25. Detonation #2
"You're living here? What happened to Pearl?" he says. His voice is tight.
I get out of the truck and make my way to the guest house and unlock the door. I flip on the light, and Tyler comes in behind me.
"Pearl has been dating Dave for the last eight months. I was not going to stay there while they kissed on the couch.” I made a face remembering that night.
“I moved in here so they could date alone. Falon offered, and I had planned for it to be temporary. She needed help with the restoration." I pause. "I've been helping."
“It looks like you’ve been helping with more than the restorations." He bit back, still looking like he’d rather deck me than listen to our dating story.
“You were supposed to watch out for her. That was the deal.”
“I know.”
His jaw tightens, and when he speaks again, his voice drops low enough that it barely carries past the space between us.
“You had eight years before that.”
“I should have told you the second I knew it was real.”
The silence stretches tight between us.
“I know you see her as your little sister, but she’s not just your little sister anymore. She is a woman and has her own ideas about her life. Ideas that may or may not fit into you, keeping her the same.” I said, knowing the last few words were a little pointed.
He looks around. “She built this?" he asks.
"Well, kind of. The guest house was mostly done; she’s been working on the main house. She's building it. It's not finished."
Then he turns to me, and the tiredness in his face is bone-deep. "I don't know how to do this, Bo. You're my best friend. She's my sister. And the two of you just—" He shakes his head. "What am I supposed to do with that?"
"I don’t know what to say."
"No kidding, that’s why you didn’t trust me enough to tell me."
"No," I admit. "I didn't. And I'm sorry for that. Genuinely." I hold his eyes. "But I'm not sorry for loving her."
He looked at me for a long time. The night sounds drift through the open windows, crickets chirping, a horse snorting, and a few random fireworks still peppering the night.
"I need to think," he says finally.
"I understand, but this will be a decision Falon and I make."
"I'm going home." He picks up his bag. "Don't—" He stops. Tries again. "Give me tonight."
"Yeah," I say. "Okay."
He nods once, the same tight nod he gave me on the dance floor, and turns toward the Williams house next door. I watch him go until he’s home.
And Tyler is home. Home and in one piece. Kind of.
That's the thing I have to hold onto right now.
I pull out my phone to call Falon.
Then I stop.
I know what I did. I walked away, leaving her standing there alone. I walked out on her, leaving her to wonder. The last thing I wanted her to feel was alone, or like we had made a decision without her.
My chest tightens. It had nothing to do with PTSD and everything to do with knowing the woman he loves paid the price for my choices. Rowdy licks my hand when leaning doesn’t get my attention.
I reach for my phone again.
That's when I hear it.
The soft crunch of gravel outside. Footsteps on the path, slow and careful. I go still. Rowdy's ears come up, but he doesn't move.
Through the screen door, I can see her.
Falon is standing just outside the guest house, close enough that she could have heard everything. Her hair is still down from the dance, her little handbag over one shoulder, and she's holding the brown bear from the ring toss against her chest with both hands.
Her eyes find mine through the screen, and I know immediately. I know by the set of her shoulders and the look on her face and the way she's holding that bear so tight her knuckles are white.
She heard us.
I don't know how much. I don't know what pieces she caught and what she missed, and from the look on her face, I'm not sure it matters right now. Whatever she heard was enough.
I push open the screen door.
"Falon—"
"I came to check on you." Her voice is a painful whisper. She's holding it together by sheer will. "I was going to knock."
"How long were you standing there?"
She looks at me for a long moment. Her chin is steady, but her eyes are full of hurt.
"Long enough," she says.
"Whatever you heard?—"
"Bo." She says my name quietly, and it stops me. "I'm tired. It's been a long night." She takes one small step back. "Go to sleep. We'll talk tomorrow."
"Falon, I need you to hear the whole?—"
"Tomorrow." She holds up one hand. "Please."
I watch her turn and walk toward the farmhouse. She just walks up her porch steps, pushes inside, and the light in her kitchen goes out a minute later.
I stand in the doorway for a long time after that.
Rowdy leans into my leg.
I look down at my phone. Pull up her name. Stare at it.
Then I put it back in my pocket, because she asked for it tonight and she has earned the right to have it, and because some things can't be fixed in a text message at midnight.
But I know what she heard.
She heard a partial version of the truth.
Stripped of context. Stripped of the whole conversation.
She thinks the summer was an obligation I should have come clean about sooner.
She thinks I was watching out for her because Tyler asked me to.
She doesn't know the rest.
And tonight, she doesn't want to.
I go inside and sit on the edge of the bed in the dark, and Rowdy puts his head in my lap, and we stay like that for a long time, the summer night coming through the window, the last few fireworks going off somewhere in the distance, and the farmhouse next door quiet and still.
Tomorrow, I tell myself.
Tomorrow I'll fix it.
I just hope she'll let me.