Quinn stands a few feet away, thumb and finger in her mouth, and Sawyer uses the brief pause to step between me and Wes.
“Okay, idiots. You duked it out, now go to your separate corners and cool the fuck down.”
Wes’ eyes burn with betrayal as he spits in the dirt. “You’re supposed to be my friend.”
That hits me in the gut, a mixture of guilt and shame twisting up my insides so tight I think I might puke.
It’s all too much.
Quinn not telling me about the job. Wes calling me out for being a shitty friend. I can’t take anymore of it. My chest heaves, and I turn on my heel, hands on my head as I stalk away.
“She’s not just a notch on your fucking bedpost. She deserves better than you,” Wes spits at my back.
His words land harder than any of those punches he threw, and I hunch over, bile rising.
She was never just a notch on my bedpost.
Never.
“Wes, shut the fuck up. You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Quinn snaps.
Her footsteps hurry after me. “Are you okay?”
Her fingers brush over my knuckles, then prod at my face, checking the damage. My lip’s bleeding. My eye’s swelling shut. My kidney aches. But none of it hurts as bad as the thing breaking apart in my chest.
“You should go, Quinnie.”
Her brows knot together. “No. I need to make sure you didn’t break anything or need stitches.
I shake my head. “To Denver,” I pant between gasps. “You should take the job.”
She steps back as if I’ve slapped her. “What?”
“There’s nothing for you here.” I hold her gaze, willing her to believe me, even though it’s the last thing I want. I’ll say it, anyway. Because I won’t be the one to hold her back. She deserves the world. And my world in Cottonwood Creek is so damn small.
Wes was right.
She deserves better than me. I’ve always known it.
“You don’t mean that,” she whispers, eyes pleading.
Fuck.
I shake my head and drop my gaze to the ground. “Take the job, Quinn. It’s what you’ve worked for.”
She doesn’t stop me as I stomp off to my truck, body sore, heart gutted. I leave it beating in her hands, cold weaving through the hollow spot in my chest where it once resided. It belongs to Quinn now. Maybe it always has.
It doesn’t escape my notice that I’m driving to my mom’s, tail between my legs, like I have so many other times in my life. And while I know she’ll find a way to make me feel a little less awful, I can’t help but wish my dad were still here.
He’d know exactly what to do in a situation like this. The loss is still palpable. Even five years later it cuts deep—a twist of the knife in a wound that will never fully heal.
In the span of ten minutes, I lost my best friend and the woman who means more to me than anyone else ever has. I’m adrift with no anchor, no map, and no idea what I’m supposed to do next. But Mom has always helped me find my way.
I turn my truck off and sit in the fading light, contemplating every idiotic thing I said, the look of betrayal on Wes’ face when he finally figured out Quinn and I had been more than just friends, the disappointment on Quinn’s face when I told her to take the job.
I must sit here longer than I thought because when my mom knocks on the window of my truck, the sun is just a blip on the horizon.
She steps back as I open my door. “You’ve been out here a long time,” she says. “You wanna talk about it?”
