Page 23 of Rusty's Command

“Aunty Dee thought coming here would help me get over my grief.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did one of your parents pass away?”

“No. My best friend . . .” She forced out a breath like she was trying not to vomit. “Paige . . . she killed herself.”

“Oh Jesus, Sienna.”

“The night before she, um . . . we’d been celebrating her breakup from her douche bag boyfriend. The next morning, I found her . . . in, um . . .”

“Ahh, fuck. You found her?” Rusty’s chest ached. He knew that hurt. The shock. The disbelief. The feel of a limp body, and the ghastly sight of blue lips that would never smile again. “I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

“Did you know why?”

“No.” Her voice splintered. “And that’s worse than finding her body in the bathtub. Worse than her skin being so cold when I touched her wrist and hoped . . .” She shuddered. “Hoped for a pulse I knew wouldn’t be there.”

Fuck. He knew that tone, that raw guilt that ate you alive after someone checked out. He pulled her against him, trying to cushion her trembling.

Soda shifted, nudging closer to him like she knew their topic touched a raw nerve.

“I should’ve known.” The words tumbled between ragged breaths. “Paige and I shared everything. Every secret, every heartbreak since we were kids. How did I miss how sad she was? She must’ve been screaming inside, and I just . . . I just didn’t hear it.”

His chest clenched as Hannah’s face flashed behind his eyes. That last fight—him raging at her until his throat was raw, while she just stood there, folding inward like a dying flower. He’d seen her guilt overwhelm her then. It was written in everyline of her body. But he’d been too angry to care about the consequences. Too righteous. Too fucking blind to her remorse.

The note she left was simple. Final.I can’t live with what I’ve done.

Knowing why hadn’t made it easier. Knowing had just given his guilt sharper teeth.

He should tell Sienna something about how guilt lied. Guilt just twisted you up inside until everything you could have done became everything you should have done. How it changed your memories until all you could see were the signs you missed, the moments you failed her, and the lies she told. How it made you forget all the good times together.

But the words snagged like broken glass in his throat. Instead, he pulled her closer, feeling her tears soak through his shirt to his skin. His own ghosts rattled their cage, but he forced them back.

Not now. Not tonight.

Some nights, that was all he could do—white-knuckle his way through the darkness and pray the memories would just fuck off and leave him in peace.

“Try to sleep,” he murmured, drawing her closer.

She curled into him with that familiar trust, just like that wild summer when they’d been young, stupid, and fearless. When they’d stayed up all night on the beach, planning adventures they would never take—backpacking through Nepal, motorcycling across Vietnam, finding as many beach parties as they could.

Back when their biggest worry had been missing the sunset.

As her breathing softened and she drifted into that space between awake and sleep, he found himself grateful for those memories of her. The ones still pure, untouched by guilt, grief, or betrayal. The ones that reminded him that even in the darkest moments, light could still exist if he opened his mind to it.

Maybe they could still chase those dreams someday. Maybe?—

Fuck. Who was he kidding? He was the one who’d destroyed what they had. One drunken night, and he’d blown it all to hell.

He’d replayed that night in his mind hundreds of times, wishing it had a different ending.

Earlier in the evening, he’d taken Sienna to the Ocean Tide Festival, but his gaze had snagged on Hannah as she’d danced beneath the festoon lights, and when her laughter had carried over the music, something had clicked in him. Or broken. Maybe both. As he’d made moves on Hannah, he’d fed himself bullshit excuses—that Sienna was leaving anyway, that it was just a summer fling, that she would go back to her real life, and they would never see each other again. That Hannah was here, permanent, solid, real, and making eyes at him.

But later that night, when Sienna caught him with Hannah at O’Malley’s—Hannah pressed against the pool table and his hands where they shouldn’t have been—something bright and trusting had dimmed in Sienna’s eyes like watching a fire choke on its own ashes. She’d stood in the doorway, car keys dangling from trembling fingers and that damn stuffed bear he’d won her at the festival clutched against her chest like armor.

Her scream had cut through the bar’s usual chaos. No words, just pure pain released in an ear-splitting shriek. Raw enough to silence every conversation, drown the music and freeze the whole damn world for one terrible moment.

The bear had slipped from her fingers, landing face-up on the sticky floor, those cheap glass eyes reflecting the overhead lights like accusations frozen in time. Empty. Hollow. Just like the look she’d given him before striding out the door.

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