The unlocked knob twisted as heavy boots clomped into the small space, his presence sucking nearly all the oxygen out of the room. I busied my hands, movin' and shufflin' boxes along the counter, linin' them up only to move them.
My best friend stood quietly just inside the door. His weighted stare on my back had a bead of sweat tricklin' down my spine, but I couldn't make myself turn. Couldn't make myself look him in the eye.
Because I wasn't ready to explain.
Wasn't sure I ever would be.
Rhett cleared his throat.
"You good?"
I swallowed past the lump in my throat and pulled myself up by the bootstraps, metaphorical as they may be, since I rocked joggers and sneaks for today's activities.
I turned to face my best friend of over two decades. His brows furrowed as he looked me up and down. "You look good. Better than I want you to look, if I'm bein' honest."
"Fuck off," I muttered as I grabbed a box from the counter.
Rhett watched me as I approached, not movin' an inch from his spot in front of the door. When I stood a foot in front of him, nothin' but a box of Sassy's possessions between us, his eyes bounced between mine. He must have seen enough guilt, enough shame, because he stepped aside, lettin' me stomp through the doorway and down the steps to the parking lot out back of The BP. I slid the box into his truck bed. His boots crunched over the gravel lot and he followed suit with a box of his own.
I planted my hands on the tailgate, summonin' some sort of fuckin' strength to get through this day and all the rest to come. Rhett set his box down and leaned beside me, our eyes meeting in the cab's back window.
"I'm sorry," he said. "That was an asshole thing to say."
I grunted, because was it, really? If the roles were reversed and he'd been the one to hurt Sass, I'd probably hate him. Then again, Rhett was always the better man.
Which was exactly why I'd let her go.
"Nah, man. I'm the villain in this story. I get it." I bobbed my head, willing the sting in my sinuses away.
"You're not a villain, Bro," he scoffed, drawin' my eyes. "Don't be so fuckin' dramatic."
He was starin' at me so intently it made me squirm in my Nikes. I knew what he wanted from me—a fucking reason—but I couldn't give it to him.
Wasn't ready to say it out loud.
To carve open a wound I'd barely kept from bleedin' out with a few flimsy Band-Aids.
And because I also knew exactly what he'd say.
That I was wrong.
That I was seein' shit, makin' things up.
That my grief was clouding my judgment.
When in reality, grief over the man who'd raised me—the one I’d idolized in every way—was what had so clearly opened my eyes.
Sassy and I had never been right for each other.
We'd been convenient. Easy. Best friends turned to lovers, when really it should have been her other best friend all along.
I wouldn't damn either of us to a life unfulfilled. I wanted her to spend her life with a man she'd love as fiercely as my mother loved my father. In those first months after Dad died, I saw it—like I'd glimpsed the future. And while there was plenty of love between me and Sass, it wasn't that soul-deep kind. The kind that has a woman on her knees the moment she loses it, screamin' at the cruelty of the world.
I didn't want her to settle for me. I wanted her to have that kind of love.
I held Rhett's stare, beggin' him with my eyes to drop it. To leave it, for now.
I knew the reckonin' was comin', but not today. Not when I was barely hangin' on as it was.
