We just kept meeting—no lies, no pressure. No one taking pictures.
Just two kids sitting in a silo where the silence wasn't empty, it was safe.
Now, nothing's safe.
Not the memories or my future.
Earl drops me at the crossroads with a friendly honk, dust billowing behind his eighteen wheels as he pulls away. I tip an imaginary hat at his taillights and continue my walk.
The sun's still high enough to burn, but I can see the shade of the cottonwoods ahead where the old riverbed cuts between Kane scrub and Ashby wealth. I turn toward it like a man following his religion.
Two miles to my trailer. Two miles of memory and dust.
The dry riverbed is a wound in the earth that only bleeds water three months a year. Spring makes it something else entirely—rushing snowmelt carving through soft banks, wildflowers nodding heavy on the edges. Water so cold it burns your feet when you wade in. Used to dare Destiny to cross it during the flood season, watching her balance on slippery rocks while I pretended not to be ready to dive in after her.
I step down the crumbling bank, boots sliding in loose dirt. The cottonwoods stand like sentinels on both sides, their leaves whispering secrets above me. They've been here longer than any Ashby, longer than any Kane. Their roots drink deep from water that's still there, hidden under the baked clay and stones.
This place was everything once. Territory line. Playground. Baptism pool—figuratively, of course.
I kick at a smooth river stone, watch it skitter across the cracked earth. Used to skip these across rushing water, teachingMercy how to count the bounces. Five was our record. Five perfect skips before the current took it.
Cash's words crawl through my head like wasps looking for somewhere soft to sting."She's changed. You're just a phase she outgrew."His face when he said it—half-smirk, half-warning. Like he was doin’ me a favor by cutting me loose before I embarrassed myself.
The staged photograph burns behind my eyes. Savannah with her perfect smile, leaning into that man with his politician's jawline and manicured hands.
I wonder if he knows how she tastes after swimming in this riverbed. If he's ever seen her with mud up to her knees and her hair wild in the wind. If he knows she can sing "Ave Maria" so sweet it makes your chest ache.
I doubt it. Men like him don't love women—they acquire them.
The engagement party is nothing but a moment to be curated.
But I get it. When Eleanor died, she left everything to Savannah. Out of guilt, maybe. For takin’ all those pictures and erasing any hope of Savannah ever having a private life. But it came with conditions.
“It says I have to marry respectable.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I understood what it meant, I just wanted to hear her say it.
“It means I can’t marry you, Legion. Not if I want the Estate to exist.”
I can’t marry you, Legion.
As if this was something we had discussed.
It wasn’t. We never dated. We fucked. A lot, some years. A lot less, some others.
Never, not for a single fuckin’ second, did I ever think I wouldmarrySavannah Ashby.
So… I guess that’s where Marcus Jr whatever comes in.
Respectable.
Engagement party.
Everyone in Drybone will be there, dressed in their Sunday best, drinking champagne they can't afford, watching the Ashby princess fulfill the requirements in Eleanor's will. Marry rich. Marry respectable. Marry anyone but the trash from across the dry riverbed.
Savannah Ashby’s life has been choreographed from start to finish, courtesy of Eleanor. And Eleanorknewwhat I meant to Savannah. How much Savannah meant tome.
And still, she spelled it out.
