After Andrea and Peace left, I sat down in my bedroom for a long time, just thinking. Getting myself together, trying to work through these messy feelings that still make no sense.
The autopsy report said Abby’s aneurysm was congenital.
She’d been born prone to high blood pressure and clotting, a lethal cocktail just asking for anything from varicose veins to deep vein thrombosis to clogged arteries to brain clots.
She hit the jackpot on the latter.
Wasn’t anything but shit luck in life and maybe her folks gifting her a few genetic time bombs.
It probably would’ve happened sooner or later.
I stare at my clenched fists, listening to the sounds of Andrea coming home and shutting herself in her room with a slamming door.
Why am I doing this?
Why do I feel like I gotta save everyone, even people who can’t be saved at all?
You ask a shrink, and they’d say I’m some kinda egomaniac. Savior complex. Gotta be everyone’s hero but my own.
I don’t think it’s that, though.
I’m scared of losing more folks, so I feel like if I just try hard enough, then I won’t anymore. Even though it doesn’t work that way.
I still remember folks I fought with in Afghanistan. The people who died when that bomb went off and shredded my leg—people who were like my brothers and sisters.
Jenna Ford, too.
Warren’s sister.
We grew up together, her always with War, inseparable twins. Everyone loved the shit out of Jenna like she was their sister, daughter, or the love of their life.
And I lost her because she saw the wrong things and a monster arranged an 'accident' to shut her up.
Lost my old man, too. Dead of a heart attack.
Lost Abby, slipping through my fingers when she was just feet away from me, going cold on the floor, me having no damn clue.
And then Ma.
Dying with Holt, and me not even there to see her go.
I get what Peace meant about not seeing her dad die so it’s like his body wasn’t real. He didn’t really die.
That’s how it is with Ma.
For all the weird conflicted feels I got with her, the love and hate and fear and frustration and resentment, there’s still this weird void that can’t think of her as dead.
I gotta let go.
But first I have to go apologize to Peace.
She was right. Brutally so.
And I gotta stop carrying around this poison, using it as a club to drive people away.
When I head on up to the Charming Inn, though, Peace’s cabin is dark, and her little purple bug of a rental car is nowhere to be found.
Aw, hell.
Heart’s Edge ain’t exactly a jumping hot spot, so there can’t be many places to find her.
Reluctantly, though, I go to the main house. I know there’ll be questions. I know I’m gonna get grilled, when I feel like I’m the last eligible single man in Heart’s Edge and everybody just stares whenever a girl comes anywhere near me.
Especially my friends.
Haley’s a new transplant to Heart’s Edge herself, ending up here after her car crapped out and she tumbled into Warren’s lap.
She’s become my friend, too, on top of being the wife of one of my lifelong buddies.
And she only has to take one good look at my face to know something ain’t right.
I’m standing there in her living room, trying to figure out how to ask if she knows where that flower child has gotten off to, without being obvious.
Haley clucks her tongue in sympathy.
“That’s one long face,” she says, propping her laundry basket on her hip, a gurgling little boy inside it and reaching up to tug at her hair. “Funny thing is, I’ve been seeing a lot of that expression around here lately.”
I wince.
If it’s Peace she means, I know damn well it’s my fault.
Taking a breath, I scrub my gloved palms against my jeans like that can soak the sweat into my gloves, and ask, “You uh...you seen her around?”
I don’t even have to name her.
Hay just smiles sadly. “She left with Ember about an hour ago. I think they’re at The Nest; she had a guitar with her.”
A guitar?
Okay.
I feel a little creepy following her to Felicity’s coffee shop, but I’ll keep it simple.
Get in, say I’m sorry, and bug out.
Maybe it’ll be easier in public, where she doesn’t have to worry I’m gonna say something mean again and hurt her feelings when we’re alone.
Goddamn, I really am an asshole.
I don’t know when I got like this. Just know this isn’t who I want to be.
It’s not who I was when I was married to Abby.
It’s not the example I want to set for Andrea.
And it’s not how I want to treat Peace, when she deserves so much better.
I offer Haley a faint smile and flick her a quick salute.
“Thanks,” I tell her. “Guess I’m suddenly in need of a little caffeine.”
I turn away, but a soft “Hey,” drifts toward my back.
I glance over my shoulder, raising a brow, but Haley just smiles.
“Good luck, Blake,” she says.
I’m gonna need it.
I give her a lopsided grin and go.
It’s already late, and The Nest is closing soon, but I’ve got time to catch Peace.
When I get to the café, though, I almost think it’s shut down already. The lights inside are dim, just barely shining in a golden haze through the tall floor-to-ceiling windows.
But no, it’s not closed, there are cars parked outside and people in there, seated in intimate little clusters.
So why is it so dark?
I get my answer when I step inside. The lights have been dimmed to shine a spotlight on the far end of the café.
Peace and Ember sit on stools. Peace with a weathered, honey-toned guitar shining with the love of many hands, and Ember with her violin propped up on her shoulder.
And Peace starts singing so quietly, with all her heart in it, her voice winding in pure sweetness around the twanging notes from the instruments.
The entire room’s silent, watching raptly.
Hell, so am I.
Completely spellbound.
I hardly see Ember, Doc’s wife.
I’ve only got eyes for Peace, the way she sings like she’s mourning and exulting, a whisper for the dead and a prayer for the living.
That’s all I can hear, listening to her.
All that raw emotion overflowing till the words don’t even matter.
She’s singing her whole heart out, pain written on her expressive, lovely face in lines of sweetness.
And it’s the most beautiful shit I’ve ever heard.
I shouldn’t be here, eavesdropping on this.
Feels like I’m too dirty for something this sanctified, this beautiful, and maybe I’ll ruin it if I stay.
I’m too broken for her.
Too much of a mess.
She can keep working at me with her hands all she wants, but she’ll never shape me back into anything whole. That’s not her responsibility.
It’s not anybody’s but my own, and I can’t bring myself to ask her to wait for me to fucking try.
I gotta leave.
Only, I’m rooted to the spot, captivated by her, and I can’t bring myself to walk away just yet.