Chapter 24
JAKE
The next morning, I pulled into my driveway and put the truck in park. There were so many things I needed to do before I could drop into my bed, but I couldn’t fathom moving from this truck to do any of them. So I sat there, my hands on the wheel, working up the energy to get out.
After staying all night at the hospital on the couch next to my mom’s bed, I had a crick in my neck that refused to ease up.
My eyes felt like they’d been filled with gravel.
And for the second night in a row, I hadn’t slept a wink.
I couldn’t. There’d been too many thoughts whirling like a tornado in my head for me to sleep.
I’d showered at the hospital, but other than an old shirt of Cade’s he’d brought for me, I still wore the clothes from the campout.
Eventually, I stumbled out of my truck, tired and dirty and wanting nothing more than to see my bed, when Shelby stepped out of my house and onto my porch, her phone in her hand, looking every bit like she belonged there.
Her hair was curly and wet and thrown up high in a ponytail, out of her face. Just like how I’d seen her a thousand times growing up. Her feet were bare, and she wore her gray joggers and a white t-shirt—probably what she slept in—and I’d never seen a sight as beautiful as that.
As beautiful as her.
It was enough to stop me in my tracks. The kind of sight that had the power to completely change my life’s trajectory at one glance.
It was her.
It had always been her.