That’s a lie.
I know what to do with most things.
Punch. Ride. Drink. Threaten. Fix the engine. Move the body. Guard the door. But I don’t know what to do with love when it gets mean in public.
Legend postponed his wedding.
Sophie looked at him like he had taken a knife to the part of her that still believed he’d always stand on her side of the room.
Then Becki told the truth about the baby she lost with Legend years ago, and the air turned rotten with all the things people bury because grief makes cowards out of the best of us.
Amelia heard every word.
I felt her beside me, going smaller and smaller while she tried not to. Not physically. She stood straight. Chin up. Hands still. But something in her pulled inward. Like she was watching proof that love is only another room where secrets wait to make bruises.
I hate that.
I hate it more than I should.
“Come on,” I tell her, low enough that only she hears.
Her eyes are still on Sophie, who is walking toward the door with her shoulders stiff and her phone gripped in her hand like a weapon.
“I should say something,” Amelia whispers.
“No.”
“But she helped me.”
“She knows.”
“That isn’t enough.”
“No,” I say. “It ain’t. But right now, anything you say gives her one more person to carry.”
Amelia looks at me then.
I don’t know where that came from. Sounds too wise for my mouth. Maybe it ain’t wisdom. Maybe it’s just experience. I know what it looks like when a person is one word away from dropping all the pieces they are holding.
Sophie’s there.
Legend is too, though he would deny it under threat of death and maybe even under actual death, stubborn bastard that he is.
Amelia nods once, but guilt stays on her face.
“I caused this,” she says.
“No.”
“If I hadn’t shown up…”
“That mess was already loaded. You just walked in before somebody lit the fuse.”
Her mouth trembles, but she nods again.
Good enough.
I guide her toward the side door with my hand near her back, not touching until she shifts closer. Then I let my palm settle where it did at the Fire Pit last night. She gives me that little breath, the one that says she notices every inch of contact and hates that she needs to decide what it means.