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His eyes blaze and he takes a step closer, and another, until his shoes bump into mine.
“Do you know how long I waited for you to come back, how hard I tried to find you? How we all tried to find you? It wasn’t just me you left, Sofie. You were our family, the big sister Scarlett never had…another granddaughter to Granddad and Grinny. Your dad was out of his mind with worry, and let’s not even talk about how many times I waited for a sign, anything, to show me why you’d left other than you just wanted to get away from Landmark and me. And then the next day, when I heard your mom had died, the guilt I felt over the relief that you would come back. But you didn’t, Sofie.You didn’t.” His voice is hoarse now and my eyes are so blurry I can hardly see.
Fred is on his feet now, hovering near Theo.
I put my fist over my mouth to keep the sob in.
“I’m really sorry about your mom. I’m a shit person for bringing that up. I hope you found what you were looking for,” he says quietly. “And now that you’re back, you can do what you’ve done for the past eight years and pretend I don’t exist.”
He turns and walks toward the trees, his dog by his side. When they’ve disappeared, I lose it.
The tears fall then, and I don’t bother trying to keep them in. I cry and move away from the ledge, walking in circles as I kick the dirt in front of me, letting go of all the pent-up rage that’s been bubbling over all these years.
I think about all the things I should’ve said back then to him.
To my parents.
To this town.
And mostly, to myself…
The little girl that I tried to protect when I should have never had to.
The teenager who escaped while it was still dark and didn’t breathe easier until crossing two state lines.
And the me now who’s still trying to hold herself together.
When I make my way down the mountain, I feel empty and exhausted. After I feed the horses and take a shower, I collapse onto my cot, and it’s restless, but I finally get some sleep.
CHAPTERSIX
DISTRACTIONS
THEO
It’s hard to be rageful when around my family, so I’ve tried to stay away as much as I could for the past few weeks, which is close to impossible. We’re a tight-knit group and they know I’m not myself right now, so they’ve been pushing more than ever.
Sutton and my nephew Owen stop by with takeout, and even Callum comes over with a six-pack of beer and a couple of pizzas. I take Scarlett’s dogs, Lucia and Delgado, out for runs with me and Fred. Scarlett is happier than I’ve ever seen with her boyfriend Jamison Ledger, so I don’t want to rain on their parade, and my nephew keeps trying to scam Scarlett’s dogs away from her, so I end up not running with them as often. Wyatt is the one who asks the most direct questions about Sofie, and I keep telling him I don’t want to talk about her…which hasn’t stopped him from continuing to probe.
Work has been busy but not busy enough since I still have too much time to think.
When I’ve said I won’t be at the third family dinner in a row, I get a call from Grinny. She’s one of my favorite people in the whole world, so I feel terrible for staying away from her.
“You’ve been avoiding us. Is all of this about Sofie?” she says after I say hello.
“Hello to you too,” I say, sighing as I sit in my oversized chair that I pulled out onto the deck.
Never been able to hide anything from the woman.
Fred runs around the yard and flies back up the deck, taking long gulps of water from the bowl next to the back door.
“I haven’t seen Sofie yet, but I’ve heard she’s here, and I wanted to see if you’d be okay if I paid her a visit,” she says.
“You don’t need my permission to go see her, Grinny. In fact, the first time I saw her, I told her she should come see you.”
“So, you’ve seen her more than once?”
“I’ve seen her three times.”
