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Jesse let out a sigh, which I realized was not the result of feeling frustrated. Instead, he was relieved, because he said, “Sawyer, I love that you’re feeling good about being back here, because there’s nothing I want more than for you to stay in Steel Ridge. I want you to have every reason you can to make leaving here difficult. I couldn’t bear it if you left again.”
My heart squeezed in my chest. The look I’d seen on his face just moments ago suddenly made sense. I hadn’t realized how much me leaving here all those years ago had affected him. Now that I was back, and we had each other the way we did, Jesse was dealing with some demons about where we had wound up last time.
It broke my heart to know that he was worried I’d walk away from him once more. He needed to know the truth not only about my feelings, but also about what pushed me to go.
So, I was honest with him when I replied, “I don’t think I’d survive leaving again. It was so incredibly difficult to do, but it was necessary.”
“I don’t know if I’d go that far,” he advised.
“But it’s the truth,” I argued. “I’ve been in public for several weeks now, and I’m beyond surprised. I’d convinced myself that I was going to start working at the pub and I’d be lucky to make it a week before it all started again.”
Confusion washed over his face. “Before what started again?”
Disbelief washed over me. Was he serious? How could he not know what it was like for me before I left?
“The calls and the messages. The harassment,” I finally answered.
“What are you talking about?” he pressed.
He was serious.
He had not a clue what I was talking about.
“I already told you that everybody blamed me for what happened to Faye, Cristina, and Janelle,” I began. “They didn’t just wait until they saw me to tell me how they felt, Jesse. It was awful. They all told me that it should have been me who died that day at the quarry. It got so bad; I had no choice but to change my number.”
For several long moments, Jesse didn’t respond. He allowed his eyes to roam over my face, and I could see there was something working in his mind. The look in his eyes indicated he had a lot of thoughts about what I’d just shared, but I wasn’t sure what any of them were.
Finally, he spoke. “I was upset when I learned that you had left town,” he started. “I tried to put myself in your shoes, and initially I realized how difficult it must have been to lose your best friends. But then I tried to call you, and I learned that you had changed your number. I was so angry. I assumed you didn’t want to be found. I never knew that anyone was harassing you, making you believe it was your fault.”
Jesse paused a moment, his chest heaving as he attempted to communicate all that he was feeling. I didn’t respond, because I wasn’t quite sure what I could say.
“Baby girl, if I knew what was happening…” He trailed off, his voice indicating just how much he was struggling with this.
I hated that he was feeling this way. Hearing him sounding so tortured was awful. Our morning had started off fantastic, and it was slowly heading toward a very dark and bad place.
I didn’t want that.
In fact, pulling out the journal had been something positive for me.
“Jesse, I know that now,” I assured him. “I misunderstood the things you said the day of Faye’s funeral, and when I combined that with what everyone else was saying about and to me, I couldn’t handle it. I did what I had to do in that situation. But we’re here now, and things are great between us.”
He lifted his hand to the side of my face. “We lost so much time.”
“Yeah,” I replied quietly.
“I’m sorry for what everyone did to you,” he lamented. “It was wrong on so many levels.”
Their actions weren’t Jesse’s fault, but I loved how he felt compelled to apologize. He was just a good man who believed that I deserved an apology for how people treated me. Maybe, on some level, I did. But I couldn’t say I didn’t understand where people were coming from back then.
So, I said, “You’re not the one who has to apologize to me. You didn’t do anything wrong. And the truth is, I’ve been back here for a while now, and I’ve been in public settings for several weeks. Either people don’t recognize me, or they’re no longer holding a grudge for what I did. I think it’s done now.”
Jesse went from looking glum and a bit subdued to looking determined. “It’s done, because I’m not going to allow anyone to make you feel badly about this. That includes you, Sawyer. You need to stop talking about what happened all those years ago in a way that makes it sound like you blame yourself. You didn’t kill Faye, Cristina, or Janelle. I don’t care what everyone else thought. Those girls all made their own decisions. You didn’t force them to go to the quarry that day. It was a freak accident, and you’re not to blame.”
I closed my eyes as I nodded my head. Deep down, I knew that everything Jesse was saying was the truth. My friends meant everything to me, and if I had known that what happened that day was going to happen, I’d have stopped us from going.
But I didn’t know.
I couldn’t have predicted what had happened.
