Page 62 of The Leaving Road

“No, explain.” I all but demanded, and I heard Lexie chime in from behind me.

“Yeah, Jace, explain to my friend what you mean.” I heard the humor in her voice, and for that, I was thankful—it was much better than the despair and anxiety that was pouring off her minutes ago. I made a mental note and put it at the top of my to-do list to have a serious conversation with her once we were finally alone.

“I’d really rather not.”

The look on his face was almost comical as he looked between the two of us. Both of us must have held matching stern, no nonsense looks on our faces because he finally sighed, signaling that he was caving.

“Fine, but I’ll need a beer.” He huffed and made the quick distance to the fridge to pull one out, then turned to us again. “Sit.”

Deciding not to push my luck, I sat down and looked over at Lexie. I had a sneaky feeling that she already knew what Jace was about to share with me, but she claimed a seat on one of the barstools next to me while Jace stood, facing us from across the island.

“I shouldn’t be the one to tell you this; I still don’t think I should.” Now his gaze pointed directly at Lex, and Iknewshe was already well aware of what he was about to say. I couldn’t help but feel frustrated that I’d clearly been left out of the loop.

“Continue,” I bit out and he sighed in resignation.

“Look, it was a weird time when you left without telling anyone, Magnolia, and now that all the information has come to light about you and Sloan and what you overheard, I understand now, and so does Sloan… But he didn’t before… It was a rough time.”

He ran his hands through his hair, clearly uncomfortable telling me this, but I couldn’t find it in me to care. I just wanted to have all the answers.

“Sloan…well, he went off the deep end for a while. When no one could find you, he went door to door looking for you. I think he must have called your cell phone once every thirty seconds for days. One time, his phone died because he had forgotten to charge it, and instead of waiting for it to charge, he just went and bought a new one.”

I felt my heartbeat increase at what Jace was telling me, and a small blanket of shame coated over me again for how I had left.

“Once he found out that you were fine and left of your own accord, he…well, he disintegrated.”

“Disintegrated?”

“I don’t know a better word to use, but yeah, disintegrated. It was like he fell apart before anyone could stop it. He stopped laughing, stopped caring, and was just going through the motions of everyday life with zero emotion. Cassie latched on to that with full force, shoving all this fakelovetoward him in hopes that he would one day decide she was the one for him.”

“But he chose her; he chose her, knowing how she treated me, Jace…for ayear.While I’m an adult now and I understand why and his reasoning, it still doesn’t change what he did.”

“Yeah, I know, and believe me,he knows. Especially now that you laid it out for him on why you left, but Magnolia, he was a barely eighteen-year-old kid who didn’t know how to handle what was going on. I’m not excusing him because his actions were deplorable, but when I tell you he fell apart when you left, that’s the truth. Cassie brought out the worst in him, and he was broken from your departure. He had no fight left in him. He drank away your memory every day, and slept with your ghost every night.”

“Tell her what you told me,” Lexie encouraged, and he shot her a rather scathing look, which was almost a shock due to the looks he was normally tossing her way.

“Toward the end of him and Cassie, we went out one night, and I asked him what he was thinking about being with someone like that…”

I couldn’t bring myself to ask what he said, but of course, Lexie had no qualms about it. “And he said?” she asked, and he rolled his head back in resignation.

“He told me that once you lose the love of your life, nothing else matters; you do what you have to do to get through the day and what you need to do to get out of bed the next morning.”

I think my jaw hit the floor. “That’s not fair.”

“Maybe not, but I’d never seen someone so broken as him.”

“But Cassie…” I was still finding ithardto let that go, even with all the information I had got.

“Cassie saw an opportunity to get what she wanted, and when you left, she saw an even bigger opportunity and took it with no remorse. She never cared how she got Sloan, just that she had him.” Jace shrugged.

“That doesn’t explain thebefore,though.”

“He was seventeen, Magnolia. He was just a kid. Do you remember all the bad decisions we used to make? But we aren’t kids anymore, you either buck up, forgive him, and work this out and move on together, or you move on without him. It’s that simple.”

I couldn’t ignore the way my heart stopped and what felt like physical pain shot through it at the mention of moving on without him. I was ready for my drive; I needed the silence to think about everything Jace had let come to light.

Chapter 38

Magnolia

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