Page 35 of The Hometown Heartbreaker

“Can I get you something to—” she said at the same time.

We both froze, then laughed, the sound overlapping so perfectly it felt rehearsed.

“I was just asking if you wanted something to drink,” she said, her voice a little steadier now, though her hand was still trembling on the countertop. She was trying so hard to act normal, but I could see the effort it cost her, the way her shoulders hunched just a little more every time we were in the same room.

I shook my head, smiling in spite of myself. “I’m good, but thanks.” I took a deep breath. “I just wanted to come by because, well, first, to give you this.” I pulled out the keys to Herbie.

Sadie’s hand hovered over the key ring for a moment, her fingers twitching before she finally pinched it between thumb and forefinger. She stared at them as if I’d handed her some rare, radioactive element, something she wasn’t sure she was allowed to touch.

“Why are you giving me these?” she asked, and there was a wrinkle between her brows that hadn’t been there a second before, not even when she’d opened the door and found me on her porch.

I waited, letting the silence stretch, then said, “I got him running again. Well, Damon and I did.” I managed a sheepish smile. “I can take you to pick him up tomorrow. If you want.”

For a second I thought she might cry, which would’ve been a disaster, because I had no idea what to do with Sadie’s tears except to try to make them stop, and that was the last thing in the world I’d ever been able to do. Instead, she just blinked at me, her eyes searching my face for some angle or catch, like this was a test I was planning to spring on her.

“You did?” The words sounded like they’d been ground down and sharpened before leaving her throat.

I nodded.

Her gaze didn’t budge. “Why? Why would you do that?” She was holding the keys so tightly now that the skin on her knuckles shone. “How much do I owe you?”

“Because it needed to be fixed.” I shrugged, trying not to let my voice go soft. “And nothing. You don’t owe me anything.”

This seemed to short-circuit her a little. She opened her mouth, then closed it again. I could sense her mental calculation, the way she tracked every gesture, every word, weighing it against the years we’d lost. I wondered if she suspected an ulterior motive, or if she simply couldn’t understand a favor without a price attached. The way she looked at me, I realized she genuinely wasn’t expecting kindness, not from me, not after everything.

It amazed me that Sadie seemed so shocked by my actions. Was she actually that clueless about how I felt? How could she be? We hadn’t spoken face to face, but I’d poured out my heart to her in those letters.

Her phone vibrated on the edge of the table, screen lighting up with an incoming call. She glanced down at it, her hand curling reflexively around the device. I didn’t even have to ask. My mind immediately wondered if it was my “best friend” calling. The urge to blurt out the question I had in my mind was a live wire in my mouth, but I bit down on it before it could spark.

Whoever it was, she thumbed the call away without even reading the name, and the phone went dark. The air between us thickened, as if we’d both inhaled at the same time and were waiting to see who exhaled first.

“Can I sit?” I asked, nodding at the two armchairs that flanked the fireplace, which was flickering with life. They were upholstered in the same blue velvet as the love seat, the kind that left trails when you ran your hand over it.

She bit her lip, and I braced myself for the answer to be a hard no. Instead, she nodded, almost imperceptibly, then crossed the room ahead of me and folded herself into one of the two chairs. I sat opposite, perching on the very edge.

There we were, staring at the hearth.

The silence felt engineered, like we were both afraid to disturb it. I realized I was clenching and unclenching my fists in my lap and stopped. Sadie tucked her legs underneath her, tensed and wary, like a deer ready to bolt.

I wanted to say something, anything, but my thoughts felt slippery and unsafe. I’d rehearsed a hundred speeches in my head on the way over, but being here, none of them seemed right. I thought about the first time I’d ever seen Sadie cry: we were eleven, and a kid threw her backpack in the trash after gym class. She’d tried to play it off, to laugh with everyone else, but when I found her behind the bleachers, she’d been quietly tearing notebook paper into little squares and stacking them into a neat pile on the blacktop. It was the saddest thing I’d ever seen, and the most beautiful. She wasn’t crying, but when I walked up and asked if she was okay, tears began to stream down her face. I found out later it was really because her mom was so sick. I’d told her it was going to be okay, and from that moment on, I’d appointed myself as her unofficial protector.

I was failing miserably at that now.

“What happened after graduation—” she began, her voice surprisingly even, as if she’d been rehearsing this confrontation for years. Maybe she had.

“We don’t have to talk—” I said, jumping in at the same instant. The words collided awkwardly in the space between us, a microcosm of every stupid, failed attempt I’d made to fix things with Sadie.

She inhaled a slow steadying breath. “You go first.”

I exhaled, bracing myself. “I know you don’t want to talk about it, and I’m sure you’re tired of hearing me apologize.”

Her brow crinkled in the way it always did when she was trying to add up a sum that refused to come out even. I’d watched her make that same face a hundred times, over algebra homework or when she was folding her laundry and couldn’t find her matching socks. I almost smiled, but then the reality of the conversation yanked me back.

“I just wanted you to know that everything I said in the letters was true. I—I don’t know what happened that night. I was drinking, and then I woke up next to Vicki.” I watched her face for a flicker of an unnamed emotion, but she was a study in deliberate composure.

She stared at me like I’d started speaking a different language. “Wait, what letters?”

I blinked. For a second I was sure she was screwing with me, like this was a setup. “What do you mean, what letters?”