Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Jasper
“This is an entire file folder stuffed with receipts that have nothing to do with the ranch.”
I look up curiously as Chesney continues. We were supposed to finish this last night, but there was too much to get through, so here we are again today.
“Receipts from diners, grocery stores, some dress store I’ve never heard of. There’re receipts from buying cigarettes and beer. Old scratch-off tickets. Who keeps this shit?”
I snort. “Clyde Smith.”
“By the looks of the dates on some of these, I’d say Thomas Smith too.”
“Doesn’t surprise me,” I say, meeting his gaze.
“Dad always was about as cluttered as they came. Sharp as shit when it came to ranching, but everything else fell by the wayside because of it. Used to drive my mom crazy. She cleared out most of the junk inside the house when she kicked him out, but wouldn’t touch in here. And I can see why.”
I don’t even realize what I’ve said until I can see the confusion furrow Chesney’s brow. “She kicked your dad out?” he asks. “Did they get a divorce?”
“Fuck no.” I chuckle. “She’d never do that to her image. To our family’s image. But yeah, she exiled him to this office for, I wanna say, five or six months right after I turned twenty-one. It was very hush-hush, though.”
“Why?”
“Beats me. I never asked. It’s not like they would’ve told me anyway. You know how they are.”
He pauses for a moment, like he isn’t sure if he should say what he wants to say. When he finally does, it’s not at all what I thought it would be. “My mom left my dad too. Well, sort of.”
“Really? When?”
“Right after Lyle died.”
My heart sinks into my stomach. “Damn…”
“I think it’s pretty common,” he says, his voice surprisingly even. “For married couples to get a divorce after something tragic happens.”
“I mean, it makes sense if you think about it.” I swallow down the unease building in my chest. This is the second time we’ve broached the topic this weekend, and after he shut it down quickly last night, I’m nervous about going there again.
But he’s the one who brought it up this time.
“Grief is a difficult, ugly thing, and no two people grieve the same. I’d imagine that alone would put a wedge between two people. ”
He nods thoughtfully. “I’ve always thought it was more than that. More than grieving.”
“How come?”
“I don’t know. I have nothing solid to prove that, but things between them had been rocky for years. They fought more nights than they didn’t. It was like they didn’t even like, much less love, one another. Hell, the night of the accident, they were at their weekly marriage counseling session.”
“What?” My eyes widen before I can school my features.
“It was a big secret,” he says, rolling his eyes.
“Just like everything else in our fucking family. I found an appointment card in my mom’s purse one time when I was grabbing something for her.
It was for Wednesday evening. After that, something clicked for me; they’d ‘go out to dinner’ every week on that day. ”
Damn. You never really know what’s going behind closed doors.
“How long were they separated?”
Chesney breathes out a humorless chuckle. “Until she died.”
“Wait a minute.” I shake my head, like it’ll clear up any of my confusion. “How the hell did they keep it hidden from all the nosy people in this town for that long?”
“I only know what Truett told me after the fact because, obviously, I was gone and not on speaking terms with them. But basically, everything looked normal from the outside because nobody ever moved out. Mom took their bedroom and Dad moved permanently to the den. He’s still sleeping in there now.”
“Wow.” I whistle through my teeth. “Can you imagine living that way for that long?”
“No. But I also can’t imagine being married to an asshole like my father either.” He snorts.
“I don’t even like running into exes in public. But living under the same roof with them? Nah. Fuck that. Sounds like a special kind of torture. And for what reason? To save face around town? I’d rather the whole world know I got a divorce than do that.”
Chesney clears his throat, a look passing through his eyes that I can’t quite make out. “Do you do that often?” he asks. “Run into your exes around town?”
My heart thumps heavily against my ribs, and my stomach flips on itself, the question catching me off guard. “Yeah, sometimes.”
“Who?”
“Uh…” I’m so confused. Why is he asking me that? “I think the only one you’d know is Todd.”
“Todd?” Chesney raises his eyebrows and makes a sound somewhere between a scoff and a snort. “As is Toddy-Potty?”
Chuckling, I nod. “Nobody has called him that since high school. But, yes, that Todd.”
Todd Lane is a guy who, like me and Chesney, was born and raised in Sweet Briar.
The unfortunate nickname started when he was a toddler who was obsessed with his plastic portable potty—the kid brought it everywhere—and like all embarrassing nicknames in a small town, it followed him all through school.
“What the hell’d you see in that guy?” Chesney asks, his face twisted up in clear disapproval.
“Shit, I don’t know.” I breathe out a small laugh. “What do we see in all the people we used to date? Right place, right time, I guess.”
He’s eyeing me with a look I can’t read. “How long did you two date?”
Thinking about it for a second, I shrug. “I don’t know. Almost all of junior year.”
“You dated Todd Lane for a year because he was in the right place at the right time?”
My throat is tight as I nod. “Yeah. Pretty much.”
“How’d that happen? From what I remember, you guys weren’t even friends.”
“We weren’t.” I shrug, wanting to look casual. “But I got detention a handful of times that year, and he was always in there too. We just…got to talking and it happened.”
“You got detention?” Chesney huffs out a laugh. You’d think I was telling him I’d discovered aliens with how amused he looks. But to be fair, up until Chesney left, I was a fairly good kid. I usually did my best to avoid getting in trouble. “For what?”
“It was just a few times.” I’m purposely avoiding the question, hoping he drops it. But of course he doesn’t.
“For what, though?”
“Damn. What’s with the twenty questions?” I ask teasingly.
He shrugs. “Just doesn’t seem like you.”
“Yeah, well, I had a hard year.”
“Why, what happened?”
My chest tightens as sweat pricks at the back of my neck. “Come on, Chesney.”
He swipes the file sitting between us, taking a quick look inside. I see the exact moment it clicks. Lowering the folder slowly, he rubs his hand along his jaw, his eyes watching me with such intensity that it sends goosebumps across my body. “You said junior year.”
It’s not a question. We both know why junior year was hard without either of us having to clarify. But I nod anyway, my throat thick with emotion I wasn’t expecting to feel today.
“I didn’t know,” is all he says. It slices into me like a dagger to the chest, and I don’t know whether I should laugh or get pissed off.
“How could you?” I ask, the words coming out sharper than I intended them to. “It’s not like you stuck around long enough to find out.”
Chesney rears back as if I’d slapped him. He doesn’t say anything for a moment, hurt flashing in his eyes, his voice hollow. “That’s not fair.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” Something twists painfully in my stomach, and I regret what I said immediately.
“I can’t even begin to imagine what you must’ve been going through back then.
But losing Lyle hurt me as well. Then losing you right after—the things you said and how easily you cut me off… It felt like you died that night too.”
Before the accident, I’d gotten close with Lyle over the years. He was the only Jennings who knew about mine and Chesney’s friendship, and in turn, he spent a lot of time hanging out with us. When he died, it really fucked me up.
The air around us shifts. My heart thrashes as I wait to see how Chesney reacts to what I’ve spent years holding inside.
What I’ve spent years wishing I could say to him.
His jaw pops as he exhales a sharp breath through his nose.
This could turn ugly really fast. Hell, it could erase all the progress we’ve made working together.
But as I sit here, with my heart in my throat, I realize I’m okay with that.
I’m okay taking that risk because this is a conversation Chesney and I should’ve had years ago.
It’s long overdue.
He swallows harshly, and his gaze softens. “I guess I was so full of grief and self-loathing that I never even stopped to consider anybody else’s feelings.”
“I was a mess for a long fucking time, Chesney.” My voice cracks as I’m taken back to that time.
“And I had nobody to talk to. Our whole friendship was a secret. Nobody knew what I was going through, and keeping all that inside fucked me up. I couldn’t handle it anymore.
Then, when I started spending more time in detention, I got closer to Todd, and eventually, let it all out.
He was one of the only people there for me after you left.
When Lyle died, it felt like I lost a brother.
And then you…” I shake my head, clearing my throat. “You left me.”
“I…had to,” he murmurs, his eyes wet and bloodshot. “I couldn’t stay here, Jasper. I couldn’t live in that house, couldn’t walk through those pastures. I couldn’t go on living in this town, with all those memories, knowing Lyle was never coming home. And knowing I was the reason he was gone.”
“What?” A choked sob comes out of me as tears spill over and roll down my cheeks. “You are not the reason Lyle died. You were just a kid.”
Chesney clears his throat, then wipes the moisture from under his eyes. “I know that now,” he says gruffly. “But it took many years in therapy and a whole lot of self-reflection to actually believe that.”
This explains so much.
“Does your family know you were carrying all that guilt?”
“Truett does. But I didn’t open up to him about it until about ten years after Lyle’s death.”
My heart hurts so unbelievably badly for Chesney and the pain he went through. Not just from grieving the loss of his younger brother, but from how much he held himself responsible for all those years. That would wreck anybody.
“I wish you would’ve let me be there for you,” I say softly. “Even if you had to leave, I would’ve still been someone to lean on.”
Chesney holds my gaze for a long moment. He looks torn, like there’s something he wants to say but doesn’t know if he should. Before he even says a word, there’s a sinking pit in my stomach and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
Looking away, he inhales a deep breath, exhaling it slowly.
“For longer than I care to admit, I thought that if it weren’t for us being friends—or well, more than friends—I never would’ve been tempted to sneak away that night.
I never would’ve carelessly left the gate unsecured, causing the cattle to get loose, and Lyle never would’ve felt like he needed to herd them back in.
When he was dying, I was with you.” He finally meets my gaze.
The sorrow in his eyes steals my breath away.
“I was with someone from the same family my dad always warned me about. If felt like his death was the universe punishing me for going against my father’s wishes.
For caring about you when I shouldn’t have. ”
My throat aches, and the pressure behind my eyes is almost unbearable. I try to blink back more tears blurring my vision, but it doesn’t work. They fall hot down my face anyway.
I’ve spent years wondering how he could leave me, how he could be as cruel as he was, and now that I know the truth, I don’t know what to do with it.
It never would’ve been possible to be there for Chesney after that night, to comfort him through his grief the way I yearned to for years and years.
In his mind, his connection to me—his feelings for me—is what led to his brother’s death.
“You didn’t cause this,” I murmur. “Us caring for each other didn’t cause this.
Chesney, what happened that night was an accident.
A tragic, unfair accident that nobody could’ve predicted.
It kills me knowing you spent any amount of time thinking anything you did or felt could’ve been responsible for that.
You were sixteen. You were just a kid. To carry that amount of guilt so young, for something you didn’t do, is awful.
And to carry it alone for so long? You never deserved that. ”
He’s quiet for a moment, the weight of everything hanging between us.
“I’m sorry, Jasper,” he eventually says. “For everything I said. For the way I treated you. And for not realizing how much it would’ve hurt you too.”
I swallow against the lump in my throat, trying to process everything. “You were hurt. And angry. You did what you had to do to survive what happened. To heal and move on. Do I wish things ended up differently? Yes. But now I understand why you left. I understand why our friendship had to be over.”
Chesney scrubs a hand down his face. “You know, it’s funny,” he says, breathing out a small laugh.
“Looking back on that night, I remember how I felt sneaking onto the property again. How I felt after being with you. I felt on top of the world. That was the best night of my life…until it wasn’t.
And I’ve always hated that something so special, so pure, something that felt so right, turned into something I couldn’t even stand to think about.
That night changed me in ways I can’t even comprehend.
But before all the bad, there was you. There was us.
And those moments changed me just as much.
It’s taken me a long time to be able to say this out loud, but that night, with you and me and what we shared… I don’t regret it.”
I don’t regret it.
Four words I didn’t know I needed until now.
My breath catches as I look at the boy who once meant so much to me.
The one who brought me joy, and hope, and longing, but also hurt.
And I see the man he’s become. A man who experienced unimaginable heartache way too early, clawed his way back from the depths of hell, and holds so much pain and strength and bravery.
A man who never gave up, made a life for himself, and through loyalty and love, decided to come back to where everything went wrong, knowing it would drudge up the past he’d rather not remember, just to help his family.
“I don’t regret it either.” My voice comes out strong, even though I feel anything but.
Silence surrounds us, but it’s not the kind that begs to be filled.
It’s thoughtful, and comfortable. It’s easy.
Like a weight’s been lifted off our shoulders.
I don’t know what this means for us, but it feels like things have shifted.
Like maybe this partnership won’t feel like such a chore anymore.
Nothing more is said about the past, but as Chesney and I get back to working through the boxes, it’s impossible not to notice the absence of tension.