Chapter 14
LAST YEAR
DELANEY
Daisy and Bryce asked me to be here. Daisy and Bryce asked me to be here. Daisy and Bryce asked me to be here.
They’re my friends, and friends don’t ditch on important celebrations because the atmosphere is uncomfortable.
I need to suck it up before I make tonight awkward.
Who cares if everyone is looking at me and wondering why on earth I’m here.
They can eat shit if they think I shouldn’t be here to celebrate a friend’s accomplishment.
Oof . Okay, so I’m clearly feeling a bit stabby tonight.
At least Brody’s singing is enough to hide the harrowing silence that’s followed my every move.
If I had to walk past one more group of people who stopped talking the moment they sensed me, I’d have impaled someone’s arm with an inky tattoo needle.
It’s better with something in the background, even if it’s the same country song that I’ve heard playing a million times on the local radio station.
Leaning against the furthest wall from the busier half of the shop, I watch as Bryce finishes up what must be her tenth flash tattoo. The recipient of the frog wearing a matching rain boot and jacket set grins down at her wrist and thanks Bryce before hopping out of the chair.
I’ve never gotten a tattoo. Not during a drunken night out in college or amid a complete breakdown.
There’s nothing I want permanently inked on my body yet.
Bryce is the opposite and has more colour on her skin than anyone else I’ve ever known.
Every day I see her, I think she’s gotten something new done.
She’s halfway through her second sleeve now and has added a daisy to the patch of skin behind her ear.
“Stay out of the sun for a few days and wash it with soap when you shower. Lotion up after,” she instructs while snapping her black gloves off.
“Got it! Thanks, Bryce.”
The dark-haired ice queen gives a shrug of acknowledgement before falling into her cleaning of the station she’s at.
I move my attention to the opposite side of the shop, where Shade, the huge, burly owner of this shop, is wearing a heavy black hoodie and jeans to match and flirting with a woman who is at least double his age, if I remember her correctly.
We’re not in Cherry Peak, but everyone at the shop tonight ventured from that direction.
Oak Point is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it little town nestled up against the Rocky Mountains with a population half the size of CP.
I’d move here myself if I could fool myself into believing that the incredible view would be worth the aches and pains of small-town living that I’ve already dealt with for decades.
Shade shakes out his thick back hair before dragging his tattooed fingers through it and glancing in my general vicinity. The music that’s been filling the studio comes to an end as my stomach sinks. Shade winks and grins wide enough for a dimple to appear.
“Little Devil!” he calls out, eyes bright. “You look hot.”
“Don’t flirt with my girlfriend,” Bryce groans.
I blink, settling when Daisy floats by me, her dress flying up around her knees. She wiggles her finger at him. “You’re going to get kicked in the nuts, Shade.”
“Worth it.”
My friend gets swallowed in his arms and, like the hugger she is, squeezes him tight enough to make him wince. “We’ll see about that.”
They jump into conversation as I dart my eyes elsewhere and hold in a sigh. I’m being a buzzkill. I’m shocked Poppy hasn’t already come to find me with one of the Jell-O shots we made last night in her hands. I’ve seen more of her in the last few months than in the last seven years.
Losing my grandmother has only just started getting easier to accept.
I still hear her voice calling from upstairs, asking me to watch every new episode of her favourite telenovela and feel the ghost of her hands on my cheeks.
Her presence is heavy at home, and maybe that’s why I’ve spent so many nights at Bryce and Daisy’s.
I’m hiding from the reality of what’s happened and the loneliness that hangs around me, growing thicker every day.
The air shifts, that fog thinning enough for me to see the tall figure cutting through it. Pain expands in my chest as my ribs constrict. Darren got here before I did, but I’ve managed to avoid him the way I always do.
While that means I haven’t gaped at him all night or followed him through the crowds, I still felt it every time he’s looked my way. Even a simple, fleeting glance sent prickles up and down my spine.
He wasn’t supposed to come to see me, though. Communication between us is rightly non-existent. That’s the way I needed it to be.
So why is he still walking my way and not turning somewhere— anywhere —else?
Holding my breath, I shift and turn away. My skirt gets bunched in my fists as I grip the soft fabric and release a forced exhale .
“Can I join you over here?”
“I don’t own this wall.”
Silence.
I inwardly cringe and force myself to release my skirt. “Yeah, sure. You can join me.”
“Alright,” he says lowly.
His shoulder comes into view before the side of his neck does. The ball of his Adam’s apple strains upward when he swallows and turns his head, staring down at me. I cross my arms and take half a step backward before meeting his gaze.
Immediately, I wish I’d just walked away instead.
“How are you?” he asks, so much sympathy in his eyes that I feel it in my bones.
There’s no point in wasting my time lying. “Been better.”
Nodding, he slips a hand into the pocket of his jeans. “I’ve been wanting to stop by. Bring you something to eat in case you weren’t feeling up to cooking.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
Hurt flashes across his face before he tucks it into a box. “That’s fair. I’m still sorry. Your grandmother was a great woman, and she should have had more years here with us.”
“Do you even know how old she was when she died?” I ask, the question whipping between us like. It leaves the air split, singed with a fire so hot nothing can cool it. The fresh wound in my heart oozes poison as it widens. “Or when it happened?”
Darren’s eyes blow wide, exposing the truth quicker than words. “I?—”
“You don’t. So please don’t try and say shit like that to me. Not here, not right now.”
“You haven’t spoken with anyone about it.
Not Poppy or Bryce and sure as shit not me, Delaney.
But you can tell me the details. Do it right now if you want.
I’ll listen to whatever you need to say,” he offers, somehow balancing on the border between whispering and being loud enough for the entire room to hear us .
I wet my dry lips. “This isn’t the place for a conversation like this. Tonight is about Bryce.”
“It will still be about her even if you talk about your grandmother.”
“What makes you think that you’re who I want to be speaking about her with?” I attack, skin growing too warm.
Darren reaches a hand out. I freeze the moment the tips of his fingers make contact with my bare arm.
The skin of my elbow comes to life, buzzing like a beehive as I part my lips on a silent whimper.
I snap my head back, our eyes connecting and holding despite every voice in my head hissing in warning.
“I just want to listen. Let me do that for you right now,” he begs softly.
A burn begins in my nose before spidering outward. My eyes tingle with the threat of tears while I retreat mentally.
It makes no sense why his fleeting offer can affect me so badly.
A decade of growing distance between us, and I’m so easily yanked back as if it was never there to begin with.
I don’t know anything more dangerous than that.
Than being so vulnerable when it comes to just one person.
Nobody deserves that much power over someone else.
I move quickly, only half caring if he follows and the repercussions that would bring.
It’s dark in the bathroom. Still, I bypass the light switch and stand in front of the sink, ignoring the mirror until Darren appears. The door shuts with a click of the latch behind him.
“Talk to me,” he mutters, voice steady as he flicks on the light.
Leaning against the door in this tiny room, his wide frame is more pronounced, impossible to deny.
With shoulders that stretch the fabric of his shirt, thighs thick enough to test the seams of his dark-wash jeans, and hair hidden beneath a baseball cap on the “correct way,” he looks so incredibly different from the Darren I used to know, yet still the same.
Boyish was never a word I’d use to describe him, even when we were young.
There was always a manly aspect to him that he used to intimidate men double his age.
Sure, his love of football and exercise helped keep him in shape in high school, but he was at least two inches shorter and fifty pounds lighter back then.
I can’t pinpoint when the change hit him hardest, but it wasn’t until after Abbie was born, and I stopped being able to look at him without crying so hard I’d nearly puke.
“She was sick. Her body just . . . gave out. The fight was long,” I croak.
“She’ll be remembered forever. Not just by you, but by the whole town. Everyone who knew your grandmother loved her.”
Heat slicks up my spine. “Is that why you weren’t at the funeral? Because she was so loved by everyone?”
He pauses. “I didn’t know if you’d be okay with me there.”
“That’s bullshit. She deserved to have you there. You were like another grandchild to her, and you know it. She loved you right till the end,” I snap, chest heaving with pained breaths.
Darren flinches, an invisible handprint blooming on his cheek from the force of my words. “I didn’t know that. How could I? She cut me out the moment you did.”
“She cut you out because I was heartbroken. Worse than that. I was—” I cut myself off, biting my tongue.
“Just because she stopped speaking to you doesn’t mean she forgot about you.
That woman cared about you so much she demanded watching that fucking grainy video of us on her deathbed.
Too many of her last words included you, and where were you when she was being lowered into the ground? ”
Stricken by my blows, Darren deflates against the door. His skin is pale, forehead damp as he lets loose a breath.
“She had this idea in her head that we’d .
. . that we’d somehow find our way back together.
There was more romance in that woman than common sense, but that’s just who she was.
A hopeless, lovesick woman too fixated on a broken relationship to see that there isn’t enough glue in the world to fix it.
But it didn’t matter that I thought that.
I still sat beside her and listened to her reminisce on me and you despite the pain it caused me because I knew she was going to die.
I knew she was going to die , Darren, and I thought that at least you’d be there after she was gone to show her even half the respect she continued to grant you long after what happened between us. Turns out I was wrong. We both were.”
“I’m sorry, Delaney. I didn’t know,” he chokes, the apology catching in his throat.
“You shouldn’t have had to know all of that to show up for her.”
And for me . That day fucking destroyed what little of me I had left and had been struggling to regrow.
“You’re right,” he agrees.
I know I should leave. One shove from me and he’d be jumping out of the way for me to escape this hell of a room. But I stay rooted in place instead, feeling as though I’m sinking into the tile. “Do you even remember the video?”
Darren’s eyes are such a dull shade of brown as he stares at me. “Which one?”
“Prom. She made me watch the old, grainy thing with her all the time.”
“Why? I figured . . . I assumed it was deleted a long time ago.”
I snort. “Yeah, I tried to do that a million times. Grandma refused. She believed I’d regret losing it.”
His brows knit together, discomfort twisting his expression. “She was stubborn.”
“That’s a nice word for it.”
“I’m sorry you had to watch that video.”
“I don’t want your apologies. You can’t staunch heavy bleeding with a single piece of gauze.”
“What if I use something thicker? What if you just let me try?” he offers, leaning away from the door.
His right hand falls to the round edge of the sink as he spreads his fingers over the smooth porcelain. I focus on his blunt nails and then the strain in the back of his hand, veins flexing.
“I’m not interested in building a bridge,” I say, unsure if that’s the full truth or a lie I’m telling myself.
His grip on the sink loosens. His voice betrays a heavy sense of defeat. “Okay, Delaney.”
“I want to leave now, please.”
Like I knew he would, he steps aside without needing to be asked again.
I wait until he’s a safe distance from it before passing him.
Sucking in a breath at our sudden closeness, I try to make myself smaller to avoid touching him even briefly.
That can’t happen again. Especially not in a bathroom where there’s nowhere to hide from my reaction to it.
“I really am sorry for your loss and for not being there to support you at the funeral. Both of you deserved that from me.”
My throat is clogged. I only manage a nod, my attention fixed on the doorknob.
Maybe I linger because I’m hoping he says something else. A declaration that could fix everything that’s happened between us. Except I know nothing like that exists because there isn’t any fixing this. Not through apologies or declarations or any of my grandmother’s wishes to the universe.
I have to remember that before I wind up in a situation that’s bound to leave me shattered once again. Without replying, I open the door and slip out of the bathroom, leaving him behind me the way I did the day I returned to Cherry Peak.