Page 23 of The Hometown Heartbreaker

I wanted to tell her I’d go in with her. That I’d sit in those miserable chairs that smelled like lemon disinfectant and old regrets, that I’d hold her hand. I wanted to tell her she didn’t have to walk through those doors alone.

The problem was, somewhere between loving her and losing her, I’d burned that particular bridge to the ground.

And now I was the idiot sitting in the ashes, wishing I’d brought a fire extinguisher.

She inhaled, shallow and deliberate, and said, “Well, thank you⁠—”

At the same time as I blurted, “Text me when you—” and the overlap made both of us start laughing.

Hers was the old, barely-above-a-whisper laugh, the one that made my chest ache back before I even had a driver’s license. I dipped my chin, indicating for her to go first, because that’s how we used to do it—her leading, me following, always.

She straightened a little, tugging at her shirt. “I just wanted to say thank you for the ride to Buddy’s and then here. And for, you know, not making it…weird.”

“Of course. Anytime,” I assured her. “I was just saying, when you’re done here, you can text me for a ride, and I’ll come get you. Or if you need to talk or want to get a coffee or something.”

She gave a tight little smile, but her eyes did the thing where they darted to my mouth and then away, like she was weighing whether to say yes or call an Uber. “I think I’ll be good, but thanks.”

Shit. Uber won.

She reached down and found her purse, rooting around in it for her phone, and the movement sent a shiver of vanilla and something citrusy—tangerine?—into the air. The scent hit me with a wave of memory so intense I thought I might actually pass out. Sadie, seventeen, hair flowing loose, singing along to the radio with the windows down. Every cell in my body knew that scent, the way it knew how to breathe.

Hoping to disguise my mini-walk down memory lane and the effect it was having on me, I hopped out and rounded the hood. The wind was picking up, and the chill off the ocean made my eyes water. I pulled open her door, and she looked up at me, startled like she’d forgotten people still did that. She rushed to get out, fumbling with her tote bag and nearly dropping it. I grabbed it before it hit the ground. As she stepped down, her balance wavered and I put my hand out to steady her. She took it, not as a precaution, but as an anchor. Her fingers grasped mine, warm and familiar as a memory foam groove, and she squeezed.

The contact was innocuous enough for anyone walking by, but my body read it as a threat level red. All the air in my lungs reversed course and came out as heat and panic, which I’m pretty sure she felt, because she smiled at me in that way she used to when I managed to surprise her.

“I missed that smile,” I admitted aloud.

I wasn’t supposed to say things like that anymore. I didn’t have the right. I told myself, silently, as the words floated on the cold air between us.

Trying to recover, I messed up again. “I’m really glad you’re back.” I heard how bad it sounded the moment it came out of my mouth. There was no good way to recover from that faux pas, so I just tried to clarify, to backtrack, but only made it worse. “I mean, not glad about Buddy, obviously, but…” The rest of it fell away.

I wasn’t glad Buddy was ill, that was the understatement of the year, but I couldn’t help the honest relief in seeing Sadie in the flesh, real and alive and not relegated to memories or what-ifs.

She gave me a look—half-caution, half amusement—that said she was used to my inability to handle real-time feelings. There was a time when I could say anything to her, and she’d parse out the truth no matter how stupidly I delivered it. She must have remembered that, too, because her mouth twitched with a hint of a smile. “Thanks,” she said, and her voice sounded less like the hard-edged, lawyer-in-training version she’d been at my brother’s wedding and more like the girl I’d known my whole life. “It’s… good to see you, too.”

The words shot straight to my heart, and I absorbed them. It wasn’t a declaration of love, but it was a far cry from I hate you. She started to walk away, but I stopped her. “Hold on.” I grabbed a hoodie from behind my seat and handed it to her.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“You’ll get cold in there.” She always froze in the hospital and never remembered to bring a sweatshirt.

She looked down at it as if it were a bomb, and she was scared to touch it.

“Take it. I know where you’re staying, so it’s not like you can steal it,” I lied. She could steal anything from me and I’d gladly give it to her.

She smiled, and her eyes lifted to me as she accepted the hoodie. “Thank you.”

I nodded.

She tucked the hoodie into the tote, squared her shoulders, glanced up at the hospital’s looming entrance, and walked off, never once looking back.

As she stepped past me it took every ounce of self-control I possessed to not reach out and pull her into my arms. It shouldn’t feel like the most natural thing in the world to do. She wasn’t my Sadie anymore. I wasn’t the person who was supposed to comfort her.

I stood there for a second, watching her go, then realized it looked weird and stalkerish, so I jumped back into my truck. I sat behind the wheel for a long moment, palms pressed flat against the steering wheel, trying to get my heart to stop acting like a caged animal. Then I started the engine, shifted into drive, and told myself that was that.

But, of course, it wasn’t.

I should have gone straight to the ranch. I had work to do, a whole day of it. Instead, I missed the turnoff and kept driving. My brain wasn’t even aware I’d done it until I was already halfway down the road toward Shepard’s Farm. By the time I pulled into Buddy’s gravel drive, I’d made up a whole mental list of things that needed fixing, just from memory and the five minutes I’d spent inside. One of them was Herbie, Buddy’s scarlet/white two-tone 1990 Ford F150. I noticed cobwebs by the wheels, which meant Buddy hadn’t had access to a vehicle in a while.