Page 11 of Even if It Hurts

Again, you would’ve thought I’d run away from this town and came crawling back with a record a mile long rather than the degree I’d left for...with more on the side.

So, there I was, sitting in my SUV in the middle of downtown Huntley, gripping the steering wheel, trying to prepare myself for another morning of the same.

Jackson had finally called yesterday, extending the olive branch I’d been waiting for. But even though things had been strained and awkward when I’d gone to his apartment last night, he’d asked me to meet him for breakfast this morning.

Considering he’d only managed a dozen words before then and had struggled to hold my stare, I’d been floored and so grateful for the invitation until I’d realized what he was doing. He was trying to get us back into our routine—getmeback into my routine.

Every morning since he’d gotten his license, he’d taken whatever delivery their family had that day to the general store: milk, lotions, eggs, or various cheeses. After, we’d always gotten coffee or breakfast—anything to spend a few minutes with each other before the rest of our day was devoted to school or the endless work of farming and ranching. It was the only time my parents had ever pushed for me to take for myself. Probably because it’d involved meandJackson...not that I’d ever realized that until recently.

And maybe if he hadn’t asked about the farm or how the blueberries were looking four different times last night, I might’ve been able to make myself believe this morning was something different. But I knew better. I knewhimbetter.

I climbed out of my SUV and took a step toward the diner, my gaze automatically sweeping to the general store on the chance Jackson was still there. When I saw him slip inside the propped open door, arms weighed down with crates, I turned and jogged across the street to help with the remainder of the delivery.

Grabbing the last crate of cheese out of the bed of his truck, I headed inside and into one of those hushed conversations that had been happening all around me this week.

“...you forgive her,” the owner’s daughter was saying, and just like that, the hands around my lungs squeezed tighter as I froze like a statue a foot inside the shop.

“I can’t do this right now, Heather,” Jackson responded as he methodically stocked the cheeses.

I needed to say something. I needed to let them know I was there. But I was still frozen in place, struggling to even take a breath, let alone make my throat work.

“So, what? She comes back from Tennessee, and you just act like the last six years never happened?” Heather pressed on.

Jackson stilled for a second before shooting her a warning look. “She was nevergonefor me.”

“Right,” she muttered on a surprisingly bitter-sounding laugh. “And how do you know it was the same for her?”

Jackson’s hesitation at her question broke something in me. I deserved the anger from him and my parents—I knew that—but for Jackson to doubt my devotion to him?

As soon as the thought crossed my mind, another pushed forward of a man I remembered with startling clarity. But that hadn’t been something I’d anticipated or encouraged, it’d been over in a second, and he’d been a literal stranger. One I would never see again. So, that didn’t count...right?

The guilt twisting my stomach disagreed.

I knew if it hadn’t mattered, I would’ve forgotten the man and encounter as soon as it happened. I wouldn’t still be thinking about that kiss nine months later.

“Jackson, she waslyingto you?—”

“Hi,” I finally managed to say, the small word sounding more like a wheeze that snuck out of my strained lungs, but it stopped Heather and had them turning to face me as if I’d screamed it.

The same guilt I was trying to ignore swept across Jackson’s face as my name fell from him on a whisper.

“I grabbed the last crate,” I roughed out before either of them could say anything else. Forcing myself to take a few more steps, I placed it carefully on the edge of one of the display tables, then rocked back when Jackson took a step toward me. “I’ll, uh...just meet you in the diner.”

I hadn’t taken more than a couple steps outside when Jackson grabbed my arm to pull me back. One of his hands curled around my cheek, but I twisted my head away to avoid the worry and shame now burning in his eyes. “Lainey, I’m sorry.”

“I mean, it isn’t like she’s wrong,” I said, the words still sounding so forced as they scraped past the barbed knot in my throat.

“She was,” he tried to assure me, but I couldn’t help but think about thathesitation. That look on his face, like he didn’t know how to answer.

“Just tell me one thing,” I softly began before meeting his stare again. “If I’d told you about the other major and my plans from the beginning, would we still be likethis? Or would things have changed between us regardless because I went away to school when you didn’t want me to?”

“Nothing changed. We’re fine.”

“Fine.” The word left me on a defeated laugh becausefinewasn’t a word I would’ve ever used to describe Jackson and me before, and it wasn’t a word I wanted to describe us now.

Finewas the word you used when everything was falling apart, but you didn’t want to unload what was wrong in your life onto anyone else.

“Yes,” he said firmly as his other hand slid from my arm to curl around my back, pulling me closer. “We have things to get through because youdidn’ttell me, but we will—weare. We’re gonna be fine.”

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