Two years.
“You were kissing her,” he says. But it comes out almost a whisper. Like he’s saying something dirty.
“Kissin’ her. That’s what you’re pissed about? Because we kissed when we were kids?”
"I wanted to kill you," Cash sneers. Malice now. He can't control it anymore. "But Eleanor wouldn't let me handle it."
Of course, she wouldn't. His mother loved me far more than she ever loved him.
She never told him that—I’m sure of it. Hell, she never told me either.
But youknow. Youknowwhen someone loves you just like you know when they don’t.
"She said it was just a phase,” Cash says. “Said Savannah needed to learn some lessons the hard way."
This is interesting and actually explains quite a lot about why Cash Ashby has always hated me, even though our paths never connected in any meaningful way. We didn’t go to school together, we didn’t hang out together, we didn’t do shit together.
The only thing we had in common was Savannah. And what Savannah and I had was a secret.
Well, not so secret, I guess. I knew Eleanor was taking pictures of us. She told me. Well, showed me, actually.
But I had no idea that Cash knew.
Savannah certainly didn’t. Not about these pictures Cash is referring to now, or any of the others Eleanor kept locked away.
"I mean, what did you think was gonna happen?" Cash continues, warming to the subject now. "That you'd ride up on that piece-of-shit motorcycle, and she'd throw everything away? The ranch? The family name? The inheritance? For what—some trailer trash with a GED and a criminal record?"
Outside the window, the land stretches empty in all directions. No cars. No houses. Just dust, and distance, and the fading line of asphalt cutting through it all.
"You were a distraction," Cash says, voice lower now. "A little rebellion she needed to get out of her system. But she's done with that now. Done with you."
I open the door without a word, swing my legs out. The heat hits me like a wall—dry, punishing Montana summer. Dust kicks up around my boots as they hit the gravel.
Cash leans across the seat, still smiling that empty smile. "Forty miles to Drybone. I'd start walking if I were you."
I shut the door with just enough force to be heard, not enough to give him the satisfaction of my anger. The window rolls down, and Cash's face appears in the opening, smug and certain.
"Oh, and Legion? Don't bother showing up at the engagement party. Security has your picture."
I stand still as the truck pulls away, tires spitting gravel that stings against my legs. The red taillights shrink to pinpricks, then vanish around a bend. The silence that follows feels like a held breath—the whole world on pause. Waiting.
No cars in either direction.
Just highway and heat waves shimmering off asphalt.
Expired driver’s license.
Twenty-seven dollars.
Half a pack of cigarettes.
A Bic.
No phone.
No water.
Forty miles to Drybone.
I start walking.
