Page 194 of Catch the Sun

“No shit?” he says, sitting up straighter. “Damn, Piglet. My little sister found love. I always wanted that for you, you know.”

I tuck in my lips, glancing down at the scratched tabletop. “I’m marrying the brother of the man you murdered.”

He goes silent.

Voices chatter around us, loved ones conversing with inmates, correctionalofficers directing orders.

I look back up.

Jonah presses his tongue against his cheek with a slow nod, the glimmer in his eyes dimming. “Well, that’s some twisted irony. I suppose I shouldn’t expect an invitation to Christmas dinner once I get out of here, huh?”

I swallow, my heart twisting with barbed knots. “You almost ruined us.”

He leans forward on the table, his eyes narrow, forearms flexing as he folds his hands together. “I was protecting you, Piglet. I was saving you from that vile piece of shit who almost murderedyou,” he shoots back, irises darkening like storm clouds. “I’d do it again. I would. In a fucking heartbeat.”

My heart hammers like a nail in a coffin.

Jonah is in that coffin. I’m covering him in dirt, lowering him in the ground for good.

I have to.

I have to, even though it hurts. Even though I love him.

“That’s why you’ll never see me after today,” I confess, my voice cracking with pain. “I won’t be visiting you again.”

Just like that, the storm in his eyes morphs into a sad, slow drizzle as his breath hitches and cracks. “Don’t say that.”

“I’m not Mom,” I whisper back. “I love you, but my love doesn’t conquer all. It doesn’t override the horrible things you did, the way you dismantled the life I was creating, the one I had just started rebuilding from the ground up. You tore it all down and left me shattered.”

“C’mon, Ella,” he bites back, pain skittering across his face. “You say it like I’m a fucking monster, when all I was doing was keeping you safe. I swore I’d do anything for you, that I’d protect you until my dying day, and I don’t regret keeping that promise. Not one bit.” He leans in farther, holding my stare. “And I hope to God that man you marry would do the same.”

My bottom lip wobbles. “Max isn’t like you. He’s good and pure and noble. He fights thegoodfight for me. He protects my honor, but he protects my heart, too.” Eyes fixed to the shiny tile floor, I fist my hands together in my lap. “You told me that you’d do anything for me. You swore it.”

“You know I would,” he confirms. “I think I’ve proven that, haven’t I?”

My teeth grind together as I glance back up at him, watching as his coppery brows furrow while he waits for my request. “I’m going to ask you to do one last thing for me. You have to promise you’ll do it.”

“I promise,” he murmurs, hands curling around the edge of the table, squeezing tighter, waiting, and waiting.

I square my shoulders, heave in a deep breath, and say, “Don’t ever come looking for me.”

A beat passes.

A tense, silent beat, where my words float to his ears and his features slowly collapse with heartbreak. Jonah deflates, his fight draining, all trace of light flickering from his gaze.

“Please,” I beg, tears brimming. “You swore you’d always protect me, and this is how you’re going to protect me.” My lips quiver, hands tremble. “You’re going to protect me…from you.”

He shakes his head back and forth, disbelief shadowing the green in his eyes. “Ella, that bastard almost killed you. He could’ve hurt you again, and I—”

“It’s not about him,” I say through my agony. “It’s about you. It’s about the lengths you’ll take, the lines you’ll cross, no matter the consequences. I can’t live my life in fear, wondering what you’ll do next or how you might flip my world upside down again. I love you, Jonah, I do…but I need to love you from afar.”

Tears well in his eyes as his jaw tics with raw emotion. “No,” he whispers. “No, Piglet.”

“Yes,” I say brokenly. “When you walk out those prison doors in six years, eight years, ten years…you’re going to live your life without me. Pretend youdon’t have a little sister, if that’s what it takes. Mom never brought me home from the hospital in a pink swaddle, we never played Pooh sticks on a wooden bridge, and you never shot a man in the chest in the name of brotherly love.” I force the words out, breaking down further with each syllable. “I never had an orange backpack that I carried around with me every day, wishing you were there to carry it for me. We didn’t have inside jokes, or favorite recipes, or adventures in the Hundred Acre Wood behind the ranch. It was all a dream. A storybook.”

Tears slip from his jaded eyes.

Little droplets slide down his cheeks, one by one, as he stares at me in silence, his throat rolling, knuckles going white around the table.

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