Page 22 of New Hope, Old Grudges

“Was there anything in particular that made her leave?” I asked, doing my best to maintain my composure, remember my job.

“We were arguing,” her brother ran his hand through his hair. “It’s my fault.”

His wife, Sarah—a couple of years below me, and someone I only vaguely remembered, was pretty and quiet. Sam had called her frigid because she wouldn’t go out with him—got up from the sofa to put her arm around him.

“This is not your fault,” she said, voice soft and gentle yet firmly bringing her point across.

He looked at his wife with adoration, nodding once before kissing her head and tucking her into his side.

I felt discomfort in my chest area and thought about my empty cabin, my empty bed and my empty fucking life. Fuck, did I want someone to look at me like that, someone who was mine.

Fuck, did I want that someone to be Willow.

The thought came into my mind of its own volition, and again, I was struck by how powerful my need for her was after a scant few reactions. But I’d felt something for her that day on the bleachers, her soft gaze, her joking tone, her comforting grip. Yeah, even then I’d felt a magnetic pull to her I couldn’t describe.

And I’d let my fucking ego smother that thought so I could keep my spot in the high school hierarchy, thinking that meant I was worth something.

“It’s not your fault,” I reassured Harry. If anything, the fault was mine. Wasn’t I part of the reason that she hated this place so goddamn much?

“I won’t come back without her safe and sound,” I declared, making to leave.

I wouldn’t come back without her.

And I wouldn’t let her leave New Hope without making her mine.

WILLOW

If you were going to drive off into a snowstorm after a fight with your family on Thanksgiving, it was best to do it in a vehicle suited for the conditions.

That thought punctured through my emotions when the wheels slid against the icy road the first time.

I gritted my teeth as I kept the wheel steady, careful not to overcorrect. Just like my father taught me.

My tears increased as I thought of driving lessons in the snow, my teenage panic, my father’s measured calm even as I’d come close to crashing a bunch of times. And then the time I did crash, right into our fence. There were no raised voices, no annoyance, no shame. There was a reassuring hand on my shoulder, a gentle squeeze.

“Sometimes, despite our best efforts, we crash,” my father said. “If we’re lucky enough, all it serves to do is teach us a lesson that ensures we know how to avoid it in the future. It’s not failure nor weakness, it’s part of the lesson.”

I gritted my teeth as I heard my father’s voice in my ear, driving on. Though if he were alive right now, my father would gently tell me to pull over to the side of the road, get myself together, then calmly and carefully drive home to talk it out with my family.

Except he wasn’t there to play the mediator, to bring us all together. In his place was an empty, yawning chasm that caused black spots to dance in my vision and me to press on the accelerator harder than I should’ve. The car fishtailed once again but I corrected, determined.

“You can do anything you put your mind to, Tittlemouse,” he said. “You are capable.”

Unfortunately, my father’s words did not serve driving a hybrid ill-equipped for a blizzard. Therefore, after correcting twice and gaining false confidence, I slid off the road entirely, crashing headfirst into a snow drift.

ChapterEight

WILLOW

I wasn’t hurt.

Aside from a headache from the airbag deploying, and the ensuing panic of getting it deflated and thinking I was going to suffocate.

No bleeding. No broken bones.

Physically, I was fine.

For now.

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