CHAPTER 14
EDEN
The casino never slept, but it did have moods.
Tonight it felt like a million voices had stacked on top of one another until they blurred into a single, grating hum that scraped along my nerves. I moved on autopilot, stacking glasses, wiping a counter already clean, smiling when someone spoke to me even though I barely heard what they said.
Ryan kept circling in my head instead as I tried to plot out when exactly I could end things and it not kill him.
I tried to picture his face when I finally said it. I’m done.
Would he laugh first? Like it was a joke I’d told badly?
Or would he start sobbing like he had before his overdose?
That loud, messy breakdown that had sucked all the oxygen out of the room.
He had a talent for unraveling when things didn’t go his way—pacing, knocking something over, dragging his hands down his face like the universe had singled him out for punishment.
Getting drunk or high . . .
I tried to imagine telling him he needed to move out.
Where would he even go?
Back to his mom in our old trailer park back East? To one of his friends who were all just as unstable as he was? Would he sleep on someone’s couch and blame me for it? Tell everyone I’d “abandoned” him?
Guilt slid under my skin like a splinter. If I ended us, he wouldn’t simply lose me.
He would lose everything.
And I couldn’t afford two places to help him until he finally got a job. I could barely afford the one we had now. The thought of signing another lease, paying two deposits, covering utilities in two different spaces . . . it made me want to throw up.
But how much longer could I wait?
“Eden.”
I looked up. Carl stood a few feet away, his usual bluster gone, and his face drawn and careful. He looked . . . somber, and that alone sent a cold thread straight through my chest.
“There’s a call for you,” he said quietly. “My office phone.”
“A call?” I echoed stupidly. No one ever called me at work. I quickly pulled out my cell phone to see if I’d missed something from Ryan, but he hadn’t called.
Carl awkwardly patted my back. “You should take it.”
My feet felt heavy as I followed him, like the carpet had turned to mud beneath my shoes. I tried to think who it could be. The hospital, maybe, or a bill collector who’d decided the casino line might finally get my attention.
I pushed the door open and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Is this Eden Thorne?” a man’s voice said.
“Yes,” I responded, my voice suddenly reedy and thin. “This is she.”
“This is Officer Ramirez with Metro Police. I’m sorry to bother you at work, ma’am, but I need to speak with you regarding your husband, Ryan.”
Sound receded, like I’d been shoved underwater without warning.
“My husband?” I repeated, because my brain had stalled somewhere between his name and the way the officer said it.
There was a long pause, and my hands started shaking.
“Mrs. Thorne,” he said, “I’m very sorry to inform you that your husband was involved in an incident earlier this evening.”
I gripped the edge of the desk, my knuckles whitening, my pulse loud in my ears. “What kind of incident?”
“He was struck by a vehicle,” the officer said gently. “It appears to have been a hit-and-run. Paramedics pronounced him deceased at the scene.”
The sentence came apart in midair, like glass thrown against tile—shards skidding in every direction, too sharp to touch.
Struck. Vehicle. Hit-and-run. Deceased.
I waited for the part where he corrected himself.
Where he said there had been a mistake, a misidentification, or a wallet found on the wrong body.
I waited for my phone to ring with Ryan’s name flashing across the screen, and for him to be laughing and breathlessly saying Can you believe this? They thought it was me.
But none of that happened.
“I—I don’t understand,” I whispered. “He was just— He was home this afternoon. He’s only been out of the hospital for two weeks. He wasn’t supposed to leave the house.”
“I understand this is a shock,” the officer said, and I could hear the practiced sympathy in his tone, the cadence of someone who had walked strangers through devastation before. “We’ll need you to come down to the station when you’re able. There are a few things we need to discuss.”
My fingers tightened around the receiver. “Discuss?”
There was another pause, and then the sound of paper shifting.
“When your husband was found,” he said carefully, “there were narcotics in his possession. Given his recent medical history, we have to consider whether that may have played a role in what happened tonight. We’re still waiting on toxicology, but it’s part of the investigation.”
Medical history.
Two weeks ago, I’d been sitting beside a hospital bed, staring at monitors that beeped in an awful, steady rhythm. Two weeks ago, Ryan had nearly died. I’d told myself it was a wake-up call and that he’d been scared straight. I’d told myself that leaving the hospital meant starting over.
“He just got out,” I whispered, more to myself than to him. “He almost died.”
“I’m aware of that, ma’am,” the officer said gently. “That’s why we need to ask some questions.”
“I’m at work,” I said faintly, as if that mattered. As if the world should pause because I was mid-shift and unprepared for my life to end.
“That’s okay,” he replied. “Take the time you need. Is there someone with you right now?”
I looked at the closed door and my empty reflection in the darkened glass of the office window. “Yes,” I lied.
“All right,” he said. “I’m very sorry for your loss, Mrs. Thorne.”
“Thank you,” I whispered.
The line went dead.
I guided the receiver into place carefully, as though I were disarming something that could go off if I moved too fast. For a moment, I just stood there, staring at nothing, my chest aching with a pressure that refused to become a sound.
Ryan was dead.
The boy I’d grown up with. The teenager who’d promised to get us out. The man and husband I’d begged and fought and hoped for until hope itself felt like a bad habit.
Gone.
My legs finally gave out, and I sank into the chair behind the desk, one hand pressed flat against my mouth to keep the sob from escaping. Outside the office, the casino roared on, chips clacking and laughter spilling while the music swelled as though nothing had changed.
But everything had.
I don’t remember sliding out of the chair.
One second I was sitting there, my mind replaying the officer’s words like a skipping recording. The next, my knees gave out, and I was on the floor, my back hitting the side of the desk hard enough to jar the breath from my lungs.
And then I finally cried. My pain tore out of me, a sob that didn’t care about dignity or anything else. I folded in on myself and wrapped my arms tight around my stomach like I could hold everything inside if I just squeezed hard enough.
Ryan was dead.
The words felt unreal, a sentence pulled from someone else’s life. My life had always been messy and loud and hard, but even at its worst, there was still part of me that hoped someday it would change.
This . . . this was final.
I was only faintly aware of the door opening and footsteps rushing toward me. I barely felt it when strong arms slid around me, pulling me up and into a chest that was solid and warm and very real.
I finally came back to myself, a broken gasp ripping out of me as I tried to pull back, but the hold only tightened, anchoring me before I could spiral away. “It’s okay,” a familiar voice murmured. “I’ve got you.”
I looked up, tears blurring everything until the world smeared into light and shadow, and . . . it was Jagger. I stared at him as his dark eyes searched my face, his grip firm but careful as one of his hands cradled the back of my head and his fingers threaded gently into my hair.
“What’s wrong?” he asked quietly.
I shook my head in a helpless, broken motion, and a sob tore free again. “I—I got a call,” I choked. “The police. They said—”
My throat closed. The words were refusing to come.
Jagger rested his forehead against my temple, and it kind of felt like his presence was a shield around me.
“My husband,” I finally forced out in a hoarse, wrecked whisper. “They said he was hit by a car and that there might have been drugs involved. They said he’s dead.”
His arms tightened, and he pulled me closer until my face was pressed into his chest as if that were exactly where I belonged.
“Oh, Eden,” he said softly.
He didn’t pretend to understand or offer platitudes or empty reassurances. He didn’t tell me everything would be okay.
He just held me.
“I’m so sorry,” Jagger murmured. “I’m so sorry you’re hurting.”
“I was going to leave him,” I gasped into his shirt, the confession spilling out without permission. “I was going to tell him soon.”
My guilt tangled with my shock and my grief, and with something else I couldn’t name. My body shook harder, my knees threatening to give out entirely.
Jagger didn’t flinch. He widened his stance, absorbing my weight as I sagged into him.
One hand moved slowly along my spine, steady in its pace, as if he could smooth the chaos under my skin by sheer repetition.
The other cradled the back of my head, continuing to press my face firmly against his chest, protecting me from the world.
I cried until my voice turned ragged, until each breath scraped like it was dragging over gravel.
My ribs ached from the force of it. My fingers went numb as they gripped his jacket, yet I couldn’t make them release.
It felt like something inside me was tearing loose in strips, leaving nothing but a shaking shell behind.
Through all of it, he didn’t shift. He absorbed every tremor, every broken inhale, standing firm and steady, his heartbeat a slow, unchanging rhythm against my cheek while mine came apart.
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