Page 3 of Born in the Spring

Vanessa released a soft scoff as we watched him run away from his pain, and everyone else’s.

Shepherd’s death hit him the hardest, and he wanted everyone to know it. I tried not to judge his way of grieving, but he still had a wife and son who were living, and he was treating them as if they’d died too.

If I was static, he was a ticking time bomb.

And when he finally went off, I wasn’t there.

Amie dropped the fork to the plate, then her hand to her side, and I caught it in mine, meeting the helpless look on her face. “Could one of you…?” She phrased the question for us both, but the beg in her eyes was for me.

“I’ll find him,” I promised her, reaching for my jacket on the table, jumping in for her as she’d jumped in for me more times than I could count.

We all knew where Jasper was. Amie couldn’t face it. She would probably never be able to face the place where we lost Shepherd again. I couldn’t face it, either, but I did.

Her smile was strained beneath her glossy eyes. “He’ll talk to you.” She nodded her encouragement, the urgency back in her voice, not understanding what I couldn’t acknowledge until it was right in front of me.

Justhow mucheverything had changed.

Two

Elara

Blue Cornelia Resort was a winter wonderland during the ski season. It was vibrant, and busy, the crowd rowdy in their excitement, their cheers and laughter in the air. And when the sun faded behind the mountain, it was almost seductive, luring people out from their rests with the warm glow of the lights and the softer energy of the night.

It was chilling to see it so desolate now, the added dreariness of this one day leaving little to hope for, like the day itself was mourning.

The end of the season was nearing, and the transition that was normally a slow fade was an abrupt shift, the town’s pulse stopping with Shepherd’s.

Everything stilled with his death. I couldn’t remember the last time I heard the snow crunch this loud beneath my feet.

Only a few visitors were out and about, giving the Cassidys and everyone gathered inside the main lodge their space. It was a slower, quieter four days.

But more watchful.

The few who were out spied on me on the walk toward the slope. I could feel their whispers like gusts at my back, filling in for the wind.

I kept my eyes away from the rink and my focus on the mist of my breaths to hold off another memory—our last one. I pulled my jacket around me, the cold not cold enough to freeze away that burning in my chest. I knew what I was walking into, but unlike exposing myself to the rink, I wouldn’t be doing it alone.

I caught up with Jasper’s footprints, the only ones on this side, and I followed next to them, his back coming into view through the trees where he sat on the bench overlooking Jude’s Way.

My feet faltered as I came to another stop, as his shoulders hunched and he pitched forward, all of his emotions expelling onto the snow.

I rushed over as he leaned back, my hand reaching toward him to rest on the bench at his shoulder, stalled with the fear of him pulling from my touch again and leaving me to feel even more empty. But I wanted to be there for him, and I needed him to know that. I needed him to let me. I needed him.

He straightened his spine and wiped at his mouth with the sleeve of his suit jacket, peaked to a presence, then sighed in his seat when he realized it was mine. He wouldn’t meet my eyes, just grazing over me from the corner of his, as he moved down the bench. I saw it as permission to sit with him, and not as an attempt to slide away.

He had tears in his eyes, and he wiped at those too, as another sting found my own. “Don’t look over there.” His voice was brittle in his breaking.

Over there.The place touching too close to my periphery, the place Jasper’s gaze couldn’t help but keep finding—that wasn’t the place he was talking about. It would’ve almost been better if it were.

“It doesn’t bother me,” I told him, my voice a breath, almost a sigh for having to say something he already knew, a small pull to keep us who we were, as he kicked some snow toward the spot where he heaved.

“It bothers me.”

That, his push at me, was the moment the pressure in my chest beared down. It could’ve been a normal thing to try to hide, but not for him, not when I’d seen him throw up before. From drinking. From stomach bugs. Not when he’d seen me in similar states of sickness. He’d even seen the sight I was first thing in the morning, over breakfasts with his family.

We’d seen each other in almost every deemedbadcondition imaginable, and now, during the worst for us both, he couldn’t hold me in his sight for more than a few seconds.

So I held him in mine, giving the fight against what was happening in my steadiness, even as everything inside of me was shaking. I watched the tears roll down his face, more falling the more he stared off toward the slope Shepherd knew too well, taken on a board with a skill unmatched to ever lose control.

---