The nurse in the ER asked if there was family she could call for me. I stared blankly at her as I went through a mental list and came up with no one. My mother is dead. My father is dead. My brother is…well, he’s somewhere. But not here. My answer to her was no, I have no family for her to call.

I could’ve had her call Cami, but she feels far from me today. Her life is happy and perfect, not a place for all my troubles and woes, let alone a place for death and loss.

Without her, I really am alone. All alone. The only other person who means anything to me in this town couldn’t care less that my world just exploded. He made his feelings about me very clear.

As I pull off the road onto the long drive that leads to my house, I remember how, just a few weeks ago, I was enjoying the feelings of comfort this part of the drive was bringing me. Now, it feels empty. Hollow. Painful.

Once I park in my usual spot at the house, I get out of the car and, on stiff legs, make my way up the steps to the porch. The door is slightly ajar; I didn’t even bother to close it before I left to follow the ambulance.

I push it open and stop just inside the foyer to listen, to smell, to experience home the way I always have. But I can’t. This isn’t the home that I’ve returned to every year for so many. This is just the place that my dad no longer inhabits. It’s just a series of rooms alive with only the ghost of his memory. Nothing more.

I hear a slow, steady clicking and look up to see Einstein standing in the kitchen doorway. His eyes are sober as he watches me. He drops to the floor and lays his head on his paws, a soft whine screeching at the back of his throat. He knows something is wrong. So, so wrong.

I walk past him to the kitchen. I see my father reheating fried chicken for me and scrubbing me on top of the head in that loving way he used to do. I turn away, back toward the den. There, I see my father laughing and eating popcorn, and giving me philosophical advice. I turn back toward the stairs and know that, at the top, is his bedroom—now and forever empty and cold.

There is no longer any happiness here, any comfort. There is pain and loss and a future without my father. The floorboards don’t ooze peach syrup anymore; they ooze the most hideous kind of heartbreak. The walls don’t shake with laughter anymore; they shake with grief. The air doesn’t smell of home anymore; it smells of my own personal hell.

So I run.

I run back through the house, back out the door, back out into the driveway. And I stand there. Looking at the house. Knowing I can’t go back inside. Not now. Maybe not ever.

Little by little, this town has taken every bit of happiness I’ve ever had. It has swallowed it up and left me standing, broken and alone, staring at an empty house with an empty life.

I feel the first drop like a cool tear to my cheek. I look up at the sky, at the dull gray clouds that mirror the bleakness in my chest, and I see the rain begin. Slow at first, like the sky itself is suddenly feeling my pain. And then, like the break in my heart, it opens up and weeps for me, pouring rain over my upturned face.

Impervious to the downpour, I stand in the driveway, in the rain, looking at the house. I wish with all my heart the drops would just wash it away. Along with the pain.

I glance up at the windows, gaping black holes staring back at me, mocking me with what is no longer behind them, with who is no longer behind them. And never will be again.

One second the tenuous hold I have on my emotions is intact, the next it’s gone. And the damn breaks.

With a scream that echoes through my head like a coyote’s cry echoes through a canyon, it is torn from my lungs, from my chest, from my lips in one long, agonizing wail. The rain steals the sound and carries it to the ground, where it’s as dead as my father. And I’m once again all alone in the deafening silence.

Turning from the house, I take off at a run for the gate, for the orchard that took my father’s life. If I had a knife, I would cut the bark of every tree I pass until they bleed their life in thick, sticky rivulets. Penance for the life they stole.

I can’t see past the tears, past the rain. Past the pain. My foot finds a hole and my balance is lost. I see the ground coming toward my face with alarming speed. My knees hit first, the impact jarring my teeth. I close my eyes and throw out my arms to brace myself. But before I make contact with the ground, strong fingers are winding around my upper arms, stopping my descent.

One heartbeat brings confusion. The next, recognition. I don’t have to look back to know who’s got me. Who caught me. Who saved me.

Rusty turns me toward him. I stare up into his eyes. They’re deeply pained at the moment, as though they’re a reflection of my own.

“Jenna,” he whispers softly.

“What are you doing here?”

His eyes search mine. “I came for you.”

“But why?” I ask, unwilling to give in to the hope that has left me so devastated so many times before.

“In case you need me,” he responds simply.

Bitterness rises to the surface to mix with the pain. It blurs the lines of my feelings. “You shouldn’t have,” I spit. “I don’t need you.”

I see hurt flash through his eyes. “What if I need you?”

“But you don’t. You made that all too clear.”

“I was an idiot, Jenna. I was a proud, arrogant idiot. But I’m here now. Doesn’t that count for something?”

“No, it doesn’t. It can’t. It can’t,” I hiss, my voice getting louder and louder as my emotions churn. “I can’t wait for you anymore, Rusty. I can’t lose anyone else. My heart can’t take it. You had your chance and you blew it. Now let me go and get the hell off my land.”

I twist my body, trying to wrench free of his iron grip, all to no avail. Despite the fact that one arm is in a cast, Rusty is still stronger than me.

“I can’t,” he growls down into my face.

“What are you even doing here?” I scream, channeling my rage at the world, my rage at life into fury at Rusty. “Aren’t you supposed to be in the hospital, forgetting about me?”

“I was, but I left.”

“Then go back. I don’t want you here.”

“I can’t,” he says again.

“Why not?”

“Because I came here for you, Jenna.”

“Why? I didn’t ask you to come here. I never asked you for one thing. But now I am. I’m asking you to leave. Just leave. Leave me alone!”

“I can’t!” he repeats angrily, his face the twisted mask of a tortured soul.

“Why?” I rail back.

“Because I can’t let you go. I love you too much!”

My heart stops for just an instant, torn between elation and devastation. But I can’t afford to hang on to the elation. The devastation to follow might well be the end of me.

“You can’t tell me that today. You don’t get to do this to me today. I’ve lost everything. Everything. You can’t come back into my life and then leave me again, you bastard,” I cry, thumping my fists against his chest. “You don’t get to do this to me today. You don’t get to…do…this…” My words are choked out by the sobs I can no longer contain. Suddenly devoid of the ability to stay upright, I crumble into the mud, held vertical only by the grip of Rusty’s hands on my upper arms.

“Jenna, please,” he whispers, trying once more to pull me to his chest with his good arm. This time I let him, the will to fight having drained right out of me with the first few sobs. “Let me help you. Just give me this one day and I’ll go. Just this one. Please, Jenna.” In his pause, I feel a sigh expand his lungs. “Please.”

Finally, exhausted, I melt into Rusty. On our knees, in the rain, in the mud, I bury my face in his neck and I cry. From my soul, I cry. Every sob feels as though it’s torn from me, ripped viciously from a place that should never be touched so cruelly. And I’m left, alive but only physically, with nothing but gaping wounds and gushing blood that no one else can see.

When I’m so hoarse my sobs are nothing more than croaks and I’m so spent my tears give way to the rain, somehow, with only one fully-functional arm, Rusty gently cradles me against him, stands to his feet and carries me away from the orchard.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR- Rusty

I carry Jenna toward the front door of her house, thinking only of getting her out of the rain. I barely hear it when she speaks softly into my ear. “Anywhere but there. I can’t go back in there.”

“Okay,” I tell her, detouring toward my mother’s car. I manage to get her into the passenger seat and start the engine, but then I draw a blank. Where can I take her?

Only one place comes to mind. The one place she’d feel best, I think.

Cami’s.

I drive cautiously. It’s a little unnerving for my first time back behind the wheel of a car to be in the rain, in an unfamiliar car, with a grieving Jenna in the seat beside me. Oh, and with my right arm in a cast. Hell, I don’t think conditions could be much worse.

We finally make it to Cami’s. I park and walk around to the passenger side door. I open it and lean down to scoop up Jenna, not giving her any choice other than to let me carry her again. I feel like I need to carry her. Maybe more than she needs for me to.

Once she’s in my arms, I realize she wouldn’t have argued anyway. She’s asleep. I’m not sure that’s a good thing.

I hurry to the door and ring the bell. Trick answers within a few seconds. “What the—” He frowns in confusion as he looks from me to Jenna, to her legs folded over my casted arm and then back again.

“Can I borrow your bedroom downstairs?” I ask quietly.

“Sure,” he says without hesitation, opening the door wider so we can pass.

He doesn’t ask questions, which I appreciate. It’s a guy thing.

I’m making my way through the kitchen when Cami appears in the doorway.

“Ohmigod, what happened?” she asks, rushing toward me, her eyes on Jenna.

“Shhh,” I caution. “She’s okay. Just let me take her downstairs and I’ll come back up so I can explain.”

“No! You can tell me now. Is she okay? What hap—”

“Cami!” I snap, interrupting her. When she snaps her mouth shut and looks at me, I add. “Please.”

Cami’s violet eyes bore holes into mine as she narrows them on me. She says nothing for a few seconds. I’m sure she’s debating the wisdom of leaving her best friend in my care when I’ve been such an asshole. But she relents.

“Okay, but you come straight back up here,” she hisses.

I nod and continue on to the stairs that lead to the basement. I hit the light switch with my elbow and descend the steps into the cool quiet of the lower level.

I stop on the landing at the bottom. The light from the stairwell only penetrates the dimness a few inches in every direction. When I step out into the darkness, it’s somehow like stepping into blessed peace. The light has shown me too much trouble lately. I could use some darkness. Darkness where there’s only me and Jenna. And maybe one more chance for me to not screw it up.

From memory, I carry her to the guest suite Trick and Cami set up down here. I can barely make out the bed in the dying daylight seeping through the tiny window at the top of one wall. I head for it and lay her gently on the soft, pillowy top. She stirs very little.

I bend and press my lips to her forehead. I don’t know if she even has a clue she’s in the world right now, but I speak to her anyway. Just in case.

“Rest, Jenna. I’ll be right back. I promise,” I whisper. She doesn’t respond. A few seconds later, she rolls onto her side and I hear her breathing become deep and even. “I’ll be here every time you open your eyes. I swear it,” I say. This time, it’s more for my benefit than hers.

I make my way back upstairs. Cami’s waiting on the top step, arms crossed over her chest, hell in her eyes.

“Dammit, Rusty, what is wrong with her? What did you do?”

“Keep your voice down,” I tell her. “I didn’t do anything to her. Her father was killed in an accident at the orchard today.”

Cami’s gasp is followed by her hands covering her mouth and her eyes filling with tears. “Oh my God! Oh my God! Poor Jenna!” She closes her eyes and slides her hands up to cover her whole face. Trick comes around from behind me to pull her into his arms. I give them a few minutes, minutes for Trick to comfort Cami and for Cami to collect herself. She’s known Jenna’s dad for years. No doubt she feels some sense of pain and loss, too, not to mention the sympathy for her best friend.

When she uncovers her face and wipes her eyes, I continue. “Mom was down in the ER and she came and told me right away. Jenna had already left the hospital, so I went to her house. I found her out in the rain. She didn’t want to go back inside, so I brought her here.”

“I’m glad you did,” Cami says, kindness back in her eyes. “I’ll take care of her. I’m sure you need to rest. You’re not even supposed to be out of the hospital yet, are you?”

“I’m fine. And I’ll stay with her tonight, if you don’t mind.”

“You really don’t need to do that. I’ll make sure she knows—”

“No offense, Cami, but it’s not a request. I’m staying. Or I’m taking her with me when I leave.”

Cami eyes me suspiciously, but again, she relents. “Okay, okay. Can I at least go see her?”

“I’ll come get you when she wakes up, but I want to be there when she does.”

Cami nods, possibly in approval. I can’t be sure. “Fair enough.”