Page 54 of The Hometown Heartbreaker

At some point, the storm reached its crescendo. The thunder was so close it rattled the mugs hanging on the rack in the kitchen cabinet. Lightning split a tree in the back field, and I saw it go white-hot and then black in the space of a single heartbeat. I was happy, then, that I didn’t have animals to tend to. I worried about all my neighbors, Dawson included, who had horses, cows, chickens, goats, all sorts of living things that would be terrified in this.

The force of the wind made the house hum and vibrate, and for a second I thought it would lift off the foundation and carry me out over the flooded pastures.

Since there was nothing I could do, I tried to lose myself in the letters. I was halfway through the stack when I saw the headlights sweep the driveway. First just a flicker, then two sharp beams carving through the deluge. I blinked, almost certain I was imagining it, but then the engine noise cut through all the storm’s percussion. Someone was here.

The vehicle looked familiar—a hulking, mud-spattered pickup, lights still on, windshield wipers slashing back and forth. I saw the driver’s side door open and a figure emerge, moving quickly and hunched against the rain. My body recognized him before my eyes sent the information to my brain. He hit the porch steps at a dead run, and the motion was all muscle and purpose and inevitability.

Dawson.

I rushed to the door and flung it open. He stood in the entryway dripping onto the mat, shoulders heaving with the effort of the dash from the truck. He was soaked to the skin, hair plastered across his forehead, flannel glistening with rain.

He looked like a man who’d just crawled out of the ocean, every square inch of him drenched, hair dripping onto his heavy brow and rain running off his jaw in fat silver rivulets. For a moment, he just stood there, towering and heaving, his silhouette nearly filling the door frame. The sight of him—so raw and elemental—was almost cinematic. It would have been funny if I didn’t feel like I might break down all over again.

He toed off his boots, leaving them by the door, and glanced at me like he wasn’t quite sure he should be here. The wind slammed the porch behind him, rattling the metal frame of the screen. I realized we hadn’t said a single word.

“Where’s Millie?” I asked as I stepped inside and he followed suit.

He grinned. “You’re stranded here, and you’re worried about the cat?”

“It’s storming.”

“She’s with my mom. She needs to be bottle fed every two to three hours and you know my mom’s all over baby duty.”

“What about the rest of the animals?”

His grin widened, seemingly amused at my concern. “It’s all hands on deck. Everyone is safe and accounted for.”

“How did you know where I was?” My voice was too thin, brittle.

He shook his head, water droplets flying. “There aren’t too many places for you to go, Sadie.” He said it quietly. It wasn’t an accusation, just a fact. He glanced down, noticing the stack of letters strewn out, and his face changed, like he’d been punched, but decided not to show it. The next words were a whisper, rough with something halfway between hope and regret. “You found them?”

I nodded and pointed at Buddy’s antique roll-top desk. “They were in the bottom drawer. Unopened.” I tried to keep my eyes on his face, but it hurt to see the way his jaw flexed, the way he bit down on whatever he was trying not to say.

He stepped closer. “He kept them? He just decided not to give them to you.” He didn’t sound angry, just resigned. He looked at me, really looked, and the weight of his gaze felt like it could hold the whole house together.

“It wasn’t you, I promise. It’s hard having me around,” I tried to explain. The words made my stomach ache. I never told anyone that. Never said those words out loud, that it was hard for Buddy, that I was a walking reminder of every empty space in his life.

“What do you mean?” His voice was very gentle, almost apologetic. He reached out and tucked a strand of damp hair behind my ear, careful not to touch my skin.

I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to talk about how every time he looked at me I knew he saw them or how Buddy cried when he thought I couldn’t hear, or how every room in this house was haunted by what we’d lost. I didn’t want to talk about the way guilt built up in me, year after year, until I thought I might drown in it.

“It doesn’t matter.” I turned away, blinking emotional stormwater from my eyes. “You’re soaking wet. You should get out of those clothes, or you’ll catch pneumonia.” I said it like a joke, something Selma always used to say about being in wet clothes, but my hands were already moving, reaching for the buttons of his flannel before I could think better of it.

The second my fingers touched him, I felt the shiver run through him. I didn’t think it was from the cold. I started on the third button, hands shaking, and he didn’t stop me. He just stood there, letting me do it, his eyes locked on mine. My heart beat so hard I thought it might bruise my ribs.

He reached up, covered my hand with his own. “Sadie,” he said, like it was an apology and a prayer all at once. “You really don’t have to⁠—”

“I want to,” I confessed. My hands were still trembling, but I kept going, working my way down until the shirt hung open. He shrugged out of it and it fell to the hardwood floor with a thud. I scanned the constellation of scars across his chest, the one from the barbed wire fence he had to scale to save Damon when he got stuck in Mr. Kepler’s backyard, the one from the time he fell out of the hayloft, the thin white line from when I’d dared him to race me through the blackberry bramble and he’d eaten dirt at the finish line. All the places he’d been broken and healed.

“I read all your letters,” I admitted, not looking at his face. “Even the one you wrote the week after I left. All of them. Even the ones you probably don’t remember writing.”

His muscles flinched, just barely. “I remember all of them.” He was shirtless now, water beading along the curve of his collarbone.

I reached for a faded dish towel from the counter and started patting him dry, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He let me, not moving, the muscles in his jaw tight with restraint. His hands stayed at his sides, every nerve ending focused on my touch.

There was a pause, the kind that felt like it might last forever.

“I’ve been thinking about this a lot,” he said suddenly. “That night. I would have told you if I remembered, but I didn’t. I’m sorry I didn’t fight harder to make you stay, to make you understand. I just felt guilty, for putting myself in a situation where I could end up in a compromising position. I respected you and our relationship more than that. I just, I didn’t think you’d want to hear excuses, but I should have told you. I’m sorry.”