A full-body shudder took me hostage.
Hope.
Goddamn Hope.
She’d snuggled up to me two nights ago when I’d stupidly admitted how I felt. She’d crawled from her sleeping bag to lie against me, and I’d almost broken.
I’d already broken by clutching her locket and pulling her close a few hours before. But having her touch me in return was yet another laceration on a heart already flayed into ribbons.
She’d weakened me, but she hadn’t fixed me.
God, why couldn’t she fix me?
I couldn’t be here anymore.
I couldn’t listen to John or fight with myself.
I needed peace before I went out of my goddamn mind.
Backing away, I beelined for the door.
“Hey. Where do you think you’re going?” John asked. “We haven’t finished.”
“I’m done.”
“Jakey, don’t run away from the first frank conversation we’ve had.”
Wrenching open the door, I threw him a look I hoped was full of love as well frustration. “I’m not running.”
He scowled. “You’ll come back? We’ll finish this?”
Probably not.
Definitely not.
“Maybe.” Slipping from the house, I leaped from the stoop and ran.
* * * * *
Whiskey made everything better.
The smarting, cutting pain from talking to Grandpa John was now a mellow memory as I sat in an empty stable and nursed yet another tumbler of fire.
I hadn’t intended to get drunk.
I’d planned on going for a ride with Forrest and then crashing into the sleep I hadn’t been able to snatch since camping with Hope, but that was before I’d walked through a lonely cabin, stared into a bare fridge, and felt the unnatural breeze of my dead father judging me that I’d had the unbearable desire to run and never come back.
My muscles physically screamed to flee.
To break my promise to Dad. To disappear without a goodbye.
The urge was too strong. Too incessant. Whispering its nasty promises that if I made everyone hate me, then I’d be free from the agony they caused.
I wanted so badly to give in.
To vanish.
But…I couldn’t leave.
I couldn’t hurt those I adored. I would never be that selfish.
But I did need help, and that help came in the form of alcohol.
And that was how I found myself patrolling Cherry River with a rapidly dwindling whiskey bottle before finding refuge with hay and mice, tucked in the stable where no one would disturb me.
“Jacob?”
Fuck.
Of course, she would disturb me.
She would look for me, find me, critique me.
Dragging my knees up, I rested my forearms on them, dangling my drink in loose fingers. There was no point in running. She’d already caught me, and I was too hazy to care.
As I took a healthy swig of burning liquid, Hope’s chocolate-haired head appeared over the stable door. Her eyes scanned the shadowy space before locking onto me in the corner.
I tensed for reprimands. I gritted my teeth against arguments.
But she merely sighed, opened the door, and entered. Without a word, she slid down the wall beside me, crossing her legs and glaring at the almost-empty bottle in my hands.
We sat there for ages.
Silent and strained.
Her thoughts were loud enough to encroach on the fog from my booze, but she didn’t bother me with conversation.
Thirty minutes or so passed before my ass started to ache and my whiskey was no more. The empty bottle mocked me, and I left the realm of fog and slid into blurry exhaustion.
Hope chose that moment to speak. “You’re a farmer, Jacob Wild. You know what that means, right?”
I raised an eyebrow, biting my lip against a world slightly off axis. “No.” I twisted a little to stare at her, our shoulders kissing, our hips touching. She was warm and solid and my friend. It made me want to break down and cry and hurt her all at the same time.
“You are life and death itself.” Her eyes stayed on the opposite stable wall. An unnatural redness on her cheeks made her glow. A slight rasp to her otherwise melodic voice made her wise. “You are a farmer. You plant seeds, so you give life. You cut the grass, so you take life. You rescue horses that need a second chance, yet you put creatures in pain out of their misery.” She twisted to face me, her hand landing on my knee.
I froze, but she didn’t stop touching me. “So you see, Jacob Wild, if you are afraid of death, then be afraid of yourself too. Be afraid of everyone, not just those you love. Be afraid of animals and seasons and calendars and oceans.”
Her fingers dug into my kneecap, imploring me to follow her down this narrow and twisted road. “Do you see? Do you understand? The world is life and death. Every breath is life and death. Every dream. Every afternoon. Every breeze and falling raindrop. You have to accept that. You have to finally give in to life because you’ve already given in to death. We are all givers of life and granters of death—accept that you can’t change that…and you’re free.”