But that wasn’t the reason I dropped to my knees beside it. A good quarter of the yearling was, at present, digesting in the stomachs of a handful of wolves, and the rest was coated in its own blood. It looked like any other yearling in the herd, but it wasn’t just any other yearling. It was the yearling.
The one I’d tumbled down Suicide Ridge to save. The one I’d broken bones and spilt blood to make sure it didn’t face that kind of fate. I didn’t need to check the tag in its ear to confirm it. I knew it.
“We have to put it out of its misery, Jess.” Garth put a hand on my shoulder.
“I know,” I said, forcing myself up. I knew what needed to be done. I knew the creature I’d saved last summer was the same one I’d have to put a bullet in that night. I’d saved its life only to have to take it months later.
My hands didn’t tremble when I brought the rifle into position. My hands didn’t tremble, but everything inside did. My finger had just covered the trigger when Garth shouldered up beside me. He moved the rifle barrel just out of range of the space right between the yearling’s eyes. The place I’d always known to put a bullet if one had to be fired, but it was something I’d never had to do.
“I can do this, Black.” I butted my shoulder into his and moved the rifle back into position.
“I know you can,” he said, moving the barrel aside again.
“I need to do this. It should be me.”
“No,” Garth said, looking between me and the yearling, “it shouldn’t.”
I wanted to argue, I wanted to force myself to take the shot, but when Garth grabbed the rifle, my fight was over. I was spent for the second time that week.
So instead of pulling the trigger, I kneeled beside the yearling and put my hand on what was left of its mangled neck, comforting it like the night I’d found it last summer. That touch had been to comfort the life that was safe; this touch was to comfort the life that was leaving.
The yearling’s eyes locked on mine at the same time a shudder ran through its body. And then, it wasn’t the yearling dying in front of me anymore. It was me as a young boy, curled into myself, not making a sound. I was about to squeeze my eyes closed when the image flashed into something else, and it was Rowen curled at my knees. Expressionless, motionless, a shell of the girl I loved. Gone.
My world was falling apart, one tragic bit at a time.
The gunshot ripped through the canyon, vibrating my insides, and after that, the blackness I’d been holding just barely at bay consumed me.
Chapter Twenty
I COULDN’T BREATHE right. That’s just one of the few symptoms I’d experienced since Jesse walked out a few nights ago. My trouble with breathing normally might not be the worst symptom, but it was the most obvious. Every two seconds, I was reminded that my lungs just wouldn’t fill to capacity like they used to.
In addition to the breathing problem, I was unable to sleep for longer than an hour at a time, I’d eaten a total of two bowls of cereal that Alex practically had to force feed me, I couldn’t seem to remember jack, I broke out in tears over certain songs or commercials, and I couldn’t lift a pencil to paper, let alone actually make something that might count as art.
Oh, yeah. I also looked like shit and felt like shit. Life was shit once again, and that terrified me.
To skip the above, drawn-out paragraphs and provide the Rowen Sterling Present Day Cliff’s Notes, I was the hottest, messiest, hot-mess to have ever hot-messed the world. Hot. Mess.
Jesse hadn’t tried to reach out to me yet. No phone calls, texts, emails, or surprise appearances. I knew that meant he was still working out the things I’d heaped on him, but I really wished he could work them out while still managing to send me a daily text. Just some small measure of reassurance. The events of that night must have taken an overwhelming toll on him. I knew that from the words he’d said, the way he’d looked, and the way I’d feel if I was in his shoes.
I also knew a person didn’t just work all that out in a few hours of soul-searching under a blue sky. It was some deep, dark shit that made a person delve into the deep, dark shit within themselves. I knew that from experience. I knew that from wading through my own cesspool of deep, dark shit last summer to come out victorious on the other side. It wasn’t a permanent victory—scars like the ones Jesse and I had would never disappear—but it was a victory nonetheless.
I hoped—whatever Jesse was wading through—that he’d emerge on the other side soon, and with the same measure of peace I had from my battles. Or if he couldn’t beat it on his own, that he’d let me help him.
My brain knew what the right thing to do was: give him space and let him contact me when the time was right. But my heart wanted something so different. I’d picked up the phone, my finger hovering over his number, so many times I’d driven myself sick from the letdown of forcing myself to clear the screen and walk away from the phone.
The night after Jesse left, I wasn’t scheduled to work, but I still went in. I waited at the booth in the front, my foot tapping like I was on speed, watching every figure pass by. I wasn’t sure what I would have done if I saw Mar again, but something told me I would at least land myself an overnighter in jail. I’d been nice to the woman, let her into my life. I’d shared my sack lunch with her and sneaked her doughnuts. Hell, I’d found a woman’s shelter she could get a shower at and eat a warm meal. I’d trusted her.
I’d been so, so wrong. I’d trusted a person who deserved nothing for what she’d done to Jesse. I’d unknowingly brought the monster of Jesse’s past back into his life because I’d been naive. I couldn’t have known the homeless woman I’d met in an alley was my boyfriend’s childhood abuser . . . but I couldn’t help feeling like I should have known. How could I not know I was staring into the same eyes that had watched her child suffer at her hands? How could I not know that?
So in addition to the rest of my Jesse-separation symptoms, I felt a guilt so overwhelming I hadn’t been able to drag myself out of bed for three mornings. Fortunately, Alex had no problem doing the dragging for me.
And then there was the issue of the internship and Jax’s impeccably awful timing. I should have been the one to tell Jesse. I know I should have been the one to tell him months ago, right before I applied. I know he would have been supportive. The thought of spending the summer apart would have killed us both, but he’d never been anything but supportive of me fulfilling my dreams.
Once he’d shown up at Mojo that night, I knew I needed to tell him. I knew I couldn’t keep it from him any longer. And then the unthinkable mess with Mar happened . . .
How could I could tell him, the same night he’d come face to face with her, that I’d applied to an internship months ago without telling him and had just found out I’d gotten it? Hell, the internship wasn’t even on my radar at that point. Nothing but finding Jesse and comforting him was on my mind. I had been on the find-and-comfort-Jesse autopilot.
Then, barely a minute after Jesse had come back to me, Jax had burst in and dropped the internship bombshell. Worst timing in the history of bad timing.
I’d never forget the look on Jesse’s face that night when he looked into the face of the woman who’d given birth to him, and I’d never forget the look on his face when he found out I’d lied to him. Never.
So, betrayal. Yeah, I felt that hardcore, too. Not the betrayed, but the betrayer. After being on both ends of the betray spectrum, I could confidently say being the betrayer was just as bad. In my case, maybe worse. I’d done some serious damage to a person I loved, and that was something I’d hoped to avoid with Jesse. I guess I should have known better.
The past three days had been the worst, having no contact with Jesse being the pinnacle. I could have called Rose or Lily. Even Garth or Josie would have been better than sitting in “radio silence,” but I didn’t call them either. Jesse had asked me to give him space; calling any one of the four people closest to him seemed like cheating the system.
“Hey, Mopey. Stop crying into your coffee and go get some fresh air.”
Who needed to call anyone when I had that kind of support in arm’s reach? Yes, that was sarcasm. “No, thanks. I’m planning on wallowing the day away. You have fun with the fresh air, though.” I was sitting on one of the three folding chairs staggered around a card table, also known as our dining set, staring at closed blinds. I was back to keeping out the light.
“Please tell me you’re not going to wind up being one of those girls who throws her life away because she and her boyfriend got into a fight. Please, for the love of Julio, tell me I haven’t been roommates all year with a flake like that.” Alex dropped her backpack on the counter and grabbed a cup of coffee. I guess it was morning, time for classes. I’d lost track of time, and when the blinds were closed, I had no way of knowing if it was light or dark.
“I’m not throwing it away. I’ve just put it on . . . hold for a little while.”
“Why?” she asked, dumping a mountain of sugar into her coffee.
“Why? Why, Alex?” I said in disbelief. “Have you really not listened to a single word I’ve said over the past three days?” She’d been the only shoulder I’d had to cry on since I couldn’t call anyone at Willow Springs and Jax was still on my shit list.
“Well, I know what happened between you and Jesse, but why’s that deserving of putting your life on hold?”
If she had to ask, she really didn’t get anything that had happened.
“So what? You f**ked up. You f**ked up big time,” she added when I lifted an eyebrow. “We’re human, Rowen. An occasional f**king up big time is written in the fine print. You can’t just throw away, pause, fast forward, or delay your life because you made a mistake.” She slapped the counter when I lifted the other eyebrow. “When you made a huge mistake.”
“It wouldn’t be so bad if my huge mistake only hurt me, but it hurt Jesse in a way I’d taken a silent vow to keep from ever doing. I just can’t . . . It’s not so easy to move on when you devastate someone you love more than yourself.”
“Trust me. You love someone long enough and hard enough, you’re going to make an epic screw up or two along the way. Love makes us stupid sometimes,” Alex said, pouring a bowl of cereal and milk. “Deal with it.”
“I don’t feel comforted.”
Alex laughed a few notes. “I’m not trying to comfort you, china doll. I’m trying to bitch slap you back to reality.”
“Then you’re doing an awesome job. I feel successfully bitch slapped.” I rubbed my cheek as Alex dropped the cereal in front of me and gave me the Eat or else look. I’d had that look directed my way a bunch of times lately.
“Fine, look at it this way.” Alex crossed her arms and looked down at me. “Would you rather have a man like Jesse in your life and have some f**ks up along the way, or would you rather stay alone, an old mopey shrew, whose f**k ups only affect herself?”