Tilly jostles her leg, letting loose a sigh. “It was because of good behaviour, right? While you were in prison?”
“Yeah.”
“Was it hard? The whole being a perfect inmate thing?”
I look at her again, arching a brow at her genuine curiosity. It’s almost innocent. So different from the smugness she wore like a mask earlier.
“At the beginning. It got easier.”And then really hard again after we stopped talking.
She runs a hand over the braid lying over her shoulder. “What was it like coming back to the real world?”
“What is this, Tilly? Why do you suddenly give a shit?” It comes out like a whip.
“I’m trying to make conversation. It’s not like I’m going to take all of your answers and make a blog post about them or anything,” she argues defensively. The song changes, and she scowls at the screen with the album cover on it. “If you want to sit in silence instead, we can do that.”
There’s a tiny wiggle of discomfort in my gut. “It was terrible. I was only locked up for three and a half years, but it still felt like I’d been inside for four times that. The sun was brighter than it was before, and there was too much missing time between me and the people I cared about.”
I spent three weeks just trying to find where I fit in. All of the places I knew I belonged before I left were too different, and I had to spend that time forcing myself back into the person I used to be. It didn’t matter how hard I tried; it wasn’t possible to be him again.
That version of myself died when I put Ezra in the ICU.
“Do you fit now?” she asks, her voice nearly too soft to belong to her.
“No.”
“Do you think you ever will?”
I turn the truck off the Painted Sky land and onto the range road that leads to the highway. When I flick my eyes across the cab, she’s watching me, her lips curled down, the bottom one slightly jutted out. I’m hit with a blast of warmth deep in my chest. I have to put both hands on the wheel to keep from reaching for her.
“Maybe.”
17
TILLY
Despite everythingthat’s happened between us, Rowe’s still the easiest person for me to talk to.
You’d think it would be the opposite because of his gruff exterior and hatred of anything besides horses, but he’s always been a good listener. Once you get past his scowling and stubbornness, he can blab your ear off about nearly anything.
Maybe that’s part of the reason why I crushed on him so badly back then. He was the best secret keeper and never once judged me for anything I did or contemplated doing. Ash should have been my first call when I needed help, but the older I got, the more I started depending on his best friend. I’d never tell him that, though. My brother is even quicker to get jealous than I am, and that shouldn’t be humanly possible.
The three-hour journey to Wickett Ranch wasn’t nearly as awkward as I expected. My mouth wouldn’t stop moving the entire time, even when I accidently got too close to mentioning the letters. It got awkward for a few minutes after that, and then I’d say something that I knew would annoy him. Everything went back to normal after that.
The early evening sun is hidden behind thick, long clouds, washing everything out. It’s not like this place holds a candle to Painted Sky to begin with. Sure, it looks big, but everything’s cramped near the house we’re parked in front of.
Staring out past the paint-chipped garden shed, I squint one eye to try and make out the shape of whatever structure is out in the pasture. It’s sloped to the right, and I’m pretty sure the door is hanging off its hinges.
“We’re not staying here tonight, right?” I ask, turning to watch Rowe pop the tailgate open.
“No.”
He’s pushed the sleeves of his shirt up, exposing new tattoos. I join him and try to count the black tree branches that shoot up his inner forearm like tiny little veins, leading up to a thicker trunk at his elbow. They’re stolen from my view when he pulls a tub down the truck bed, leaving my count at seven.
“What’s all that?”
“The rest of your shit.”
My brow twitches. “My shit?”
