Chapter 2
LOVE IS LOVE
The service concludes. Both Mom and Dad take the podium. Mom sobs. Dad sheds a couple of his own tears. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him cry. It hurts.
They sing Tate’s praise—a praise that, clearly, is due.
I wish I had something to share. But my love for my brother is tainted by a stain of hate not even his death has the power to scrub clean.
People start to stand, but I don’t. I watch the crowd merge together in waves of conversation carried exclusively by memories of him. The faces are mostly familiar, even though nearly twelve years have passed. It’s like a high school reunion in here.
That’s the thing about small towns. People rarely leave.
Sometimes I wonder what life would have been like if I’d stayed. If I hadn’t chased my dreams. If I hadn’t caught them.
Would she still be mine?
Would she have left me for him anyway?
She saw him first, after all.
Fuck. I need to unwind. This is all too much.
“Holt!” As soon as Mom says my name, I feel the weight of a hundred pairs of eyes. I’m used to the weight of an arena full of eyes, and somehow this is heavier. Suffocating.
I stand. Mom connects with me hard, her arms closing around me.
I look up and my eyes connect with hers. Warm honey steeped in grief. No less beautiful than all the times I’ve gazed into them before, even glassy with the loss of her husband. My brother.
The little color in her face drains. I force my gaze away. Force myself to swallow the years that burn between us.
I never fucking stopped loving her. Even when she chose him. Became his.
Why the fuck had he been out on that ice all alone?
“I’m sorry, Mom.” The words are gruff, and I give Mom another squeeze before I release her. “I wish I could stay.” It’s a lie. We both know it. “I—uh—I don’t have a lot of time.”
As though my eyes just can’t help themselves, they drift back to her. To Faye. She’s holding the little girl again. Owen, Tate’s boy hovers close. Protective.
His eyes are on me.
Acid climbs inside my chest. I force myself to swallow it down.
Mom’s gaze follows mine. She slides her lips together as she pats my chest knowingly.
“He loved you so much, Holt.” Her eyes flick between mine.
“He loved her, too.” My jaw hardens and her fingers twist in my jacket, holding me in place.
“He loved her from the first moment he saw her, Holt. Just like you.”
“Jesus, Mom.” I gently pry her grip from my jacket. “I’m not doing this.”
“He tried not to.” Mom shrugs a helpless shrug. “But love is love, Holt.”
I step backward, toward the door. “I’ll see you—uh—soon.”
“Holt.”
“Love you, Mom.” I give her a small wave. “Tell Dad—” I don’t finish before I step out into the cold.
I suck in desperate breaths of air so cold it burns. Then I run for my truck. I’d been planning to stay the night, but not anymore.