Chapter 26 #2
Something inside me cracks. I never, not even once, thought of it that way. I know I was just a kid dealing with the kind of trauma most kids never have to deal with, but not for the first time, I wish I would’ve been able to see the way my grief was hurting everyone around me.
My selfishness cost me my brother, but I never realized what it did to my mom.
“I was with Jasper.” The confession comes so quietly, I’m not sure he even hears it.
Glancing up, I say, “The night of the accident. I was supposed to be watching Lyle, but I left him upstairs and snuck away to meet Jasper. Truett, while our little brother was dying, I was too busy having sex with someone I never should’ve been with in the first place.
” The pressure building behind my eyes is almost unbearable.
“If I would’ve just fucking stayed home that night, he’d still be here. ”
Truett is quiet for a moment. His jaw is tight as he watches me with tears in his eyes. I can’t tell what he’s thinking, but I can certainly imagine. Sitting forward, he rests his elbows on his knees, and his eyes soften.
“Chesney, you can’t think like that. You didn’t kill Lyle.”
“Well, it sure as hell felt like it back then.”
I’m reminded of when Jasper said something similar.
My chest aches thinking about him. After the night at the diner, things between us have been fine.
I guess. Maybe even more than fine. We do our best to stay out of each other’s way most days on the ranch, but we’re…
friendly. I know it was the right thing to do, putting a stop to things before they got messy, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me sad.
And that I didn’t wish things could be different.
It wouldn’t be fair to him, knowing I don’t know what my future holds. I hurt him once. I can’t do it again.
“Everything makes a little more sense now,” Truett says. “You weren’t just grieving our brother. You were carrying the weight of his death on your back. Why did you never tell me?”
I huff a somber laugh, then swallow down the rest of my beer. “I was ashamed. I hated myself for what I did, and wanted to punish myself for what happened to him. I didn’t think I deserved your—or anyone’s—understanding or sympathy. In my eyes back, I killed our brother and deserved the pain.”
“I get that, but I hate that you carried all that by yourself. I hate that you pushed me away.”
“Yeah, well, I pushed a lot of people away back then,” I mutter under my breath.
“Including Jasper?”
I nod. “Especially Jasper.
“That’s why you were arguing with him outside in the dark a few days after Lyle died.”
My heart slams into my ribs as confusion furrows my brow. “How the hell do you know about that?”
“I saw the two of you.” Truett’s voice stays calm. “Out of the kitchen window.”
“I’m realizing that you see a little too much for my liking,” I murmur.
That makes him laugh. “Or maybe you’re just not as sneaky as you think you are.”
I chuckle, but it quickly fades as I remember that night. “I was awful to Jasper, and he didn’t deserve it.”
“What happened that night I saw you two outside?”
The memory flashes, painful and clear, in my mind. Jasper standing in the grass, hat in his hand, eyes red, throwing rocks at my bedroom window, trying to talk to me.
“I told him to leave,” I say, my chest tightening. “I said horrible things. Things I didn’t mean. I just… I don’t know. I wanted somebody else to hurt.” The truth has never sounded uglier. I laugh bitterly. “Figured if I hated him, maybe I wouldn’t have to hate myself quite as much.”
Truett stands and walks over to the fridge. He grabs two more beers, handing me one before taking a seat across from me again. “Jasper came because he loved you.”
My head snaps up so fast, I wouldn’t be surprised if I gave myself whiplash. “What?”
“I saw him,” he says softly. “Standing outside after you went back inside and slammed the door. He stayed out there for almost an hour.”
I don’t move. Don’t breathe.
My vision blurs.
“He just stood in the middle of the yard where anybody could’ve seen him.” Truett swallows, then delivers a blow to my chest.
I’m on my feet before I know what I’m doing.
I couldn’t stop the wave of tears even if I tried.
The way I treated Jasper that night was terrible.
It was cruel. And knowing he stayed there for as long as he did, hoping I’d go out there and take it all back…
That kills me. He was always there for me.
Jasper saw me when it felt like nobody else did.
And I hurt him when all he wanted was to be there for me after Lyle died.
I don’t hear Truett get up, but a second later, his strong hand grips the back of my neck, and he pulls me into him. “Jasper loved you, Chesney. And I think you loved him too.”
Outside, the wind moves through the pasture.
The same pasture where everything changed.
And inside the barn, I hold on to my brother and cry on his shoulder as I finally understand something I’d been too broken to see before.
Jasper did love me, and I punished him for that. I hurt the only boy I’ve ever loved.
That boy is a man now, yet nothing has changed. Even when I’ve tried my damndest to push him away and shut him out, Jasper has done everything he can to be there for me about my dad since I’ve been back in town. I mean, Christ, he dropped everything and drove me here the second I told him.
Jasper didn’t deserve it.
The words I said to him that night, that final goodbye, haunt me.
And I think it haunts him too.