I walked over to her, damning her instructions, and gently lifted her wrists so I could see her face. “You were thinking that you deserve happiness, too. You deserve a life, love, kids, a future that isn’t all about when he decides to go off the rails.”
“But I don’t.” Her voice was quiet, her eyes pleading for something I didn’t know how to give. “Sometimes we draw the short straw. You lost your dad, then your mom. Are you telling me you wouldn’t feel the same if it was them? If you had a chance to be there for them, would you leave? Or would you suck up the bitterness because it’s the straw you were dealt, and just be thankful you have them around?”
The small piece of hope I’d kept cradled close screamed out its defeat and died. “You’re not coming back to Colorado with me right now.”
She shook her head. “I can’t. Look what happened when I left him.”
I took a deep, steadying breath and pulled out plan B. “Okay, then we’ll spend the winter here, get him healthy, and talk about it again in the spring. By then maybe his head will be clear enough to make a better choice.”
“No,” she whispered. “He said he’ll die in that house before he moves. It’s where we all lived when Mom was alive, and that’s all there is left.”
“I typically draw the line at relocating an entire house, but I can make some calls,” I tried to joke. I was grasping at straws as they slid through my hands.
“He’s lonely. He said that I’m never there, and he’s right. Between working both jobs and seeing…”
“Me,” I offered, my tone tensing.
“You,” she agreed softly. “With all that, I’m not around for him, and there’s no one else he’ll let in.”
“What are you saying?” I asked, the pit in my stomach growing to black-hole proportions.
She looked up at me, the sadness of the world pouring out of her eyes, and I knew. I fucking knew. “You’re not coming at all.”
“I can’t. I would never forgive myself if something happened to him.”
My mind swam, trying to come up with plan C. “Okay, so I’ll go seasonal. I’ll work with the Legacy crew in the summer, and come back for winters. It will suck, but we can manage it.”
She shook her head. “No. It wouldn’t work. We’d both be miserable, and eventually you’d resent me. We’d just be prolonging the inevitable.”
“Don’t do this.”
She tugged her wrists free and cupped my face with her hands, scratching her palms over my day’s worth of stubble. “You are the most beautiful dream. What we could have had…that was another life, with another girl who could walk away from her responsibility. That girl is never going to be me. Maybe if Adeline was grown, but there’s just too much here.”
“I can call Bash. I’ll back out of the team. There’s one other guy they could call, and I’ll make sure he takes the slot.”
She brushed her thumb over my lower lip. “You staying won’t fix anything. I’d cost you the chance to be on the Legacy crew.”
“I don’t care. Nothing matters without you.”
Her hands fell from my face, and I realized that I was wrong. I wasn’t grasping at straws—I was desperately clutching at her, and she fell through my fingers like running water, impossible to hold and yet even harder to whisk away in its entirety. She’d already soaked into my soul.
“I can’t be with you, River. Not now. Not ever. I can’t go, and you can’t stay. Our dream was beautiful—the happiest few days of my life—but it’s time to wake up. I’m not a child. I can’t do selfish things, and not everyone gets the fairy tale.”
“You are my fairy tale,” I argued. “You are the only woman I have ever loved. The only woman I will ever love, and I’m not giving up that easily.”
“I’m not giving you a choice!” she yelled, backing away from me. The lack of physical contact felt like having a limb severed. My nerves screamed to have her back. “God, can’t you see? I’m still the girl with the goddamned rusted lug nuts on the flat tire. I’m not going to back down. I’m not going to leave him. That’s not what good people do!”
I raked my hands down my face. “So what am I supposed to do? Leave you because you’re honorable? Because you stepped up to do what no one else would? Do you expect me to be less than the man you know by walking away?”
She shook her head, two crystal tears streaking down her cheeks. “No. I expect you to do what you need to for your family. Go to Colorado. Become what you were destined to be. Live in that house and be happy, River. Just be happy!”
“I can’t be happy without you! Is that seriously what you think of me? That I can move, start over? Forget that you exist? You’re in every single breath I take, every thought I have. I’m not leaving you here to carry this by yourself. To raise Addy, to take care of your dad, to work yourself to death. That’s not in my nature.”
“It’s not your choice to make,” she said, furiously wiping her tears away. “Whether or not you’re still here, we’re over. I won’t sit by and watch you resent me, watch you kiss that picture every time you come home from a fire. That will kill me far more than knowing you’re happy somewhere else…with someone else.”
Pure, white-hot rage choked me, and I had to swallow a couple times before I was under control. “If you think you’re that easily replaceable, then you never really knew me.”
“We only had a few days,” she said quietly.
“We had seven fucking years.”
“And they’re over. We’re over.”
“Avery…”
“What’s your solution, River? What happens if you stay here and Bishop is killed on a fire? You wouldn’t ever recover from that. The guilt alone would destroy you. What if I go there and my dad dies because I wasn’t here to take care of him? I’m his daughter. His flesh and bone. I owe this to my mother. I promised her, and as much as I—” My heart stopped as she sucked in a breath, closing her eyes for a moment. “As much as I care for you, it would turn to hate for putting me in that position where I have to choose to abandon my family to be with you.”
Hate. The word drove a knife through my chest, and as sure as if it was a physical wound, my heart bled out on my hardwood floor. “You’re really ending this.”
“I don’t have a choice.”
I shook my head. “No, you have all the choices, you’re just refusing to make them. I’m not saying they’re easy choices, but at least you have them. Me, on the other hand, I get to stand here while you shred me because you’re not willing to take a fucking chance!”
“There’s no chance to take! This is a certainty.”
“You have no idea what could happen over the winter. None. You’re letting him manipulate you, as usual. As your best friend, I stood by and watched you put yourself last over and over. But as the man who loves you, openly and out loud, I can’t stand to watch you do this to yourself.”
“I’m telling you not to watch. I’m telling you to go.”
“It’s bullshit that you think you get to make that choice for me!”
“You’re like this kid in a car, speeding toward the cliff, knowing that it’s coming but refusing to turn, or just stop.”
“And you’re too scared of the cliff to find another way,” I threw back.
“Do you realize what happens when you jump off a damn cliff? You fall. You die. The ground crushes you.”
“Or maybe you fly. Damn it, Avery, why do you make it so hard to love you? Why can’t you just let me love you?”
She looked like I’d slapped her, those eyes huge and pooling with tears as we stood facing each other, the only sound in the room the pounding of my heart, the rush of blood through my ears.
“I never wanted it to end this way,” she whispered.
“Yeah, well, I never wanted it to end.”
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“That makes two of us.”
She nodded and walked to the door, pausing at the frame to look back. “Goodbye, River.”
&
nbsp; I fought against every one of my instincts that demanded I go after her and kiss some sense into her, force her into seeing that we could make it. No matter how imperfect our circumstances, we were perfect for each other. But I was done forcing her to see the possibilities. This was her choice.
Every muscle in my body locked as I spoke the words she wanted.
“Bye, Avery.”
The sound of the door closing reverberated though every cell of my body. Only then did I say the word I needed.
“I love you.”
The future I’d planned, dreamed of, yearned for disintegrated in front of me. My heart shattered with the glass I threw against the wall, water dripping down the wall and soaking into the paint.
12
Avery
“I’m the one in the hospital, but you’re the one who looks like shit,” Dad said as I walked into his room.
“Get off her case, Jim,” Aunt Dawn said from the chair next to his bed. “Honey, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I replied, giving the same answer I had for the last three days since I’d left River.
I said it to everyone at work when they asked about how red my eyes were. I said it to Addy when she caught me staring off into space, thinking about him. I said it to myself every time I felt my walls crumble and the not-fine emotions surface.
“Fine or not, you look like crap,” Dad repeated, sitting up in bed with a wince. “I wish they hadn’t lowered my meds.”
“You have to be able to function,” I said. “Besides, with the new physical therapy, maybe we can wean you off them.”
“I’m not seeing a physical therapist,” he grumbled.
“Yeah, why bother with something that might help you?” I snapped. “Why not just up the pain meds until we’re here again?”
“Watch your tone!” He seethed. “Your mother would be ashamed!”
My mouth snapped shut, heat flushing my face. She had handled him with more grace than I ever would manage…and she had died for it.
“Jim,” Aunt Dawn warned. “Avery didn’t put you in this hospital. You did that yourself.”
Before he could snap back at her, the doctor came in to discharge Dad. I stared out the window in the direction of River’s house, wondering what he was doing, how mad at me he still was.
Did I make a mistake? I shut that line of thinking down before it could destroy me. There hadn’t been a choice to make. I had to set him free before we destroyed each other.
Too late.
I listened as the doctor gave the discharge instructions to my aunt. The pain meds he was allowed, the therapist he needed to see. It should have been me the doctor gave the instructions to. After all, I was the one who was responsible for Dad. But this doc wouldn’t know that. In appearances, it made sense that the fifty-ish woman was caring for the fifty-ish man.
Not the twenty-five year old.
A little over an hour later, we had Dad settled back on the living room couch. “Give me the remote,” he demanded when Aunt Dawn went to grab his bag from the car.
I handed it over without a word, too tired to fight with him over manners.
“Give me one of those white pills.”
“No, it’s not time yet,” I told him, removing the medication.
“You’re not the adult here!” he screamed.
“Of course I am!” I fired back. “That’s what you made me! You want to be the grown-up then you have to act like it.”
I put the meds in the small breadbox on top of the refrigerator, gripped the counter, and leaned over, trying to get a breath. Everything suddenly felt stifling, as if the walls of my life were suddenly moving closer—like I was stuck in that trash compactor on Star Wars.
But I’d let my Han Solo walk away.
Gasping for air, I stumbled to the front door, grabbing my car keys on the way out. I needed to see him. Even if it was only for a second. Even if he told me to go the hell away, I needed him.
“Avery?” Aunt Dawn bumped into me on the bottom steps. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I replied automatically, sucking in the clean, sweet air. “I just need to run an errand. Do you think you could stay with him?”
“Of course.”
“Thank you,” I said, nearly running to my car.
“Honey,” she called out. “You don’t have to do this—take care of him on your own. I didn’t know how bad it was, you were that good at caring for him. But I’m here now. I’m not leaving you to do this on your own, do you understand?”
“He’s my father,” I said with a shrug.
“He’s my little brother. He was my responsibility long before he was yours. Don’t you let your father’s actions stop you from living your life. Do you understand me? I won’t stand for it, and neither would your mother.”
I nodded, unable to think of anything to say, then slid behind the wheel. She waved before disappearing into the house, and I backed out of our driveway, more than desperate to get to River.
Maybe River was right. Maybe if I had Aunt Dawn to push Dad, he’d get better—at least well enough to move to Colorado. Maybe all he needed was the winter.
Maybe there was something at the cliff’s edge.
I sped across the back roads toward River’s house. I’d never gone this long without talking to him unless he was on a fire, and we’d never been in a fight this severe, but I knew it could be fixed.
He was River. I was Avery. It was as simple as that.
I pulled into his driveway and killed the ignition, running for the house before I heard the car door fully shut behind me. Zeus wasn’t barking, so maybe they were out for a run.
I fumbled with my keys, pulling out the small bronze one he’d given me years ago, and opened the door.
“River? I used my—” The air rushed from my lungs as I looked into his perfectly clean, perfectly empty house. “Key.”
Everything was gone. The furniture. The dishes. Zeus’s bowls. The house I loved had been transformed into an empty shell. Somehow I got my feet to move, to carry me to the kitchen counter where there was a stack of papers. There was a listing agreement and a note to Mindy Ruiz, a local realtor.
Hey, Mindy,
Here’s the listing agreement. Sorry I had to leave so fast. It just made sense to send all my stuff with Bishop’s. You’ll find his listing agreement under mine. If you need anything else, I’ll forward my new number from Colorado. All the keys are here except one. Avery Claire has it. Let her keep it. I’ll pay to have the locks redone when you find new buyers.
Thanks,
River Maldonado
He was gone. Really and truly gone. Because I told him to go.
My back hit the cabinet and I fell to the ground. Hugging my knees to my chest, I finally succumbed to my emotions, letting them out of the cage I’d locked them in.
I loved him. I’d always thought if I didn’t acknowledge that fact, it wouldn’t have the power to hurt me, but I was pulverized all the same. Whether or not I’d told him, or even myself, didn’t matter. The love was still there, and the ache was pure agony.
I’d had him. Touched him. Loved him. I’d held his heart in my hands and then thrown it back at him.
My sobs echoed through the empty house until my body ran out of tears. By the time I left, it was dark—and I was broken.
“I want to move to Colorado,” Adeline said as she helped me load the dishwasher.
“They have some really great colleges there. Why don’t we do some research? It’s only five years away.” I slipped another glass into the top rack.
“Because I want to go now.”
My stomach tightened. “Yeah, well, we can’t. Look what happened when I left last time.” It had been three weeks since he’d overdosed. Two since River moved to Colorado.
One since he posted a photo of his new house on Instagram with the caption that he was home in Legacy for good.
“Where’s that beer?” Dad called out from the living room.
; “That was his choice,” Addy whispered.
I grabbed a clean glass from the cabinet, filled it with ice and water, and walked out of the kitchen without replying. How could she understand? She was only thirteen. I’d been two years older when Mom died, and even then I hadn’t fully understood.
“Here we go,” I said to Dad as I put the glass within his reach on the coffee table.
“What is that bullshit?” he spat.
“That is water. Doc said no booze, remember?” I counted to ten in my head, reminding myself that he was an addict.
“I don’t give a fuck what that doctor said. Get me a beer before your aunt Dawn gets back from the store.”
“No,” I said with a shake of my head.
“Girl!” he yelled, and I heard Adeline go silent in the kitchen. The water was running, but no dishes clanked.
“I didn’t give up everything good in my life just so you could sit there and drink yourself to death,” I said calmly.
“Get me the goddamned beer! Gave up everything good? What would you know? Because you broke up with a boy who you dated for all of five seconds? I lost your mother!”
“I did, too!” I yelled. “You aren’t the only one who lost her!”
Something went sailing past my head and smashed against the wall. I spun to see water running down the wall into a puddle of ice and smashed glass.
“Clean that up!” he yelled.
“Clean it up yourself,” I snapped and walked away.
My chest heaved as I ran outside, gasping for the clean air as I sat on the front steps, my head in my hands. He’d fucking thrown a glass at me. What was next? Would he hit me? Would he hit Addy?
The doc had warned us that he would get worse before he got better. That weaning him down from the pain meds wasn’t going to be pleasant, but this was horrid. Maybe I needed to send Addy to a friend’s house for the next month or so.
The door opened and shut behind me and Adeline joined me on the step. “I want to move now.”
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