What?”

“What’re you apologizing for?”

“I—uh—I didn’t mean…” Oh shit, he can barely breathe. Say it, he tells himself. Say it, say it, say it. “I didn’t mean for you to hear—what I, uh, said to Cooper?”

What a fucking cop out. I’m sorry I told Cooper I love you, he should’ve said. Not danced around the words still hanging between them, too scared to fully own up to what he blurted out, even as the memory swims with a sick churn through his stomach.

And Penny just rolls her eyes. “You’re sorry I heard it or you’re sorry you said it?”

“Yes. No. I—”

“Is that what this is? You just don’t want me to be mad?”

“Are you—are you mad?”