Chapter 31 Wrung Out
The drive back to Ridgeview felt longer than the drive out.
Rain streaked across the windshield in thin, uneven lines, turning the world into gray shapes.
The heater hummed low, but I barely noticed the warmth.
My thoughts stayed behind in Lincoln Cemetery, circling the stones and the things I’d said to them.
My cat lay curled somewhere deep inside my chest, unusually quiet.
Even she seemed wrung out, as if the weight of the day had settled on both of us.
I stopped once for gas outside town. Afterward I sat in the parking lot with the engine idling, staring blankly at my phone while the rain ticked softly against the glass.
Three unread texts from Jackson.
8:14 a.m. Hey. Just checking in. You okay?
9:03 a.m. Talk to me when you can.
9:27 a.m. Harper.
My thumb hovered over the screen for a second before I locked the phone and tossed it onto the passenger seat.
I couldn’t do it today. Couldn’t explain the hollow feeling behind my ribs. Couldn’t explain why grief felt worse now than it had in years. Or why seeing my own gravestone had left something inside me quietly unraveling all afternoon.
I returned the rental at the lot and took a rideshare home instead. The driver let me out at the corner, and I walked the half-block to the house with my hood pulled low against the rain. Halfway up the sidewalk, unease prickled across the back of my neck.
I slowed and glanced behind me.
The street sat empty under the gray afternoon light. Rainwater streamed along the curb while tree branches swayed overhead.
Nothing.
Still, the feeling lingered. The same prickling I'd felt leaving pack territory weeks ago, that same low animal warning that said eyes were tracking me from somewhere I couldn't locate.
My cat stirred uneasily beneath my skin.
I stepped off the sidewalk and crossed the street instead of heading straight home, pretending to adjust my hood while I checked reflections in parked car windows. Rooftops. Tree line.
Nothing. No footsteps. No visible tail. No movement where there shouldn’t be movement.
But the prickle refused to fade.
I was too hollowed out to trust my instincts completely, so I marked it as something to revisit later. The porch boards were dark with rain, and my sneakers left wet shapes on the floor as I let myself in through the back door.
The house was empty. Mira had a Friday lecture and Talia was at the studio until late.
I went straight to my room, peeled out of the wet clothes, and pulled on a soft sweatshirt and the oldest pair of shorts I owned.
Then I sat on the floor with my back against the bed, knees drawn up, and stared at the cactus on the windowsill. The yellow flower was still holding on.
I thumbed my phone awake. The screen was full of him.
Jackson: text me when you get a sec
Jackson: just want to know you're alive
Jackson: okay. starting to get genuinely concerned now
I read them, then set the phone face-down on the rug. The room slowly darkened as the rain kept falling, and still I didn’t move.
It was almost eleven when the phone buzzed again. I picked it up.
11:02 p.m. Jackson: I'm coming over if I don't hear from you by tomorrow.
I read it twice.
11:03 p.m. Jackson: not a threat. mostly
Despite myself, the corner of my mouth twitched faintly. That was the text that finally got through where the softer ones hadn’t. Because I believed him. He absolutely would show up at my house tomorrow if I kept ignoring him. For the first time all day, I didn't feel quite so alone.
I still didn’t answer. Instead I went to bed and slept badly.
Saturday morning arrived gray and cold. I had skipped practice again.
I’d texted Coach yesterday about a family emergency and told him I’d be back Monday.
The night had dragged, and I woke up feeling wrung out, staying in bed until almost ten before I finally dragged myself upright and reached for my phone.
Me: Alive.
The reply came inside a minute.
Jackson: Good.
Jackson: I was getting close to driving over.
I almost smiled. Almost.
Me: I figured.
Jackson: You okay?
My first instinct was to deflect. Lie. Make a joke and shut it down.
Instead I typed the truth.
Me: Not really.
A longer pause this time.
Jackson: Want to talk about it?
Me: No.
He didn’t push.
Jackson: Okay.
The simplicity of it loosened something in my chest.
We texted in small pieces throughout the day, short replies at first that gradually grew less short.
The words came back to me slowly, like thawing fingers.
Jackson complained about Jason almost setting the grill on fire and sent a blurry picture of Rick asleep on the couch with his mouth open.
Small things. Normal things. And slowly, without realizing it was happening, I started answering with more than one-word replies.
My cat stretched lazily beneath my skin every time his name lit up my phone.
By midafternoon, Jackson had clearly realized I wasn’t myself.
Jackson: You sound tired.
Me: I am.
Jackson: Bad night?
Me: Bad day.
A beat.
Me: Anniversary of my mom and sister.
Me: I don't really want to talk about it.
The three dots appeared, disappeared, appeared again.
Jackson: Okay.
That was all. No follow?up. No soft sympathy. Just acceptance. And then:
Jackson: We’re having a small bonfire tonight. Backyard. Just the guys, Lia, and me. You don’t have to talk. You can sit by the fire and say nothing and I’ll be right there.
Jackson: Or I’ll come sit with you. Your call.
I hesitated. Part of me still wanted to curl deeper into silence and stay there for another week. The idea of people felt too loud. Too bright. But the idea of Jackson…
Me: Yeah. Okay.
Jackson: I’ll pick you up in twenty.
The evening had turned cold, so I pulled on torn black jeans, a red tank top, and a gray hoodie. I didn’t bother with makeup or trying to fix my hair, just left it loose around my shoulders.
Fifteen minutes later I heard the engine before the lights swept across the window. I grabbed my jacket and headed out before I could change my mind.
Jackson was already climbing out of the driver’s seat when I stepped outside. The moment he saw me, something in his expression eased, a relief so real it landed hard in my chest.
“Hey,” I said.
He crossed the distance in a few long strides and pulled me straight into his arms.
“I missed you,” he murmured into my hair, rubbing his cheek against me.
I didn’t realize how much I needed his hug until it happened. My arms wrapped around him as I pressed my face against his chest and inhaled. God, he smelled good. Woodsmoke and pine and that particular warmth that was just him. My cat soaked it up like she'd been starved for it.
The hollow place inside me didn’t disappear. But it loosened around the edges.
When he finally leaned back, his eyes searched my face, taking in the loose hair, the dark circles beneath my eyes. His thumb brushed beneath one eye before he tipped my chin up and kissed me once. Slow. Warm. Careful in a way that made my chest ache.
He pulled back.
“You ready?” he asked softly.
“Yeah.”
He opened the passenger door for me, waited until I was in, then jogged around to the driver’s side.
The drive toward the gated pack community passed mostly with Jackson talking and me listening.
Tonight he seemed to understand that was all I had in me, so he carried the conversation instead.
He told me about Rick trying to chop wood shirtless despite the cold, and complained about Jason buying “artisan marshmallows,” whatever those were.
At one point he reached across the center console and took my hand, his thumb brushing slow circles over my knuckles as he kept talking.
Outside, rain blurred Ridgeview into streaks of gold. Inside, Jackson's voice slowly pulled me back toward something that almost felt human again.
The bonfire was already going when we got there. Orange light flickered across the backyard and spilled over the tall wooden fence. Someone had dragged out camping chairs and blankets. The sharp smell of smoke hung in the cold night air.
Rick looked up first when we came through the side gate.
“Well,” he announced, pointing his beer bottle at us, “look who finally stopped ghosting society.”
“Be nice,” Jackson said.
“I am being nice.”
“You called her emotionally haunting.”
Rick considered that. “Affectionately.”
Despite myself, the corner of my mouth twitched.
Jason sat sprawled in a chair with a skewer of aggressively charred marshmallows.
“I told him if he kept texting you every twenty minutes you were legally allowed to file a restraining order.”
“I was concerned,” Jackson said, no shame in it.
“You were pathetic,” Lia corrected from her chair beside the fire.
Jackson smiled, his hand warm at the small of my back as he guided me to the empty chair next to his. I settled in and stretched my hands toward the flames while he sat so close his thigh pressed against mine, reaching for the bag of marshmallows by the cooler.
“You hungry?” he asked.
“I’m evaluating my options.”
“You’re getting fed anyway.”
Jackson seemed to have developed an obsession with feeding me.
He slid a marshmallow carefully onto the skewer and held it over the coals where it would actually toast instead of combust.
“You’re ruining your marshmallow,” he informed Rick, glancing sideways at the flaming mess on the end of the stick.
“I will not ruin them. I caramelize them.”
“You set them on fire and eat the carbon.”
“Maillard reaction,” Rick said with the confidence of a man who had learned a new word and intended to weaponize it. He pulled the stick back, the marshmallow still actively on fire, then blew it out with a proud look.
“Perfect.”
Jackson ignored Rick completely and handed me the perfectly toasted marshmallow, having already blown on it so it wouldn’t burn my mouth. It was good, and the quiet satisfaction on his face afterward made it clear he took real pride in getting it right.