Goldie pulled away, an apologetic grimace on her face. “She called this morning. She wanted to see you.”
“And I’m just hearing about this now because…?” I asked with a smirk and a raised brow.
Goldie glared again, though with a small smile this time. “I was mad at you. You almost died. It was rude.”
I laughed, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. “You’re something else, you know that?”
“Go talk to Jackie. I’ll be here,” she directed, nodding toward the door.
I squeezed her shoulder and walked toward Jackie. I wasn’t sure how to talk to her after all these years. I rocked back on my heels, stuffing my hands in my pockets. “I don’t know where to start.”
She smiled slightly, glancing at Goldie and then back to me. “I want to take you somewhere.”
Jackie seemed more alive in the woods in a way I hadn’t noticed before we fell apart. She breathed easier, her shoulders losing a weight I hadn’t realized she perpetually held. She had found safety and solace in the trees.
I had assumed we would go to her house, or maybe to the office. Instead, we sat in almost comfortable silence as she drove us to a trailhead. We were now a mile into a walk through the dense woods. We still hadn’t spoken, neither of us knowing where to start… or what to say.
“Just up ahead,” she called over her shoulder as we approached a fork in the trail. She motioned toward the right.
I nodded in acknowledgment and followed her. We were walking slowly; she set the pace while taking my sore body into account. My feet were banged up, still bandaged inside my hiking boots. While they hurt like a bitch as we walked, I was grateful to have shoes this time.
After another fifteen minutes—the only sound being the forest around us—I heard the familiar crashing of water cascading nearby. The waterfall came into view quickly, whitecaps forming as the water crashed into the river below, rushing fast and out of view.
The view opened up into something I would have once found impossible. Lush, vibrant dark greens of the trees stretching endlessly into the sky, stirred gently by the wind. Below, the water lay cool and impossibly blue, its surface catching the light in soft, shifting glimmers. The contrast was striking, almost too perfect to be real, as if the world had paused here just long enough to show off its most breathtaking colors.
Jackie came to a stop at the end of the trail where an overlook sat by the waterfall. There was a wooden bench and a matching railing to keep anyone from falling toward an unlucky fate in the river.
She rounded the bench, taking a seat and kicking her feet out. She looked over her shoulder, those familiar brown eyes meeting mine, and gestured to the spot next to her.
I complied, taking a seat and feeling grateful for the break.
“I’m sorry about Gabriel,” she said, finally breaking the silence.
I shrugged, unsure of how to respond. What do you even say when a man has pretended to be your brother?
“It seems like everyone is forgetting you lost the only family you had,” she continued. “The mad dash into the woods took precedence.”
“He was only my brother for a week. It’s not like I have years to mourn.”
She nodded. “Maybe, but it was still a week where you finally had what you always wanted.”
I raised a brow.
“A family,” she explained.
I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees and scrubbing my hands down my face. “He was never family… even if he was truly my brother, he wouldn't have been family like…” I sighed and looked at her. Really looked at her. “Not like you, not like Sarah, not like Goldie. You three—you’re my family. Or… you were.”
“Why do you think that family we built is past tense?” she asked quizzically.
“I blew it up in epic proportions.”
Jackie smiled. It was soft, barely noticeable, but it was the first true smile she had directed at me in years. When people looked at us, they were always confused. She wasn’t just a friend, and she wasn't biological family, but in so many ways… she was me. She was all the best parts of me—the sunshine on a rainy day. She had been like a daughter to me for so many years.
“You tried, but we’re all still here,” she mused. “We’ve been here waiting for you.”
I shook my head, unable to accept her words. “Jackie, I treated you horrendously.”
She nodded. “That’s true. But I get why. I think I’m the only person on this planet who fully understands.”
