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She’s here for me. If I need her. Even if I don’t. She’s here.
I turn back to Harlan. Some of the anger has bled off his face, and he’s pinning me with the stony stare he reserves for juvenile delinquents.
“I’m sorry.”
He scoffs.
“No, listen. I’m sorry I haven’t been home, sorry that I haven’t called or texted. It’s been…hard. Hard to think about coming back home. It seemed like you all moved on after Mom died, and I…couldn’t. Not the way that you guys did. I don’t know if it was the fact that I was away at college or that losing her bowled me over. But coming home hurt. It still does.”
Har drags a hand through his hair. “Boone—” he starts but I hold up a hand to cut him off for a minute.
“No, you’re right. I should have made more of an effort—if not to come home, then to at least keep in touch. I don’t have an excuse for that, just that it was hard for me. Part of me was so relieved to not be inundated with the memories of Mom around town, to not have to spend time in the house that she made our home. But another part of me missed you guys like an amputated limb. I didn’t know the whole situation about Dad at the station, just that he’s had some problems keeping rangers there. I’m sorry,” I finish lamely.
“I get missing Mom. We all do. But why didn’t you tell us that was why you didn’t want to come home? Every time we invited you back for a visit, you brushed us off saying that you had work, or that you were busy with other plans. Why not be honest with us?”
“I don’t know. It was…is…hard to talk about her without the grief of losing her the way we did kicking me in the ass. I wasn’t home—I remember sitting in class and getting a call from Jedd, telling me to get home, that Mom was gone. I didn’t have you guys there to help me get through the first initial shock. I hopped in my truck and made the drive home by myself, not really believing that she was gone. Thinking that it was some terrible joke, and then I got home and for the first time in my life I felt like an outsider in my own family. You all were holding Dad together, and I was on the outside of your bubble.”
“You were never outside the bubble, Boone,” my brother says. His eyes are misty; I’m sure mine are too. I clear my throat to get rid of the tightness.
“Then the next day I went for a walk around town to clear my head, and there wasn’t a single place in this town that didn’t have some sort of memory with Mom attached to it, and it fucking hurt.”
“You think we didn’t all feel that way? You think that we didn’t all fucking hurt when she died? Because we did, but instead of running away, we banded together and were there for each other. You lit out of town like your tail was on fire right after the funeral and barely came home since. We can’t help you if we don’t know something is wrong, Boone.”
I nod. “I know, but the longer that I went without reaching out, the easier it was to pretend it didn’t matter.”
“That’s stupid.” He steps up to me and our toes nearly touch.
My head whips back in shock. “What?”
He sneers at me, poking a finger into my chest. “You heard me. That’s stupid. You’re stupid. Pretending that you don’t need help from your family is stupid. We’re here for you, and we always have been, but we can’t help you if you don’t fucking talk to us.”
I shove his hand away. “Don’t you call me stupid, Harlan.”
“I’ll call you whatever I want when the situation warrants it.”
Without thinking, I plant my hands on his shoulders and shove, his rejection of my reasons for staying gone sparking my own temper.
He stumbles back before catching himself and then he’s right back in my face. “Watch it, little brother. I’ve had about enough from you.”
“Hey now, you guys should take a breath,” Jem says from behind me.
“You hush,” Harlan snaps at her.
“Don’t you fucking talk to her like that.” I push against his chest again. Him yelling at me is one thing, but I won’t fucking stand for him treating her with anything less than the utmost respect.
“You’re the one who brought her here.” He shrugs and it sets me off.
“That woman you’re hushing is the only fucking reason that I’m in this godforsaken barn, dipshit.”
Now it’s Harlan’s turn to look at me like I just sucker punched him.
“What?”
“You heard me. She convinced me that the only way I’m going to close the gap I put between you all and me was to talk to you about why I stayed away. Hell, she even offered herself up as the fucking icebreaker to start to bridge the gap, so if you tell her to hush again, I’m going to beat your fucking face in.”
Harlan looks to Jem who’s standing and looking entirely unsure of whether she should try to get between us and stop my threat or if it’s safer for her to stay back and let this play out.
“You convinced him to come home?”
