Chapter 39
Tucker
Haru apologizes again for causing so much trouble, then slinks off. Autumn’s dad checks her over one more time, barely looking her in the eye, then leaves with Nessa.
Then Hanna takes off with Easton. I want to run after them, to avoid what I know comes next.
It’s just Autumn and me.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have left without you, and I definitely shouldn’t have left my AirTag behind.”
The apology feels like a body blow. She’s right, of course. She shouldn’t have done either of those things. But they were small missteps, unlike mine.
I didn’t figure out who was responsible for the sabotage and stop them before things could become potentially lethal.
I got distracted by my letter from my grandfather. By this wedding. And most of all, by Autumn.
I let my feelings for Autumn put everything that mattered in danger: Autumn, Hanna, the barn, and by extension the business, our land, Hanna’s happiness.
“Tucker,” Autumn says.
I don’t know what she sees, I only know that every muscle in my body is ratcheted tight. I only know that my jaw’s clenched so hard it hurts, that my teeth ache. I know my breath hitches in and out like it’s coming through a bent straw.
“I can’t do this,” someone says.
It’s me. I said it.
“Tucker, you’re really upset right now. We all are. Let’s get some sleep, and then we can talk about this—”
“I should have known. I did know. I can be your bodyguard, but I can’t be your—whatever this is. Whatever we did.”
“Tucker. Don’t do this now—let’s get through the wedding, and then you and I can talk this through—”
“Obviously I’ll keep providing security to you,” I say.
“And if you need me to keep up the dating pretense through the end of the weekend, to keep things simple for Uncle Bernie and whoever, I can do that.” My voice is very steady, even though nothing inside me feels steady at all.
It feels jerky, like someone’s wedged a rod into the gear mechanism of my being.
“Let’s talk about this. Let’s talk it through. I know it must have been hard for you, what happened tonight, in light of— I know you must feel—”
“It’s not about that,” I say sharply. Because the last thing I want right now, the last thing I can handle with all the words scrambled in my head and the violent swirl in my chest is spreading my pain out for her. Talking about what happened with Elizabeth. Or how I fucked up again.
“Tucker, please don’t walk away from this. I think we’re good together.” She takes a deep breath and meets my eyes, chin steady. “I love you.”
I stare at her, paralyzed. The silence stretches. Finally I manage, voice rough, “I’m still a mess, Autumn.”
“You had a terrible thing happen to you. You’re still working through it. And tonight must have been awful. Triggering.”
I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to feel this, and I don’t want her to have to feel it with me.
“We can work through it. Together. We can be together, and you can get help, and I can get help, because obviously I need to take a good, hard look at some things in my life, too—”
There she goes again, the eternal optimist, sure that she can make everything okay.
“That’s not what I want,” I say, because it’s true, because it’s the most true thing: I don’t want her to suffer any more because of me.
“I don’t want you to feel like you have to be the one who holds it all together.
The whole one. You’ve done that too many times for too many people. It’s not fair to you.”
She looks like I’ve struck her, but I can’t stop, because she needs to know.
“I don’t want you to hold me up or fix me or any of that. I have to learn how to believe that I’m not the only thing standing between the people I love and disaster. Because until I do that…” I have to force the rest of the words out past the lump in my throat. “I don’t think I can love.”