Chapter 54
The engine turns over roughly, like it’s reluctant to help me leave.
For a second, I sit in the driver’s seat, hands gripping the wheel as I stare at the dark shape of the main house. The porch light is still on, casting a warm, golden halo over the steps where Teagan told me she loves me… And then told me to leave.
My bag rests heavy on the passenger seat. In it, Rosie’s journal and two photographs, the sum total of the pieces of me that matter. I thought I’d left this feeling buried six feet under Tennessee soil a year and a half ago.
I slip the Bronco into reverse and ease backward. The gravel crunches beneath the tires, and it breaks me. It’s the same damn sound…
The same god-awful crunch of rubber and stone from the day I pulled away from the cemetery.
The sky had been gray that afternoon, clouds hanging low and swollen like they couldn’t decide whether to rain.
I remember staring in the rearview mirror as long as I could, watching the cluster of people beside the fresh mound of dirt dwindle.
I left Rosie in the ground and drove away because the world expected me to. Tonight, I leave Teagan in that house because she asked me to. In some way, it feels worse. Rosie didn’t choose to leave me. Teagan did.
My throat tightens as the ranch disappears behind a bend in the drive. The barn, fencing, and stretch of pasture washed silver by moonlight, all of it fading into shadows. I don’t look back again. I can’t.
The country road into town is nearly void of cars. The mountains loom ahead like dark sentinels against the horizon, their outlines jagged beneath a thin wash of starlight. The night is clear, brutally so. Every star we slept under sharp in the sky.
Tears slide down my face without permission, silent and hot.
I don’t bother wiping them away. They track along my jaw and drip off my chin, falling into the collar of my shirt.
My hands tighten around the wheel as another sob threatens to break loose, but I swallow it down.
I’ve always been good at swallowing things—truth, grief, love… and whiskey..
The town limits sign flashes by, and Livingston greets me with dim streetlights and empty sidewalks.
Store fronts are dark, their windows black and empty of life.
I drive aimlessly, turning down streets without thinking, letting instinct steer me.
A neon glow flickers before me, drawing my attention.
The Dew Drop.
The sign buzzes faintly, the red-and-blue tubing sputtering in tired pulses. One of the letters cuts out for half a second before blazing back to life. The light spills onto the surrounding brick and pavement in jittery flashes, like it’s trying to get my attention.
Come in.
You know you want to.
I slow without meaning to, my eyes fix on the wooden door, and I hear all the promises it has tucked behind it.
We have exactly what you need.
Something to quiet that noise.
Something to blur those edges.
Something to make all that pain go away.
My chest tightens as I remember the last time I let that door close behind me and how easy it was to slide onto a stool, trading my thoughts for a bottle.
I drive past it, making it only halfway down the block before turning around. The SUV rolls to the curb, like it’s being pulled by a rope. I park crooked and kill the engine before staring blindly at the neon glow reflecting off my windshield.
You don’t have to feel like this.
The door creaks when I pull it open, the sound swallowed almost immediately by low country music and the quiet hum of conversation. Each step deliberate and measured, I head straight for the bar. I saddle up to the first empty seat at the bar, and the vinyl squeaks under my weight.
The bartender with a graying beard and tired eyes glances over. “What’ll it be?”
“Whiskey.” My throat feels like sandpaper, the word scratching all the way up. “Whatever you’ve got.”
He nods once, and then he reappears with a bottle seconds later. The amber liquid catches the light as he pours it into a shot glass, the smoky, spicy smell hitting me before he even finishes. He slides it across the counter, stopping inches from my hand.
I stare at it. It looks harmless, innocent even.
Just a drink. Just one. I can almost feel it, the burn and warmth spreading through my chest, temporarily dulling everything sharp inside me.
My hands move before my brain fully catches up, and I wrap my fingers around the glass.
It’s cool against my skin. I lift it slowly, and the far-too-familiar scent curls into my nostrils.
My lips part, and the rim of the glass hovers just short of touching them.
I take a deep breath and close my eyes, and in the darkness behind my eyelids, I see them: Rosie and Teagan. This is not how I honor the too-short life Rosie got to live. The man Teagan fell in love with didn’t hide at the bottom of a bottle.
They would both be so disappointed in me…
I slam the shot glass onto the counter as a breathy sob tears out of me before I can stop it.
It shudders through my chest, raw and humiliating.
The sound cracks, sharp and loud, through the low hum of the bar, and the untouched amber liquid sloshes over the rim, spilling across my knuckles and dripping onto the wood.
“Fuck…” The word breathily trembles out of me as I drag a hand down my face, smearing tears and spilled liquor together.
I could still drink it. It’s right there. All I have to do is lift the glass. But if I do, I know exactly what happens next.
One becomes two.
Two becomes the bottom of the bottle.
And tomorrow morning, I wake up having lost myself.
Again.
“You okay?” the bartender asks with genuine concern.
I let go of the glass, and my voice unsure, I mutter, “I’m good.” He studies me for a second before reaching forward and quietly taking the shot away. He replaces it with a napkin, sliding it toward my damp hand.
“Long night?”
“You could say that.” I let out a hollow laugh. I pull a few bills—more than enough to cover a drink I didn’t take—from my wallet and set them on the counter.
I walk out into the cold Montana air with my chest aching and eyes burning. The neon sign flickers above me, begging for my return. But it’s not going to fool me with its empty promises. Not tonight.
Dear Rosie,
I don’t have anything figured out. I wish I did. I wish I were writing to you with clarity instead of this dull ache that won’t loosen its grip on my chest.
It feels like I’ve emptied myself somewhere along the highway between Montana and Tennessee. Like I left Montana, bleeding out on a gravel driveway under a porch light, and arrived back in Nashville as hollow as when I left.
Though it feels different, I didn’t think it was possible to experience this kind of loss twice.
When I buried you, the grief was a landslide—sudden, violent, and unavoidable. I couldn’t breathe for weeks. Death is cruel, but it’s clean in its finality… at least it is when you finally come to grips with it. This isn’t clean. Knowing she’s still a possibility walking this world is crushing.
I loved you with everything I had. I didn’t hold back. Maybe that’s why losing you hollowed me out so completely. And somewhere in the wreckage of that, maybe I decided that giving all of myself was too dangerous.
And then I met Teagan... She doesn’t live or love cautiously. She does both as if she’s standing in an open field during a storm, daring the sky to do its worst. Being near her makes me want to be braver than I am. But, apparently, not brave enough…
What I’m realizing—too late, maybe—is that I haven’t been afraid of choosing between you and her. I’ve been afraid of choosing myself and owning every version of who I’ve been. Of saying, this is the man I am, even when the edges aren’t flattering.
I don’t know whether she’ll ever give me the chance to try again or even if I deserve it. But I do know loving her woke something up in me that grief had put to sleep. Giving me the courage to feel and teaching me to love again. And even in this pain, I’m grateful for that.
I hope, wherever you are, you understand that.
For what it’s worth, I loved her enough to walk away when she asked me to, just as I would have done for you. I just hope that’s not the last loving thing I ever get to do for her.
Love Always,
Easton