Chapter 24 Quentin #2
“Basically. My mom built him a custom dog bed with his name engraved on it. The man gets homemade meals. Chicken, rice, some kind of expensive bone broth.”
Sadie grinned. “I see the family hierarchy is well established.”
“Oh yeah. Rocco’s at the top. I rank somewhere below the neighbor’s cat.”
Sadie cackled, and for a moment, the weight in Quentin’s chest lifted. But the ache never really left. He exhaled, long and slow, staring out at the mountains. Sadie didn’t fill the silence with nervous chatter. She just looked at him, waiting.
“Remember I said my sister passed?” His voice was quieter now. “Well… this was her favorite place. So, just—” he gestured vaguely toward the mountains, as if that could explain the swirl of emotions pressing against his ribs. “A lot of feelings. A lot of missing her.”
Sadie leaned back against the seat, her gaze drifting toward the horizon.
“Do you ever think about how strange it is?” Quentin continued. “That something terrible happens, and the world just keeps spinning?”
“All the time,” she murmured. “When Rebecca died my senior year of college, it messed with my head. Everything changed and nothing did. I still had classes. Still had to buy groceries. People were still honking in traffic like the world hadn’t just changed.”
Quentin nodded slowly. “Right? Like you want to grab a stranger and say, ‘Hey, don’t you get it? Don’t you know the universe isn’t the same anymore?’”
Sadie glanced over at him, something soft and knowing in her expression. “Grief is weird.”
Quentin huffed a quiet laugh. “Yeah. It is.”
The truck settled into silence again, but this time it felt okay. Like neither of them had to explain the weight sitting between them.
“What happened to Rebecca?” Quentin asked gently. “If you’re okay talking about it.”
Sadie stared out the window, fingers tightening around her coat. “She had an undiagnosed heart condition. Cardiomyopathy.”
She swallowed. “She collapsed during a cross-country meet. Her heart just… stopped.”
A sharp breath left her, shaky at the edges. “I woke up to a text that she was gone. And that was it. One second, she was here, alive, laughing, existing… and the next, she wasn’t.” Her voice wavered, but she kept going. “I could never talk to her again. I could never hear her laugh again.”
She swallowed hard, blinking up as if that might stop the tears in her eyes. “And I was angry. So angry. For so long.”
Quentin’s fingers twitched at his side, instinctively wanting to reach for her. But he didn’t. He didn’t interrupt or offer platitudes. He knew better.
She let out a hollow laugh, shaking her head. “I didn’t know where to put it. The anger. The hurt. It felt like the world had just decided—yeah, that’s enough time for her. And I hated that. I hated that people moved on like she was just… a moment in time. Like she wasn’t everything.”
She finally looked at Quentin then, and he saw it. The love. The loss. The unshakable, unbearable truth of grief: that the world kept spinning, even when yours stopped.
“How was it possible?” Sadie continued, voice quieter now. “How was it okay? Why was I here and she wasn’t? It didn’t make sense. It still doesn’t.”
She swallowed, glancing down at her hands. “I spent months like that. My entire senior year was just… zombie mode. I went to class. I smiled when I had to. But I wasn’t there. I wasn’t anywhere.”
He nodded. He’d lived in that place too. He buried himself in work, motion without meaning.
“Eventually, I got a therapist,” Sadie said, letting out a breath that sounded a little less heavy. “And she told me something that changed my life.”
She turned to Quentin then, meeting his eyes.
“Grief isn’t something you get over. It’s something you learn to carry.
At first, it’s heavy and unbearable. But with time, you build the strength to hold it, to live alongside it.
Because grief only exists where love once did, and love never truly leaves. ”
Quentin’s chest tightened.
Sadie gave a small, sad smile. “And that hit me. Because I realized—I wasn’t just angry. I was full of love for someone who wasn’t here to receive it anymore. And I had no idea what to do with it.”
He let that sit for a second, turning it over in his mind, feeling the truth of it settle deep in his bones.
“That’s… yeah.” Quentin exhaled, shaking his head slightly. “That’s exactly what it is.”
Sadie nodded, then looked back out the window. “Still hurts like hell, though.”
A quiet laugh escaped him. “Yeah. It really does.”
The snow was coming down harder now, thick, wet flakes splattering against the windshield and sticking stubbornly to the wipers. The road ahead had disappeared into a blur of white, and his truck’s heater was working overtime to keep the cold at bay.
Quentin squinted out at the swirling snow, gripping the wheel a little tighter. “Yeah, there’s no way we’re making it back in this,” he said, half-concerned, half-impressed by the storm’s intensity. “It might sound crazy, but the ranch is closer.”
From the passenger seat, Sadie slowly turned to face him, her expression as skeptical as ever. “Did you plan this?” she asked, arching a brow.
Quentin barked out a laugh. “Oh, absolutely. It’s been my lifelong dream to trap you in my truck during a blizzard and lure you to my ranch, where my abuelita, my mother, and my sister all live under one roof.
” He glanced at her, smirking. “Really sets the mood. Maybe we can sneak off and have some alone time in the pig pen while we’re at it. ”
“Stop talking dirty,” Sadie deadpanned, rolling her eyes. “You’re really getting me going over here. Nothing like the smell of livestock to light a fire.”
Quentin grinned. “Good to know you’re easy to please.”
“Don’t tell me we’re actually going to your ranch,” she muttered, rubbing her hands together before pressing them toward the warm air blasting from the vents.
“You got any better ideas?” he asked, shifting the truck into drive. “We can barely see ten feet ahead. It’s either the ranch or hypothermia.”
Sadie let out a long, dramatic sigh, slumping back in her seat. “Fine.”
Quentin smirked. “You love that word. Fine,” he mimicked her tone with exaggerated distaste. “Do you ever describe anything as incredible? Spectacular? Life-changing?”
She shot him a sideways glance, the corner of her lips tugging upward. “Not when you’re around.”
“Harsh. You wound me, Sadie.” He placed a hand over his chest. “But don’t worry. I’ll win you over. Just wait until you see my tractor collection.”
Sadie snorted. “Oh, I can hardly wait. I bet they’re even arranged by horsepower.”
“You’re damn right they are.”
The ranch wasn’t far, but it felt like miles away in more ways than one.
Delly was everywhere at the ranch. In the quiet hum of the kitchen, in the old family photos on the wall, in the empty chair at the dinner table.
Every corner of that house held echoes of her, reflections of a life that should still be there.
So every time he went back, he kept himself busy, working until his muscles ached, until exhaustion numbed the edges of everything. If he was moving, he wasn’t thinking. If he wasn’t thinking, he wasn’t feeling. But there was no avoiding it tonight.
Grief only exists where love once did, and love never truly leaves.
Sadie was right. That love had nowhere to land, curdling inside him, turning into something heavier, something sharp-edged and relentless. If he let himself think too long, he could feel it, thick as the snow outside.
Quentin tightened his grip on the wheel as the snow swallowed the road. He had one job right now: keep them moving forward. Everything else could come for him when they arrived.