Twenty-Five | Brody
Twenty-Five
Brody
S eeing my mom was motivational—in that it motivated me to get my ass in gear and get the hell out of town. Thankfully, the line at the automotive shop moved quickly, and the repair was easy. There was still a handful of things that needed to be fixed on the truck, but soon, they would be no longer my concern. That would stay at the ranch, with everything else, while I headed back to Wyoming.
I filled up with enough gas to get back to the ranch, then headed home without telling anyone.
I knew that Jasmin would be expecting me to come back since that was what my note said, but honestly, I was doing her a favor at this point. She deserved better than someone like me who was a mess due to someone else’s negligence. But that was what addiction did to people, and I wasn’t about to have Jasmin be there as I worked through the traumatic feelings that had been brought to the surface again. No one needed to be around for that.
By the time I got home, the sun was starting to set, and I knew that I needed to check the reindeer. They were the only part of all of this that I was going to miss besides Jasmin. But I just had to teach my heart that it wasn’t meant to be and force myself to move on, just like I did when I lost my dad.
I was filling the last trough with food when I heard footsteps approaching. I looked up to find Jasmin bundled in a thick coat and wearing winter boots this time.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, returning my attention to the reindeer.
“I heard about what happened. People around town have been talking.”
I swallowed hard, forcing down the bile that threatened to rise as she approached me, stopping to scratch the reindeer’s heads along the way.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She sighed heavily and leaned against the fence post, staring at me.
“Whatever you’re here for, just let it be. I don’t want to talk. I’m not interested in small-town gossip. I don’t want any part of it. I’m planning to finish up the few things I need to here, then get the hell back to Wyoming.” I brushed my hands on the front of my jeans and found her still staring at me, this time with tears in her eyes.
“Don’t do this, Brody.”
“Do what?” I threw my hands in the air and stared at her.
The reindeer moved out of the way, leaving an open space between us.
“This—Brody. This whole I’ve gotta get out of here because I don’t want to deal with my problems crap.”
“You don’t know shit about my problems,” I bellowed.
I expected her to flinch or back away, but instead, she stepped closer to me.
“I do know shit about your problems because you trusted me enough to confide in me. And now I’m here to help you with them and wish that you would trust me enough to allow me to be there for you.”
“Be there for me for what? Huh? Nothing happened.”
She tipped her head back in frustration, a slight growl escaping her throat.
“You are so incredibly stubborn and hardheaded. I know that you ran into your mom today.”
“Yeah, and no one told you to come out here and try to fix something you have no idea how to.”
“I’m not the one who hurt you, Brody,” she said, jabbing her finger into my chest. We were only inches apart now, and I wanted nothing more than to pull her into me. To allow myself to fall apart the way I desperately wanted to.
“No, but I’m about to be the one who hurt you.” I sighed heavily and took a step back. My shoulders slumped with the weight of everything, and I knew she could see through me. “You deserve better than this, Jasmin. You deserve someone who will treat you right and can take care of you the right way. Someone like Sam, who brings you coffee without you having to ask and who already knows your order.”
“You really need to let that go.” She scrunched her face. “Sam is amazing, and everyone loves him because he’s so easy to love. But he’s not a threat, Brody, and you know that. Now stop deflecting and deal with what’s really bothering you.”
“I’m not deflecting. You are.”
“Real mature.” She nodded, leaning in to rub her gloved fingers across my cheek. “Talk to me.”
“I don’t want to.”
“I know. But you need to. Brody, you saw your mother for the first time in fifteen years. People could hear you yelling from across the street. That’s how I know it didn’t go well. Tell me what happened.”
I wanted to push her away and insist that she leave me alone, but I also couldn’t deny that her forcing her way in to be there for me meant something.
I scrubbed a hand down my face and leaned against the fence post that I knew wasn’t broken.
“I didn’t know she worked there. I was expecting the old man, then suddenly she was there,” I started, looking at her as she stood beside me. “She said she’s been clean for five years and that she’s never stopped loving me, but I just couldn’t see past the anger. Then she said that she hoped we could learn how to live around each other now that I was back in Sugarplum Falls, and that did it. It set me off in a way I can’t even describe. After that, I wanted to get as far away from here as I could. Away from her.”
“I can’t even imagine how hard that was for you. I wish I had the right words to say, but I don’t. I haven’t experienced a loss like that before. Or had the weight of grief consume me. But Brody, it is absolutely okay to be angry as long as you work through it. You can’t allow yourself to sit in it forever. That’s not good for you.”
“I know.” I swallowed back the emotion that was rising, not wanting her to see me fall apart again. “I don’t know how to move past my anger toward her. It’s all that I feel when I think about what happened to my dad or how I spent five years basically raising myself after he died because she wasn’t there. She was physically there but checked out long before he passed.”
“Anger is an important part of the grieving process. You have to work through it, along with the sadness. If you don’t, it’ll never get easier. And no matter how much time passes, you’re not going to get over your dad dying. That loss will forever be a part of you because he was such a big part of you.”
I sniffled as a rogue tear slid down my cheek.
“I was going to wait until Christmas, but I have something for you,” she said, extending her hands to take mine.
“You didn’t have to get me anything.”
“I know.” She smiled at me over her shoulder as she led us out of the barn and out into the chilly air as we headed to her SUV.
“I was at Sugarplum Gifts today, looking for something to add above the bench where Santa and Mrs. Claus sit. While Hadley was showing me options, I found this in a pile of things they had recently taken from Mr. Secton. He owned the pawn shop in town but recently closed it so he could retire.”
I looked at the brown gift bag in her hand, filled with tissue paper on top.
“I don’t know much about it,” she said cautiously as she handed it to me. “But I knew I had to get it as soon as I saw it.”
I held the bag in one hand and pulled the tissue paper out. My breath got stuck in my throat as I spotted the baseball glove and ball inside.
“Is this?” I asked, unable to complete the sentence. It wasn’t like I had told her what the set my dad had given me looked like.
She held the bag as I pulled both out, my eyes immediately filling with tears as I read the note from my dad.
She wrapped her arms around my waist and held me as I cried, no longer able to hold it in even if I wanted to.