AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Sorry,” she said. She set her sandwich down for a second and seemed to force her shoulders down away from her ears, trying to make herself relax, it looked like.
“No problem, sweetheart. But you can definitely take it down a peg.”
“I suppose.”
“What’s got you so riled?”
“I found our... The dinner that we had the other night was a little bit... I don’t know. It made me sad. So I didn’t really want to eat with you again.”
Of all the answers he had expected, it hadn’t been that.
He frowned. “It made you sad?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was probably the dessert. The tribute to my dad. My feelings just are very...raw right now. It’s like some of what happened when he died got delayed. Or maybe it’s the fact that Byron is coming, and things are changing. Every little shift in the world around me is starting to feel like a loss, and I don’t know what to do about it. I just... I feel like this crab,” she said, gesturing to her sandwich. “Forced out of my shell. Boiled. Shredded.”
“That’s intense.”
“It is. And I’m sorry that I took it out on you. You don’t deserve that.”
“Well. I might deserve a little bit.”
A reluctant smile curved one side of her mouth. “Yeah. Maybe a little bit. But not quite to the degree that I was dealing it out.”
“I don’t know anything about this kind of grief. But I know what it’s like to lose someone you love. When my mom left... Everything was so quiet, in the scariest way. It was like the one thing that made the world feel safe was gone. I thought... I thought for sure she might as well have signed my death certificate on the way out. I thought for sure there’s...no way that he’s going to let me live another year. Because he just... Iinfuriatedhim. Everything that I was. I think losing somebody always feels like losing a safety net.”
“I’m safe, though.”
“It doesn’t matter. The world feels scary when the person that you felt like stood between you and whatever is out there is gone. You have to make all your own choices, and you have to... You have to do all of it yourself. It’s scary as hell, Charity. It’s not easy. You just do your best, but that doesn’t make it simple. And it doesn’t make it a straight line, or something that gets progressively better. There’s just some days that are worse than others.”
It was a fine thing for him to give out advice, like he had it all together, when he didn’t. But she deserved to be reassured, and he was the one who was here.
“Yes. That’s exactly it. I’m sorry, Lachlan. I only knew you for a couple of years before your dad... Before he left.”
“Before Gus ran him off.”
“Yeah. But I remember vividly all the times you came to me bloody and broken.”
“I remember you asking what you could do. And the terrible thing was there wasn’t anything. My dad was friends with the sheriff. Thank God that guy is gone.”
“It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that there were no safety nets in place to protect you.”
“That’s life, though, isn’t it? That’s why I felt so lost when my mom was gone. Because she had felt like the safety net. Your dad was your safety net. You oriented your world around him, and now he’s gone. I’m not surprised that it’s been tough.”
She took a bite of her sandwich and chewed thoughtfully, looking out at the ocean. The wind ruffled her hair, and she shivered slightly. He remembered how he had given her his coat when they’d had dinner together.
“Cold?”
“No,” she said. Shelied.
“Okay.”
He let her lie.
They finished quickly after that, then piled into the vehicle, heading back toward Four Corners.
