Because I don’t want to. Not right now.
I try the front door.
Locked.
I tap on the window.
No response.
I sit on the stoop outside, wondering what to do now. I call her. I text. Nothing.
And then I think about what she told me that day at her apartment.
And I get back in my car and call Ashton.
“Where are they buried?” is the question out of my mouth before he can cuss me out for ignoring him.
“What the fuck are you talking about? We have a serious problem on our hands. We need to—”
“You need to tell me where Winter’s parents are buried,” I cut him off firmly. “I know you know. There’s no way you don’t after years of keeping an eye on the girls.”
Ashton is quiet, likely trying to figure out if he can win an argument with me right now. He realizes he can’t and tells me the cemetery’s location so I can put it into my GPS.
“We still need to talk,” he tells me, but there’s a difference in his tone of voice. “Tomorrow.”
He’s giving me the night to figure this out.
To finally be the cure, for once, instead of the disease.
So, I hang up my phone and follow the directions until I find myself parking along the driveway of a cemetery.
In the near distance, a blond-haired girl is sitting on the ground in front of two graves.
I don’t say anything to her as I approach.
I’m quiet.
Careful not to scare her.
Then I kneel, peeling my suit jacket off and draping it over her shoulders. I don’t care about the stains that will wind up on my gray pants or the dirt that will probably get on my white button-down. I sit beside her and stare at the names on the polished granite with moss growing over the tops of each.
Winter and I stay like that for a long, long time. In silence. Simply breathing. Letting the wind rustle our hair.
It feels like forever before she whispers, “I miss them.”
I say, “I know, sweetheart.”
She takes a deep breath, and I think she’s about to say something when she chooses to hold it back.
Then she leans against me, her head resting on my shoulder, and stays like that.
I don’t move my arm around her as much as I want to. I don’t apologize as much as I need to. I let my body heat warm her, comfort her.
She doesn’t tell me to leave, so I stay.
I’ll be whatever she needs right now.
I’ll be whatever she needs for as long as she’ll let me.
