Page 2 of Born in the Spring

I hoped the look I showed, to him, conveyed how sorry I was. For everything. Because something in the way he held us both so still told me that’s what he needed.For everything.

A glare on the glass obscured some of his face, but I still caught the pain from that loss—from looking at me—twist his features before he escaped me again.

Amie had to tug me along this time, and it was an even slower walk back to the car. She looked back once, but I didn’t, my suddenly stinging stare still held to Jasper’s turn away. He didn’t glance toward me again when I slid into the seat behind him, as he shifted some from my view in the side mirror.

He shifted again when I reached for him, pressing his arm into my touch, giving us both a second of how we should’ve been, before he tensed and shifted for the last time that I could handle, his warmth gone and the heat from the vents blowing through my empty fingers.

I dropped my hand back to my lap, my face tight with the pain he wouldn’t see, and Amie took my other one in hers, her cool grip finally sending its shiver as I felt the first real wave of our loss, let in. All three of their quiet sniffles pulled at mine, but every burn just remained in my chest as I let Amie hold to me, taking comfort from her touch, reciprocating every squeeze, the whole drive up the mountain.

Then I dampened it all down with a glass of wine back at the resort. People were gathered around in the main lodge, some taking the couches, some standing at the lit fireplace, and some up at the counter, that we called the bar, most with their food and drinks. But all of them were glitching around me,blurs of black and white that pushed me closer to draining the glass.

I’d need a refill before Vanessa got back with her cocktail.

I knew where I was and I didn’t, the wine on the fringes to blur more than just bodies. I had to finally meet my own eyes in the decorative mirror behind me to stay all here, the same blues I got from both my mom and my dad still sneaking exhaustion through the little makeup I’d managed to brush on my paler skin. My red hair, handed down from my father, still clung to life, the thick strands holding their shine.

I gripped my glass as I coughed, or laughed, through my next drink, this swallow more sour than the last. My boyfriend was just buried and my thoughts were telling me I was having a good fucking hair day.

I turned away frommyselfas Vanessa stepped back up to me, her dress in a different style but the same black as mine, her dark hair sleek down her back. We worked here together all of my six years, and she became one of my closest friends—and for the past four days, my godsend.

I thrusted my glass at her. “Finish this for me.”

She tongued the straw of her cocktail from her mouth as she took my glass in her free hand. “There’s only two swallows left,” she muttered before tossing them back in one. Her tongue showed again with her gag. “Remind me to get this later,” she added as she set the glass on the table behind us, at the window, next to the potted plant that hadn’t been watered in four days, the leaves drying out.

“Remind me to remember,” I muttered back, my eyes on the dying leaves.They can still be saved.

The thought shook through my body and sent me to the nearest couch, where Kyle, one of Shepherd’s friends, sat witha half drunk water in his hand that I snatched up and splashed onto the soil, its instant darkening from the liquid slowing the pounding in my ears.

Aclangnear my feet from a fallen piece of ice cleared my focus to what I’d done. Other cubes were scattered around in the soil, and I spun around to face Kyle, an apology on my lips that he brushed away with a lift of his hand. “It’s all right,” he assured me, pity in his voice, with our shared sadness in his stare.

“I’ll grab you a new one,” Vanessa told him as she took the glass from my hand, giving me more assurance with a small smile. She took off, and Kyle waved to stop her, but we both knew there was no reining her back once she got going.

I wiped both my palms down my dress as I dragged in a breath. I needed something. Someone not here.

“What happened?” Amie appeared in front of me, urgency in her voice and concern in her eyes, as if I made a much bigger scene than it seemed. The chatter around the room came back to me in hums as Vanessa returned from the back and answered for me.

“Just a spill.” She passed off the new water to Kyle, then pressed a steadying hand into my back. Amie pressed hers into my arm as those close by, Kyle still included, added to the stares, everyone rallying around me with their worry, like I was finally behaving how they expected me to, but it also wasn’t normal.

Everything heavy to carry and private to me was being silently picked apart, making touches that should’ve felt comforting feel like pointers to draw the attention.

“The plant just needed some water,” I told Amie, whichwassomething normal, and who had enough to worry about.

I saved her plant, but I couldn’t save her son.

This thought closed my throat and I couldn’t say more, my gaze blinking from hers, unable to look her in the eye.

“Honey,” she whispered, knowing, without knowing everything, giving my arm a squeeze before using both hands to hold up her plate of food. “Here. You should eat something. You’ve barely eaten.” She lifted a fork with something stabbed to it, ready to force feed me if I turned her down.

Had I barely eaten? Hunger became a forgotten pang.

I shook my head, dragging in more breaths. “I can’t stomach anything.” I could speak again, low to her, but I spoke toward the front entrance, where Gary redirected the attention as he made a true scene, charging in with a shout about reporters and cameras.

He and Amie temporarily closed the resort to new bookings to avoid a public display, for obvious privacy reasons, and to place another restriction on the men with cameras. Some were sneaking through.

What was there to take pictures of? What was left to report? The accident happened. The funeral was over. Shepherd was gone.

“Did you find Jasper—”

Gary stormed with his head down toward the back, right past Amie and her shifted concern for their youngest son.

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