Chapter 9 #5
“Still blamed me for it.”
“You were laughing instead of helping him.”
“Because it was funny.”
“He threatened to whoop your ass with the cast.”
Dean grins. “There’s my brother.”
The words land harder than they should, and I keep strumming.
The night air moves cool across my skin while something ugly and tight inside my chest loosens a fraction. Silence stretches between us except for the guitars.
Then Dean says quietly, “You don’t gotta keep punishing yourself forever, Garrett.”
Nobody calls me that anymore.
Not outside this town.
Not outside the family.
The name settles somewhere deep.
I keep my eyes on the yard because I can’t look at him right now. “I ain’t punishing myself.”
“Bullshit.”
My jaw tightens, but Dean keeps talking anyway. “You think Hannah would’ve wanted this?” he asks. “You wandering around half dead for years?”
Pain crawls sharp beneath my ribs. “Don’t.”
“I’m serious.”
“I said… don’t.”
Dean’s strumming slows but doesn’t stop. “You’re alive, man,” he says quietly. “I know some days you probably wish you weren’t, but you are.”
I stop playing. The strings hum once before fading.
For a long moment, neither of us speaks.
Wind moves through the trees. Somewhere down the road, a dog barks.
Finally, I look down at the guitar in my hands.
My fingers are resting against the strings.
It feels like remembering I used to be human before the world hollowed me out.
I lean against the railing, pulling a cigarette from my pocket and lighting it, the familiar burn settling something in me just enough to breathe.
Dean leans beside me, bumping his shoulder into mine. “We good?” he asks, casually.
“Yeah.” I take a drag and exhale slowly.
His brows lift. “You know you can talk to me, right? With words or with that damn guitar. Either way, I’ll listen.”
I stare out over the yard—we used to talk about everything—and let the silence settle between us. It’s heavy, weighed down by the weight of my thoughts because I can’t shake the hold my past has over Ruby or me.
Dean continues to study me for too damn long, as if he’s got me figured out. And I fucking hate that he does. I also don’t like this fucking conversation anymore.
The noise from inside drifts back out onto the porch—laughter, the clink of bottles, someone calling for my mom from the kitchen—and it pulls me back into the moment, back into the reality of where I am and why everyone is gathered.
That is why I’m here.
I glance through the screen door, catching a glimpse of my mom moving through the crowd, her smile still bright, still steady, like nothing in the world could shake it today, and my dad stands nearby, one hand wrapped around a beer, listening to someone talk, nodding along like he always does, saying just enough without ever needing to say too much.
They look happy, like they took every hit life threw and still came out the other side together.
My chest feels heavy, but it’s not the same kind of weight as before.
My brother shifts beside me. “You plan on sticking around awhile?” he asks, casually, with a cautious look.
“For a bit,” I answer.
He nods. “That’s enough.” He heads back inside, leaving me out there alone for a second longer.
I sit there, staring out over the yard, the fading light stretching shadows across the grass.
Then I push to my feet because I need to quiet everything going on in my head.
I step back inside just long enough to grab the keys off the counter.
“Gonna make a beer run,” I tell my mom as I pass through the kitchen.
She turns, wiping her hands on a towel, already mid-conversation with someone else. “Be careful,” she says automatically, smiling like she always does.
“Always.” I head out before anyone can stop me.
The truck door creaks open the same way it always has, the seat worn in just enough to fit right, as though it remembers every mile it’s ever carried.
The engine turns over with a low rumble, settling into that steady idle that feels grounded and solid, nothing like the aggressive growl of my bike, but familiar in its own way.
I pull out slowly, gravel crunching under the tires, headlights cutting through the early evening as I make my way down the road.
The town hasn’t changed much, with open land, houses with room to spare, and the quiet that settles in your body if you let it. There’s no constant noise, chaos, or distractions. Just space, and out here, space means there’s nowhere to hide from your own head.
I pass the old gas station, lights flickering on as the sky dims. The diner down the road still has the same sign out front, the one that used to buzz faintly when it got too cold.
A couple of kids ride past on bikes, laughing, not a care in the world.
For a second, it feels like nothing ever changed.
It is as if time stood still here while everything else moved on.
Then I make the turn. I don’t think about it.
Didn’t plan it. My hands just… do it. And I know where I am before I even see it.
The house isn’t there anymore. It is just a slab of concrete, cracked at the edges, weeds pushing through as if they’ve been trying to reclaim it for years.
The lot looks smaller than I remember. Or maybe I’m just bigger now, built out of miles and bad choices, and everything from back then feels like it belongs to a different man.
But my mind fills it in anyway. I see the whole damn place as though it’s still standing, like I could pull into the driveway and hear her footsteps on the porch if I sit here long enough, and it makes me want to put my fist through the steering wheel.
My mind fills it in anyway—the porch, the door, the windows I put in myself, every board and nail I drove by hand, built for her.
For us. My grip tightens on the wheel, knuckles going white.
Because it’s not just the house I see. It’s that night.
My throat tightens, and breathing gets harder, like the air has been sucked out of the cab, and I’m left choking on memories I can’t outrun.
I hit the gas, engine roaring louder as I push past it, hoping speed can carry me out of it before it swallows me whole.
But it follows.
I hit the gas, driving faster until the road bends toward the church and the graveyard beside it, which is quiet, still, and untouched by everything else.
Pulling in slowly this time, tires crunch over gravel, the truck coming to a stop.
The church sits dark and quiet, windows reflecting the last of the day like tired eyes.
The graveyard beside it looks the same as it always has, rows of stone, patches of grass, a few crooked markers leaning as if they’re exhausted from standing.
The engine idles low and steady while my hands stay on the wheel, my head dropping forward as I sit here, trying to get a grip on myself, on the way my chest keeps locking up, and the past keeps finding its fingers around my throat like it’s got a claim.
I sit here a while longer, trying to breathe.
It takes longer than it should, but eventually, I push the door open.
I step out into cooler, quieter air, as if the world itself knows to lower its voice in a place like this.
I move through the rows, boots pressing into the ground, each step heavier than the last. I don’t need to look for her because I know exactly where she is.
Her headstone comes into view. It’s simple, clean, her name carved into stone, and beneath it the one we never got to give our daughter.
My chest caves in, knees hit the ground before I can stop them, and hands press into the dirt.
Everything I’ve been holding back crashes in—hard and sudden, like a fist to my sternum.
It steals the air out of my lungs, makes my hands shake against the dirt, and my throat burn as though I swallowed glass.
“I’m so fuckin’ sorry,” I mutter, voice breaking under the weight of it.
I bow forward, shoulders tight, breath uneven, years of grief, anger, and guilt pressing down on me all at once.
I don’t know how long I stay like that. Time doesn’t move the same here. I draw in a breath that doesn’t feel as if it’s tearing me apart, enough to lift my head just a fraction.
I feel a presence settle nearby and look up to see a little girl standing there, her curly blonde hair catching the fading light and her bright eyes. In her hand is a single daisy with white petals and a yellow center.
Grief presses against my ribs all over again. That was Hannah’s favorite.
The little girl holds it out to me without a word.
I take it carefully. “Thank you,” I say quietly.
She smiles. And in that smile there’s something that cuts through the dark just enough to remind me it doesn’t own everything.
Then a voice calls out. “Ruby!”
The name hits me like a bullet.
The girl grins, turns, and takes off toward the sound, disappearing between the stones.
I stay on my knees with the daisy in my hand, the name echoing in my skull, and it feels like something just lined up two pieces of my life without asking permission.