Chapter 38 #2
“You don’t just love the parts of someone that are easy. You don’t get to say I’m in when things are light and happy and then check out when they get complicated. You love the grief. The mess. The history. You love the people they used to be and the people they’re still becoming.”
I feel my voice catch in my throat, but I don’t stop.
“And I look at you— all of you—and there isn’t a single part I’d walk away from. Not even this. Especially not this. I think the dark parts of you are just as worth loving as the rest.”
He closes his eyes, and I feel his shoulders fall, like something in him just let go.
“You talk about this like it’s the worst part of you,” I say quietly. “But it’s not. It’s the part that proves how much you loved them. The pain’s just what’s left of that love that didn’t have anywhere to go.”
He opens his eyes again, and they’re red and swollen. And then he leans in and kisses my forehead, holding his lips there like he’s trying to say something he doesn’t have words for.
Then he kisses my lips and when he pulls back, his hand comes up to rest on the side of my neck. He presses his forehead to mine.
“I don’t know what I did to deserve you,” he says quietly.
I kiss him again, with both hands on his face like I’m reminding him— you’re here, I’m here, we’re okay. Then I pull back just enough to look him in the eye.
“You’re just you,” I whisper. “That’s all you ever had to be for me.”
He blinks like he doesn’t know what to do with that, and maybe he doesn’t. But he doesn’t pull away. He just lets it land.
I hesitate, then ask, “Do you mind telling me how they…?”
My voice trails off. The word gets caught somewhere between my throat and my heart. I swallow hard and try again. “It’s just…you’ve never actually told me before.”
He lets out a long, slow breath, and I feel it in his chest, pressed against mine.
“It was a car accident,” he says finally, voice flat at first, like he’s said the words before but learned how to strip the feeling out of them.
He pauses. Like the next part is harder to say.
“We had this Christmas party at the clinic. There were going to be some top-tier vets there, ones you don’t really skip out on when they say they’re stopping by your clinic.”
He exhales again, eyes darting past me, not really focused on anything.
“Julia was five months pregnant at the time. She got tired pretty easily, especially in the evenings. She didn’t want to stay at the party all night, and she knew I couldn’t leave early, so she suggested driving herself. Said that way she could head home whenever she felt like it.”
His jaw tightens. His throat works against the words.
“I tried to talk her out of it. God, I tried. But trying to talk Julia out of anything was futile and useless. She was so damn stubborn.”
He shakes his head, tears filling his eyes again. His hand is still on the back of my neck, but it’s shaking now.
“So I followed her. Drove behind her, thinking maybe that was the compromise. Still with her. Just…not in the same car.”
I already feel my own eyes stinging. My stomach knots, because I know what’s coming. Not the details. But the pain. The pain that doesn’t live in the telling, but in the remembering.
“We came to this four-way stop about ten minutes from the clinic. It was her turn to go, so she did.”
His voice breaks completely.
“And this semi truck…out of fucking nowhere, it just blew through the intersection and slammed right into the side of her car.”
I can’t breathe. I don’t even realize I’ve stopped until my chest jerks and I suck in a shaky inhale.
“I watched it happen,” he says, barely getting the words out. “From the goddamn stop sign. I was right there. I saw everything.”
He looks down, more tears streaming down his cheeks.
“It was snowing. I remember that. The road was covered in ice. Slippery as hell. I remember getting out of the car and screaming. Calling 911. Someone else saw it too and pulled over. Tried CPR while we waited for the ambulance.”
He swallows. Hard.
“I remember her dress. Dark green. She kept joking about how it looked like she wrapped herself in velvet curtains.”
A small, sad smile. Then it’s gone.
“There was so much blood,” he says, his voice cracking completely now. “I remember thinking that. Just …so much . And her body…it was so mangled. So bad.”
Tears are rolling down my face now, and I don’t bother wiping them away.
“They told me later that the truck driver had a seizure. That he lost control and couldn’t stop.”
He rubs at his eyes, but it doesn’t help. The tears are still coming, and his voice is fraying at the edges.
“I feel so guilty,” he says, barely louder than a whisper. “All the time.”
I look at him, and he looks like he’s been holding this in so long it warped him from the inside out.
“I let her go alone,” he says, choking a little on the words. “I should’ve said no. I should’ve made her ride with me. I should’ve figured out a different way.”
His voice gets sharper, more broken with every sentence.
“I was right there, Wren. Right behind her. And I couldn’t do a goddamn thing. I just sat there and watched it happen. I would’ve taken her place in a second. I wish it had been me. Every fucking day, I wish it had been me.”
He bends forward, his hands over his face like he’s trying to press the memory out of his skull.
I reach for his hand and thread my fingers through his. He holds on like the grip might keep him from sliding under.
“Sawyer.”
He looks up, and I swear, there’s something in his eyes I’ve never seen before. Not grief. That’s always been there. This is shame. Self-hatred, self-loathing. It cuts me right open. I hate seeing him like this.
“You feel guilty because you survived,” I say, quiet. “But you’re not broken because of that. You’re human. And being human means sometimes you do everything right, and things still go terribly wrong.”
His jaw clenches, but he doesn’t speak.
“I know you think it should’ve been you,” I go on, “and maybe sometimes…I don’t know, maybe sometimes people need to think that, just to survive it. To give the pain somewhere to go.”
I pause, letting my own breath catch. “But I don’t think that’s what she would’ve wanted. I don’t think she would’ve wanted you to walk around everyday thinking the wrong person died.”
He blinks. Tears start falling again.
“I never knew her,” I say, “but I know you. And if she loved you even half as much as I do, then there’s no way in hell would she want that for you. Not a single day of it.”
“And maybe I can’t take that guilt away. I wouldn’t even try. But I do know what it feels like to walk around with a weight that doesn’t belong to you. And I’m telling you—you can set it down. Even if it’s just for a minute. Even if it’s just with me.”
I squeeze his hand. “You don’t have to keep choosing the pain just because it’s what you know. You can lay it down.”
He squeezes my hand back, then lifts it to his lips and kisses it.
And naturally, my minds drifts to horses.
The wild ones. The broken ones. The ones that rear and bolt when you so much as look at them wrong. Not because they’re dangerous, but because someone taught them once that people meant pain.
There’s a moment with those horses— always —when they stop flinching. When they let you in, just a little. Not because they trust you yet, but because they want to. That’s what this feels like.
Sawyer, sitting here with his grief cracked wide open, letting me see it. Letting me touch it. That’s its own kind of permission.
“You can talk about them anytime.” I watch his face carefully. “I mean it. Julia. Violet. All of it.”
His eyes flick up to mine.
“It doesn’t bother me. It doesn’t make me feel like there’s less room for me.”
He swallows, like he wasn’t expecting that.
“I actually like it,” I add, my voice quieter now. “That I get to know them in these small ways. That you trust me with them.”
He nods—barely—but it’s there. And his grip on my hand tightens
“Thank you,” he murmurs, eyes still on our hands. “You don’t know how much that means to me.”
There’s a small sigh, almost like he’s letting himself breathe again. Then, “Dom keeps telling me I should talk to someone. A therapist or something.”
I raise an eyebrow. “And?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. I don’t really think anything can fix me. Or fix…this.”
He gestures around the room vaguely, like it’s too heavy to name out loud.
“I don’t feel like dragging it all back up just to be told it’s all normal or I’m just going through some bullshit stages. I’ve lived it. Over and over. Talking about it won’t change what happened.”
I don’t rush to answer. He’s not asking for a lecture, he’s letting me into something raw. So I sit with it a second and make sure I’m not just filling the silence because it’s uncomfortable.
“I get that,” I say finally. “I really do. There’s nothing worse than re-opening a wound for someone who’s just going to nod and scribble notes and tell you how brave you are.”
He lets out a quiet huff.
“But,” I say carefully, “sometimes it’s not about fixing anything or anyone.
Sometimes…it’s just about making space for the parts of you that don’t get a voice otherwise.
And saying things out loud to someone who won’t try to make it neater than it is—sometimes that’s the only way it stops owning you, the only way it stops taking over your whole life. ”
He’s quiet, but I can tell he’s listening. Then, softly, he asks, “If you were me…would you do it? Talk to someone?”
I nod. “Yeah. I would.”
“Why?”
I take a breath, press my thumb gently into the side of his hand.
“Because I’ve spent a long time in my own head.
And I know how easy it is to start thinking pain is your whole personality.
Or that you deserve it. That’s where it gets dangerous—when you stop believing that you can be more than the worst thing that’s ever happened to you. ”
“And I’d want someone to remind me that I’m still allowed to heal, in my own way,” I add. “Even if it’s slow. Even if it’s messy.”
He nods, slow and distant, like his body’s here but his mind’s still walking around somewhere else. His jaw flexes as he bites the inside of his cheek, thinking. Letting it all roll around in that head of his. “Can you just sit with me for a while?”
There’s no hesitation in me. None. “I’d want nothing more.”
So I do.
I stay right where I am—on the floor of a lavender nursery, surrounded by butterflies and broken dreams and something that’s starting to mend, just barely. I lean into him, my hand still wrapped in his, and I rest my head on his shoulder. He lets out a breath like he’s been holding it for years.
Neither of us says another word. We don’t have to.
The quiet doesn’t feel so heavy anymore. It feels safe. Like maybe there’s space now—for grief, for memory, for healing that doesn’t ask for perfection. The kind that just wants company.
I sit with him in that room—Violet’s room—until the sky outside shifts from gray to gold and the world, slowly, starts up again.