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Chapter 27

Rhett

Ifelt like my heart was breaking in two, like the whole world was crashing in around me, like any second now, I might just hit the floor, dead as a doornail.

But that didn’t happen. Instead, I just stood there in the root cellar, surrounded by all the things I’d stolen to start my new life. And I watched as the man I’d loved my whole life walked out, leaving me alone with my shame in the dim light of that ancient bulb.

I don’t know how long I stood there after he’d gone. Long enough that the bulb overhead started to flicker like it was thinking about giving out on me too, like even the light didn’t want to stick around for someone like me. I just stood there staring at the shelves, at Dolly’s heels sitting pretty as you please next to a shoebox full of cash that wasn’t mine and never had been, no matter how many nights I’d told myself otherwise.

Eventually my legs gave out and I sank down onto the dirt floor, back against one of the shelves, knees pulled up to my chest like I was eight years old again, hiding from the boys bullying me at school. I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes until I saw white sparks, trying to push the tears back down. But it didn’t work. They came anyway, hot and ugly, and I let them, because there wasn’t anybody left down there to see me fall apart.

West’s voice kept playing over in my head. You put her in danger. You put me in danger too. He was right. He was right about all of it. That was the worst part, worse than getting caught would’ve ever been. I’d tried to build myself an emergency exit out of other people’s grief, out of Dolly’s trust, and told myself it was just surviving. Just getting by. But surviving didn’t look like this. Surviving didn’t mean stealing from the one person who’d never once asked me for anything back. I already knew it too. I’d been fighting with that realization for a long time, just forcing it far enough back that I didn’t have to think about it.

But I couldn’t do that anymore.

I climbed up out of that cellar sometime past midnight, pulling the doors shut behind me as soft as I could to not draw attention. The streets were empty, Sagebrush gone dark and still like always. There were just a few porch lights burning here and there, casting the town in a dim glow under the starry sky. I didn’t go back up to the apartment. I couldn’t. Not with West up there, maybe sleeping, maybe not, maybe lying awake, same as me and wondering if he’d done the right thing.

So I walked instead.

I walked past the feed store, past the church that West had been working on, past the little park with its one rusted swing set that creaked even when there wasn’t any wind. I walked until my boots started rubbing blisters and I didn’t care, because the pain in my feet was at least something I understood, something simple and clean, not like the mess I’d gotten myself into.

I thought about Marcus, about the way he’d looked while on the phone with Mrs. Miller, promising her he’d get her things back. I thought about Xavier’s stolen tank tops, and how there was no way to replace them without a trip across the country. I thought of West’s daddy and how he’d looked at me like I was something filthy he’d tracked in on his boot. Maybe he’d been right about me all along. Maybe I was exactly what he always said. Maybe I was trying to ruin his son.

I thought about the ranch, about that first night I’d packed my bag under my bunk, so sure that getting out was the only thing that could ever make me whole. And now here I was, still in Sagebrush, bag never packed with enough to actually leave, my heart broken wide open by the one person who’d ever made me want to stay.

Somewhere past two in the morning I ended up sitting on the curb outside Dolly’s, looking up at the dark windows of the apartment above it, wondering if West was up there missing me the way I missed him already, or if he’d already made his peace with letting me go.

I didn’t have an answer. I didn’t have anything, really, except two choices sitting heavy in my hands, and no earthly idea which one I had the courage to make.

That’s when a light appeared behind me, soft and warm as it approached. I didn’t look up at first. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. My heart was racing, wondering if Marcus had figured it all out at last and he was coming to arrest me. Or maybe it was Dolly because she’d found my stash and was coming to kick me out of her life too. Whoever it was, I just wanted them to pass by, to leave me alone in my misery.

But the light stopped next to me and a soft voice spoke.

“Mind if I join you?”

I looked up. It was Pastor Mike, West’s new boss. What the hell was he doing out in Sagebrush at two in the morning?

I didn’t trust myself to answer right away. My throat felt swollen shut, and the last thing I wanted was for some pastor I barely knew to see me sitting on a curb at two in the morning with my whole life cracking apart at the seams.

“I won’t stay if you don’t want me to,” he said, when I didn’t answer. “But I was working late tonight, and I saw you walkin’ past the church a while back looking like the weight of the world was sitting on your shoulders. Figured I’d check.”

“You were awake?”

“Cash hates it, but I just get wrapped up in my work sometimes.” He eased himself down onto the curb beside me, setting a flashlight down between us, its beam pointed off toward the empty street like neither of us wanted to look directly at the other just yet. “Comes with the territory. Sometimes the Lord’s work doesn’t only happen during daylight hours.”

I let out something that wasn’t quite a laugh, more air pushed out through my nose. “Well, I don’t think the Lord is going to be able to fix what’s wrong with me, Pastor.”

“Mike,” he said gently. “And you’d be surprised what folks think can’t be fixed.” He was quiet a second, letting the night settle back in around us, crickets and the distant hum of somebody’s air conditioner unit a few houses down. “You don’t gotta tell me anything, Rhett. I ain’t here to pry. Just didn’t feel right lettin’ you sit out here alone, whatever it is that’s got you so tore up.”

I looked down at my hands, dirt still caked under my nails from the cellar floor, and felt my stomach twist up into knots again. “Aren’t pastors sworn to secrecy or somethin’?” I asked. “Like I can confess my sins or whatever without you turnin’ me in?”

“I’m not a catholic priest, so no,” he chuckled. “But I promise I won’t tell anyone if you talk to me.” He turned to face me, looking me dead in the eye. “You have my word as a pastor, and as your friend.”

I couldn’t hold his gaze and my eyes dropped back to the asphalt. “I did somethin’ bad, Mike. Somethin’ real bad. And I don’t know how to undo it.”

“Most things can be undone,” he said. “Might hurt like hell doing it. But most things can in my experience.”

“Not this.” My voice cracked, and I hated how weak it made me sound, how much I sounded like a scared kid instead of a grown man who should’ve known better. “I think I just lost the only person who ever really loved me. And I think I deserve it.”