Page 35 of Savage Heart

I swallow. “I’m not trying to soften it. I’m trying to own that I blindsided you.”

Silence stretches between us, and it’s brutal. The faucet drips once. Twice.

“I can’t even go into town anymore,” she says finally. “Your mom does all the grocery shopping now, and that’s one thing I’m paid to do. I don’t go to church or book club or Deja Brew. I stay right here. And now I’m afraid to leave my own damn house.”

The words land hard.

“I know,” I say. And I do. I’ve watched her shrink into herself. “I never wanted to make that worse.”

“Well, you did.” She turns again, eyes flashing. “You brought it right into our backyard. You knew how I felt about this after the past two summers, and yet you still let them come.”

I hesitate, then say the thing that’s been lodged in my chest, scraping every time I breathe. It’s been this way for a few weeks. I saw Linc in town, riding bikes with Dalton’s son Alex. They looked so much like Lincoln and me, I had to pull my truck to the side of the road to get my bearings.

“Don’t you ever wonder what Lincoln would say about all this? Especially the way we treat Linc? That’s been eating at me lately,” I admit. “I don’t know why now. Maybe because Linc looks more like Lincoln than he ever has. Same mouth. Same way he squints when he smiles. Same energy. Every time I see him, I—”

“That’s enough.” Her voice is sharp. “He’s not Lincoln’s. I would feel it if he was.”

I sigh. I don’t know how she can keep denying this. He looks so much like Lincoln, it’s crazy.

She steps closer, pointing a finger at my chest.

“And second . . . you don’t get to imagine what he’d say to justify bringing her back into my life,” she says.

“I’m not justifying—”

“Yes, you are.” Her eyes blaze. “What do you want from me?” she snaps. “You think I should be gracious? That I should welcome her with open arms? Haven’t I lost enough?”

I shake my head. “No. That’s not what I’m saying.”

“You want to know what Lincoln would say?” she continues, voice trembling now despite her best efforts. “He’d say he trusted her. He’d say he got into that car willingly. And that’s exactly why I can’t forgive her.”

My chest tightens.

“Because if I forgive her,” Jennifer says, tears finally spilling over, “then I’m accepting that what she did was forgivable, and it’s not. So no, Maverick. I don’t wonder what he’d say. I live with what he can’t say.”

Her words are like a punch.

“I’m sorry,” I say. It feels useless, but it’s all I’ve got. “I never meant to hurt you. The only thing I have to add”—I take a deep breath—“is that Linc didn’t ask for any of this.”

She exhales, long and shaky, and looks past me, like she’s suddenly exhausted.

“I know,” she says softly. “I do know that.”

She leans against the door.

“I’ll figure it out,” she adds. “Just don’t ask me to be okay with this. I’m sorry. I just . . . can’t do it.”

I nod, even though she’s not looking.

As I walk away, a weight settles even deeper in my chest. Linc’s grin flashes in my mind and his laugh that sounds too familiar. Just like his mom’s.

I didn’t just lose my best friend and brother that night. I also lost my other best friend and the only woman I’ve ever loved.

Grief doesn’t move on.

It just finds new ways to hurt.

The bunkhouse smells faintly of the river drifting in through the open windows. And boys. Boots are lined up along the wall, flashlights confiscated but not forgotten, and whispers are already going strong when I get into the last bottom bunk.