Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Dylan didn’t sleep in the house. He’d tried on the first night, but ended up out on the veranda. Elvis kept guard badly.
He was used to sleeping outside. Had a snug hammock that he kept in his van to use whenever he felt like sleeping out.
It had kept him cozy on many a cool night.
He strung it between two of the posts at the back so he had a view up at Starlight Mountain, laying there watching as the sun went down, lighting up the craggy silhouette like a forest fire.
That night, however, he couldn’t sleep, so at about four in the morning he pulled on a black wool sweater and hiked up the jutting mountain ridges so familiar from childhood, and sat looking back at the house and the yard and the barn. Trying to see it for what it was, not everything it had been.
But it just made him think back to when they said Willow wasn’t coming back to school.
He remembered the feeling like a sudden loss of air from his body—something he’d never have admitted to a soul.
He wished he’d said something to her before she left.
Even just the apology that came so easily that afternoon but had stuck lodged in his throat when they were at high school.
Shame and self-disgust keeping the words locked in.
He would close his eyes at night and see the look of disappointment on her face after she’d thrown herself into the fight and he’d stood back doing nothing.
He tried instead to remember when she’d pleaded with him to change his dad’s mind, but that look was harder to hold on to.
The loss of her at school came with a feeling of foolishness that he was pining after something that was nothing. That he was missing something precious that wasn’t even his to lose.
When the sun rose at five, he walked slowly back to the house, Elvis at his heels, and went and saw the horses.
He didn’t think about anything much except doing his job.
But then at seven, Willow’s truck pulled up and against his better judgment he found himself smiling.