“Does Dalton know?” If not, this could change everything for them.
“He does. I told him all of it. I haven’t hidden anything from him, not even the cutting.”
“Cutting?” Cold chills rush down my spine when she nods.
“Sometimes the pain from being humiliated was too much. I would get tired of people hurting me, of causing me pain.”
“So you hurt yourself more?” I look to her wrists, but I don’t see any scars.
“I controlled my pain,” she explains. “I cut the insides of my thighs, not my wrists. I didn’t want anyone to know.”
Tears begin to fall down my cheeks.
“Please don’t cry.”
“I didn’t know you were hurting that much.” I should’ve known, right? What kind of best friend am I, if she’s tortured enough to cut herself and I didn’t have a clue? No wonder her parents hate him. Even if she loves him, after hearing all of this, I don’t think I have it in me to not despise him either.
“No one did. I hid it very well. Dalton flipped out when he saw them. He wanted to walk away from me, Frankie. I need you to know that. Even without his memories, he was so upset from what he’d done in the past, he was willing to give me up because he didn’t think he deserved me.”
“He doesn’t,” I interrupt.
She gives me a weak smile. “I love how fierce and loyal you are, but I want you to try to look past all of that. I’m not saying to forgive him, but if you could try to see him the way I do now, really watch him and see that he’s not the same guy, you’ll understand why it was so easy to fall in love with him.”
“Piper,” I groan. She’s asking a lot. She’s asking for more than she realizes after the hell I went through myself this summer. How is it so easy to look at her situation and know in my gut what’s the right thing for her to do, but when it comes to my own situation, I’m twisted up in knots over it?
“Please?”
I hate the pleading in her voice, but it’s the soft look in her eyes that does me in.
“Fine. I’ll reserve judgment until I get to know the new-and-improved Dalton better.”
“Thank you.” She climbs off the bed and tackles me in a hug. “You’re the best.”
“I know,” I tell her playfully. “Now get off me, cow.”
She squeezes me harder before finally letting me go, and like a million times before, we lie on our backs and stare up at the ceiling.
“Tell me about Zeke.”
“Not a chance.”
“I made numerous confessions today.”
“I didn’t realize it was quid pro quo,” I mumble.
“Is he cute?”
“Extremely.”
“Did you fall in love?”
My heart clenches with the question because if I didn’t have such strong emotions for Ezekiel Benson then why does it feel like I left my broken heart back in Utah?
“He hurt me,” I tell her instead.
She doesn’t say a word as she turns on her side and wraps her arm over my stomach.
“I’m so sorry.”
She holds me while I cry, but most importantly she doesn’t drill me for answers. She knows I’ll talk when I’m ready. The only problem is, I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to discuss Utah.Chapter 29Zeke
Unable to stay away any longer, I'm back at the ranch the day after my father's funeral. Mrs. Jacobson met me outside the second I pulled up with a small smile and a quick pat on my back. She didn’t say a word, so I let the silence hang around us until I felt tears begin to burn the backs of my eyes. I had to walk away from her, but I don’t think she was offended. I know the woman has dealt with a ton of loss in her life, and she must know what I’m going through.
I know how to work. I know how to feed cows and make sure the smaller animals around the ranch are well taken care of. What I don’t know how to do is miss the people I care for.
Missing Frankie and missing Dad are completely different. With him being gone, I feel like I've been left in a world with no guidance, no one to step up when I’m making a mistake to provide corrective action. With her no longer in Utah, I feel like a piece of my soul is missing, as if I’m incomplete and will never be whole again.
I hate them both for leaving. I hate her for not saying goodbye or even mentioning that our time together was coming to an end. I hate Dad for giving up, for not taking better care of himself and seeking treatment when something still could’ve been done.
Most of all, I hate myself for the way I treated Frankie, pushing her away at every turn, for not telling Dad the things I needed him to hear before he was gone. Yeah, I spoke to him before he took his last breath, but he couldn’t hear me. He already had one foot in the grave, and I was selfish to keep my distance for too long. I’ll live with both regrets for the rest of my life.