“The least you could do is thank me for taking you back,” he says coolly.
My mind goes blank with rage. All at once, I’m not in his office. I’m back in Montana, up in Jensen’s bedroom. He’s on me, inside me, the way he was that first night. He’s loving me with his hands, his body, his words, and I’m realizing my body was never broken. All I needed was Jensen to make it come alive, to make me want more for myself.
When I was younger, I thought Leland robbed me of my home. But after meeting Jensen, I realize it’s more complicated. He robbed me of a future that will never happen now.
I could have met Jensen back then, loved him of my own free will. I could have willingly had his baby and watched him become a fatherto my son. I could have been happy, innocent, untouched by fear. The ghost that haunts me is a single question: who could I have been if not for Leland?
Instead, Leland wrote my story, and it can never be unwritten. I have to live with that, every day, every night.
But he won’t write the next chapter for me or my son.
That belongs to me.
I lift my chin and give him a passive smile, like I have nothing in my head.
“Thank you,” I say.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
JENSEN
The day before we’re supposed to meet in the gorge, I get up early and leave the mansion. It’s so hot and dry, I’m surprised the Earth doesn’t crack down the middle. The sky is clear, and it’ll stay clear for a while, maybe through the month. Now is the dry season in Kentucky, when it’s dangerous to flick a cigarette in the woods. I take the water bottle in the dash and split it open with a knife to tap mine out in.
The road to Byway isn’t long, but I feel like years are adding on, not falling off, as I return to my stomping grounds. Everything is different now. Investors, real estate moguls, and anybody looking to snap up cheap land moved in since I left. Now, it feels like a suburb of the city.
That sits like a rock in my chest. I don’t think a no-count boy like me could have made it in Byway nowadays. The price tags alone would have eaten me up.
I pull off the highway and drive through town to the neighborhood behind the salon. That’s gone. I go by it slowly. The building is a chain donut store now. I turn and go out further, to where the land is flat and deep enough for willows to grow.
The house creeps up on me. I swing off the road and cut the engine.
There it is. Miss Holly’s house. It’s in good condition, paint fresh and lawn mown. Somebody lives here now. I get out of the truck, and the humidity hits me like a brick wall, soaking my t-shirt. It smells the same out here, a bit like the creek that runs through the neighborhood, like mulch and wet moss.
I stand by the truck, frozen in time.
Fuck. I didn’t realize it would hurt this bad.
The front door opens, and a man of around forty in a baseball cap steps out. He lifts his hand, coming down the steps. I start up the walkway, but I can’t get any further than halfway.
“You from the gas company?” he calls.
I shake my head. “I knew somebody who used to live in your house. Thought I’d stop by and see it.”
He puts his hands on his hips. “Oh yeah? We bought it about eight years ago, so whoever they were, they must have up and left.”
I shake my head. “She died.”
His brows shoot up. “Oh. Not in this house?”
“No, not here,” I say. “Is there still a trailer down the road, under the big willow tree?”
He’s a bit shaken up, but he nods. “Yeah, it’s condemned. Nobody’s hauled it off the property, though. The willow tree got hit in a lightning storm about three years ago, but half of it’s still there. How long has it been since you left?”
I sweep my gaze over the shutters, remembering when they were baby blue. The window to the right of the porch was Miss Holly’s room, where we spent hours together that year.
“Nineteen years,” I say. “My best friend lived here growing up. His mother was the one who passed.”
That sounds a little more normal. The man’s shoulders ease.
