Page 5 of Born in the Spring

He didn’t even pause, still denying us even a touch of something normal as he pushed at me again.

I sprang up after him, calling his name, following faster when he didn’t turn back around. I didn’t know where he was going, but I couldn’t let him go there alone. The feelings that pressed quietly over Shepherd stirred loudly over Jasper. Thestatic cleared, a weight now so heavy I could barely feel it, my heart pounding with his footsteps and mine, as I put all my focus into taking care of him, of this.

I followed him all the way back inside the main lodge, to the back where the food and drinks were placed. He didn’t stop, brushing aside everyone who came up to him, to check on him, to talk to him. I held up a hand at Vanessa and Amie when they started toward us, and they hung back.

Jasper shook his head again once we were alone at the table, his eyes searching through the options before choosing to drink, grabbing up something stronger than the wine I chose earlier, the smell hitting my nose as he poured. I watched him swoosh the liquor around his mouth before swallowing, that flinch of his pain on his face more from just the taste.

And as he swallowed more, doing the same thing that played a part in taking Shepherd, the drinks I’d swallowed sat sick in my stomach.

“You can’t bottle this up,” I told him as I reached to take the glass, my words asking and my gesture pointed. He held it away, but my hand hovered, needing that glass out of his.

“What am I supposed to do?” It was a low question around the lip of that glass I was still reaching for, a question spurred from my urging, but he wasn’t talking to me anymore.

“I’m here,” I said, the words slow, more urging, reminding, as my eyes tracked him in another swallow.You don’t need that.Shepherd didn’t need that.

He blinked down at the alcohol, his glossed gaze widening, as my head yelled for him to put down the glass.

Then he did, and I snatched it, sat it off to the side with another relieved breath.

“I didn’t want it to happen this way,” he said to the table,searching again, a strain in his throat. “This isn’t how I wanted out. I didn’t wish forthis.” More tears rolled down his cheeks in his next blinks, and I mouthed his name, the strain in my own throat stealing my voice, as I stepped closer to him, a fresh sting in my eyes blurring him to me. “And I’m only here, I’m only right here, standing with you, in asuit”—he yanked at the jacket as he finally looked at me—“because he’s not.”

My head shook now as I wedged myself between his rigid stance and the table, folding my arms around him, holding him to me for as long as we both needed. He remained rigid, but I wasn’t letting him go, and when his arms finally wrapped around me, we sank into each other, his head in my hair.

“I don’t know how we’re gonna get through this, but we will.” I tried to assure us both, swiping quickly at the wet at my lids to keep it there.

Jasper’s sigh was heavy against me, and his hold loosened as his body went rigid again. “We won’t.” He gave me a light push and I released him, meeting the conflict in his eyes, a closer type of hurt swirling with his grief that I’d seen in them before.

I broke his heart when I started dating Shepherd. And, somehow, those same pieces were shattering again.

“I need you,” he breathed, those broken pieces cutting at me too. “I need you so much. But I don’t think I can be around you. Or that I should.”

My own breathing stalled at that last part. He didn’t have to feel that way. I knew something like this was coming, and when I followed him in here, part of me was rushing toward it while chasing for a rescue.

“I need you too,” I told him, trying to assure him again, trying to turn us around.

“Not how I’ve always needed you.”

“Jasper—”

“There’s not awe, Elara,” he pushed, for what felt like the final time, through an ache forceful enough for anyone close by to hear, and for me to see that I wouldn’t be able to fix this. “It’s you and my brother. It should be you and him.”

“And he’sdead,” snapped from my mouth, all my anger toward Shepherd released, my guilt over not trying harder for him also bubbling up, behind Jasper talking as if he and I don’t have a history too, my own needs suddenly not mattering to him, either.

It wasn’t me and Shepherd anymore. It wasn’t me and Shepherd anymore, because he walked away and I didn’t stop him. I lost him in a single breath. I couldn’t lose Jasper too. I was acting with a desperation I didn’t often feel or show.

“There is awe,” I argued to his small recoil, the tremble in his lips matching the shake in my voice. He bit at his emotion as I let mine spill. “There’s still you and me, and we’vebothlost him. So what about us? I can’t need you now? We’re just not together in this? I can’t have my best friend?”

I knew telling Jasper he was my best friend would put more distance between us the moment I spoke it aloud, my stirred feelings not letting me think. It was the first time, the wrong time, but it was too late to turn us around. I had to find some calm as he cracked more.

“I never wanted to be that,” he argued back, like I should’ve known, and I did. “My brother—your boyfriend—isdead, and I don’t want to be yourbestie, and I still want to look at you forever, and I feel like a fucking asshole for it.” He emphasized every word, every echo, and my mouth went dry against any more argument.

I wasn’t being fair to him—saying what I was saying and saying it here—but since four days ago, nothing was fair, for any of us. And as much as my heart was breaking now, I understood his pushing and why he felt he had to. Life was just ripped out from under us, and I shouldn’t have depended on him, or maybe just not as much. And I shouldn’t have expected him to depend on me.

“He told me I would never have you, and he was right,” he went on before emphasizing again, “He’s gone. He can’t do anything, and he can’t tell me anything, so I have to tell myself.” He cut himself off before he could add what I recognized welling in his eyes again. It would hurt more to hear the same from me.

I also heard what he wasn’t saying in each stress on Shepherd being gone. I didn’t have a reason to stay here anymore.

“We’ll never see him again”—Jasper paused for a breath and I held mine as he confirmed it—“and I can’t see you now.”

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