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“The night Garrett told her to leave, the night she took my little niece and killed my brother. I couldn’t let her go. I couldn’t have her walking around out there, free to come back here and hurt us all again.”
“Cole.” I reach my hand out for him but he forces it away.
“Don’t do that, don’t be all sympathetic. I killed my mom. Did ya hear that? I kill people, Savannah. The only way I know how to fix things is by making people hurt or destroying ‘em.”
“So is that what this is? You're fixing this by making me hurt?” I call him out and watch him get even more frustrated.
“No, Savannah, I’m saving you and you may not believe that right now, but you will thank me for it. I can’t love you the way you need to be loved, and you deserve all the best from this world. That ain’t me. Last night, when I came to that hospital and saw you in that bed looking all scared, my instinct was to killthe people who hurt you. What you needed was someone to take you in their arms and hold you. To tell you everything was gonna be okay. I couldn’t be that guy.”
“No, Cole, you were the guy who went out and madesureeverything was gonna be okay. You made sure those men could never hurt me again.” I step forward and wrap my arms around his neck.
“I am begging you not to do this. I love you.” My whole body is shaking now and I know he can feel it.
“Get in the truck, Savannah,” he tells me coldly, forcing me away and picking up the whip and my shirt from the ground. He throws my shirt at me and gets back into the driver's seat. Clutching at the wheel as he waits for me to put on my shirt and get back inside.
We spend the rest of the journey to the airport in silence. I’ve lost my fight, ran out of words to convince him that this is wrong. I’ve known ever since I met Cole that he was self-destructive, but I believed him when he told me we were for keeps this time. For that, I feel like a fool.
Cole pulls up at the drop-off and gets out, lifting my case from the back of the truck that I didn’t even notice was there and balancing my bag from the hospital on the top.
“Here’s your ticket. I called Dan from your phone while you were sleepin’, he’ll be waiting for you at LAX.” He hands me a ticket and I snatch it from him, wondering if there are any words I could say to change his mind.
“You know, you’re not just punishing yourself with this, you're punishing me too,” I point out, holding back tears. “I told you I wouldn’t survive it if you did this to me again and yet here we are.”
“Of course, you’ll survive it, Savannah. That's what you do. You got yourself out of that Joel situation, you saved yourself because you're strong.”
“Not when it comes to you,” I admit.
“I’m sorry, Savannah.”
I don’t have any more words and I let him see my tears as I shake my head back at him. I’ve been through hell and back in the past twenty-four hours. My body is battered and bruised and now I feel like my heart’s being crushed.
“You want me to help you with your bags?” he checks, and a rush of anger takes over and controls the hand that I slap across his face.
Cole doesn’t respond to it, just closes his eyes while I pretend that my palm isn’t on fire.
“I would have loved you no matter who you are or what you did. I wanted to make a life with you here. I guess you were right, everyone who loves you really does get hurt.” I turn my back on him and walk away before I give up anymore of myself to him.
Every instinct inside me is telling me to turn around and go back to him, to work harder and force him to realize what he’s doing. But there's only so many times a girl can let one man break her heart, and Cole Carson just put the last crack in mine.
“You boys must have balls bigger than Texas,” Sheriff Nelson says under his breath when he moves to stand beside us.
There are plenty of folk who have shown up to see ‘em put in the ground and since we never got a look on that flash drive, I wonder how many are relieved to see the back of ‘em?
“Maybe we do, or maybe we’re just soulless bastards who ain’t afraid of sin,” Garrett responds, nodding his head respectfully to the other side of the graves, where Joe is standing.
Nelson lowers his head at the same time we do, and we listen to the preacher give his sermon and talk about the Masons as if they were decent people. When people slowly start walking away, Nelson joins us as we start heading toward the truck.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Garrett shakes his head disappointedly when we reach it and are out of earshot.
“Tell you what?” Nelson at least pretends to be clueless.
“That Mason had somethin’ on ya.” I jog his memory, just in case.
“How d’ya…? Shit.” He takes a breath and suddenly looks nervous.
“Mason had a file on all the secrets he had on people,” Garrett informs him.
“And you read mine?” Nelson nods his head as if it’s expected.
