I headed for the door, needing air, needing space, needing to be anywhere but in this room with their sympathy and their meddling and their complete inability to understand that some wounds don't heal just because time passes.
"Wyatt," Mom called after me.
I stopped but didn't turn around.
"She didn't leave because she didn't love you," she said softly. "I've always believed that. There’s more to that night than any of us know."
The words were meant to comfort, but they were gasoline on a fire that had never really gone out.
"No," I said, not looking back. "She left in spite of it. That's worse."
I walked out, letting the screen door bang shut behind me. The late afternoon sun was brutal, but I welcomed it. Physical discomfort was easier than the emotional hurricane tearing through my chest.
I headed for the barn, needing the familiar rhythm of work to steady myself. The horses nickered as I passed, and I stopped at Tempest's stall. The black stallion nudged my shoulder, sensing my turmoil the way animals always do.
"She's coming back," I told him, as if he could understand. Like it mattered to anyone but me. "After all this time, she's just waltzing back in here as if nothing happened."
Tempest snorted and stamped his foot, agitated by my mood.
"Yeah, that's what I think too."
I grabbed a shovel and started mucking stalls, attacking the task with more violence than necessary. Physical labor had always been my therapy, my way of working through things that were too big for words. But today, even the familiar burn in my muscles couldn't quiet my mind.
Ivy.
I could still see her that last night, silver in the moonlight like something out of a dream. Could still feel the weight of her in my arms, the way she'd whispered my name like it was the only word that mattered. We'd made love by the creek, and I'd given her that necklace, and I'd thought—God, I'd been so fucking naive—I'd thought we were beginning something.
Instead, we'd been ending.
I'd woken up alone in the truck bed, confused and cold. Drove home expecting to find her waiting, maybe in my room with thatsmile that made my knees weak. Instead, I'd found the note and necklace on my pillow, and my whole world had crumbled.
Her house, a rundown thing made of family secrets and lost dreams, showed no trace of her. Her father came out with a shotgun, screaming at me to get gone before he blew my head off my shoulders. Her mother had just stood in the doorway, silent tears streaming down her face, a fresh bruise blooming on her cheek that she didn't even try to hide.
I'd torn the county apart looking for her. Checked every bus station, every train depot, called every relative I could find a number for. Ivy Garrison had vanished like smoke, leaving nothing but questions and a heart that felt like it had been carved out with a dull knife.
"You okay?" Liam asked, tearing me from my thoughts.
"Peachy."
"For what it's worth, I don't think this was Aunt Lou and Uncle Owen's idea. Not entirely."
I paused, looking at him. Liam had always been too perceptive for his own good, even as a kid. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, Ivy Garrison is the best at what she does. If Uncle Owen wants to modernize, she's the logical choice." He hesitated, then added, "Maybe she needs to come back as much as you need her to."
"I don't need her," I said automatically.
"No?" Liam pushed off the door. "Then why do I catch you looking at that necklace? Why do you still go to the creek? Why haven't you been able to let anyone else in since?"
I didn't answer because we both knew he was right.
“I need to tell you something before she gets here," he said quietly. My stomach twisted, and I stopped working. "The night she left... I saw her."
My head snapped up. "What?"
"I never told you because she asked me not to. Begged me not to’s more like it." He ran a hand through his hair, a gesture of discomfort I rarely saw from him. "She was in your room, leavingthe note. She was crying, Wyatt. Sobbing like her heart was breaking. Said you deserved better than someone like her. Said something terrible would happen if she stayed."
The shovel slipped from my numb fingers. "You knew? All this time, you knew?"
