I jerk open the door and dig under the passenger seat until my fingers graze the smooth edge.
The wooden box that holds my deepest secrets. It’s worn from years in the desert and traveling. But it’s still solid, held together with broken promises.
By the time I shove back into her cottage, water dripping from my clothes, she’s waiting in the living room. Her long legs pace the floor, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders as she chews on her thumbnail.
Her head whips in my direction at the sound of the front door clicking shut.
“What the hell are you thinking? There’s a tornado heading straight for us, and you decide to go cool off in the rain!”
I don’t answer as I place the wooden box on her coffee table. The thud is loud even through the sounds of the storm.
Her gaze flicks to the box and back to me. “What’s this?”
“Open it,” I demand, voice harsh, heart pounding in my ears.
“Wh-why would I do that?”
I dip my head toward the box. “It’s your proof.”
“Proof of what?”
“That leaving didn’t mean I forgot about you.”
Her breath catches. “This doesn’t change anything.”
“Open it.”
Hesitantly, she drops to the floor, tucking her legs under the coffee table as her hands hover over the lid.
Just when I think she’s not going to open the box, her fingers twitch, brushing over the lid like there’s a bomb waiting to detonate.
In some ways, there is. A time bomb with all my secrets resting inside.
She flips it open and the air leaves her lungs in a whoosh. Whiskey eyes flicker to mine and back to the box. Even from the slight glow from the candles, I know she knows what she’s looking at.
The living room lamp glows softly, giving her the much-needed light to sort through the time capsule. Photos tremble in her grip as her chest rises and falls. Her breaths arefast and shallow. And maybe the reality of it all is like a punch to the stomach. I know that’s how I felt watching her from a distance, wishing I were the one standing by her side.
She looks through them all, taking her time. One from trick-or-treating when we were eight—I was dressed as a sheriff while she was a pink cowgirl. One I took of her lying on her stomach on a beach towel. The tiny bikini shows off her lithe body. It was the first summer I started noticing Wren as more than my best friend. The summer her legs grew a mile, bronzed and toned from hours spent running around the farm.
There’s one of our first homecoming together. Both of us sport braces and acne. But she was a vision in yellow. I remember wondering how I got so lucky to have her as my best friend—and my girlfriend.
Selfies she took of us in my truck, sitting on my lap on the tractor, hiding in the haystack. Photos of her snuggling baby kittens and bottle-feeding calves. Happy and carefree. The Wren Drummond I’ve carried with me.
But there’s so much more inside that box than a pile of photos from memory lane. Letters I wrote to her but never sent. Whenever something good happened, she was the first person I wanted to share the news with. On my worst days, when I needed a hug and a shoulder to lean on, she was the one I searched for, but she was off living her life. While I was happy that she was moving on, my heart broke because I lost the woman I loved with all of my being. So I wrote to her. I wrote everything I wished I could tell her. Every dark detail of my time overseas. How I craved hearing her laugh, because on my worst days, her high-pitched giggle would melt my stress. Her smile was everything.
“Jett,” she whispers, sounding pained, and I know what she’s holding without having to look at it. The article announcing her engagement to Elias. “Why? Why would you save this?”
“Because it was the reminder of how I lost you.”
Her laugh is bitter. “You don’t get to play victim and act as if you lost me, not when you’re the one who left.”
I growl, shoving my fingers through my hair. “I broke us. I know that. I lost you. That article”—I gesture to the paper in her hand—“was my reminder that I was never getting you back. Not when you were engaged to someone else.”
She says nothing, simply staring down at everything in that damn box.
“I didn’t get to say goodbye.” My throat tightens with rage as I relive packing my bags and climbing into my father’s truck. “You think I wanted to go? To leave you? I fought for you. For a chance to say goodbye to my best friend—the girl I was in love with—but life doesn’t always work the way we want it to.”
A crack of thunder overhead jolts Wren, causing her to clutch her chest.
