“I’ll give you a moment,” Brady says, and the sympathy in his face has mine twist with hurt. Pain lances through my chest.
I tap Maggie’s name and hit call. I’m pacing a short length in the parking lot when she finally picks up.
“Sunshine?” I barely get the word out. I’m falling apart on the inside, each part of me slowly tearing away, piece by motherfucking piece.
“Hi, Hadley,” she whispers. I can hear the tremble in her voice, but it smooths over before she asks, “Are you okay?”
I shove my hand in my hair, gripping it tight.
No. I’m absolutely not okay.
I’m confused.
Hurt.
Angry.
“I’m fine,” I finally manage. “Doc says I’m fine.”
I’m also a liar. Add it to the long list of shit I’ve screwed up in the last eighteen months.
“That’s good. Are they letting you go home?” The last word wobbles.
I shove my hand through my hair before running it down my face.
“Yeah. Baby, where are you?”
“I’m at home, Hadley.” Her voice sounds off. Cold.
“Like, the ranch home?”
“No, the mountains home.”
There it is, my worst fears, my Achilles’ heel flayed open. “You’re not coming back, are you?”
A strangled sob hits the receiver and buries its way into my already bleeding heart. “I can’t, cowboy.”
My chest tightens to the point I can’t breathe. I sink to the curb and drop my head, the phone dangling in my hand. A searing heat, hurt, and something like devastation burn right through me.
Lifting the phone, I rasp, “It’s alright, Sunshine, I’ve got you. Go on and break my heart, baby.” I choke through the nextbreath. “I get it. You need to do what you need to do. And so do I, one last event, then it’s all over.”
“Hadley,” she whimpers. “No . . .please don’t.”
I grind my jaw shut.
Everyone I love leaves. The most important people in my life walk away. Why would this be any different? A boy whose father wandered off and never came home. The love of my fucking life, gone like the damn wind that rips through the trees in a summer storm.
Gone.
Never to be seen again.
Maggie sniffs on the other end of the line. “I can’t be part of that. I won’t watch you kill yourself over the ranch.” The last few words fade as she sobs erratically on the phone.
I come entirely undone, hand shaking around the phone, gut twisting as my heart splinters with a pain that could end a man.
“Baby, please don’t cry.” I sob, my entire body aching as she sucks in deep breaths that fall away to whimpers.
My heart shatters.
