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All eyes turn to me.

“She made mistakes,” I continue. “Writing things she wasn’t intending to share in the article. Trusting colleagues who put their own interests ahead of Grace and ours. But we’ve all made mistakes and forgiven each other time and time again. And if we throw Grace away because of one misstep, one she didn’t even control, we don’t deserve what we’ve been asking for.”

“Daddy,” Eli says, dashing into the kitchen, clutching something in her hand.

Dylan holds his arms out for her as she barely stops before crashing into her. “We’re talking, sweetheart,” he says.

“But look.” She holds a bundle of papers fixed together with string.

Dylan takes it and glances at the front. “The Adventures of Cowboy Chicken. What is this?”

“Grace must have made it. Look inside. It’s our story. She wrote it all out and even drew some pictures.” She screws up her nose. “The pictures aren’t very good. Uncle McCartney could do better, but the story is the one we all made up.”

Harrison reaches out for the bundle, shaking his head and smiling at first, then growing solemn.

“She brought so much to all of us,” he says. “We won’t find anyone to rival her. We have to get her back.”

The makeshift book, a sweet memento created for the kids in this house, inspired by their imaginations, passes from man to man, and I lean back, arms crossed, waiting, because what comes next will decide everything.

46

GRACE

I’m back in my apartment, but it doesn’t feel like home anymore. The walls are still the same washed-out white, and the books stacked by the armchair are still in the same crooked piles I left them in. My boots are by the door; city boots, clean, polished, and unused. My bed is still crisply made and untouched like no one ever sleeps here. Like I never did.

The coffee in my cup has turned bitter and cold. I haven’t drunk it. I keep holding it because it gives my hands something to do other than reaching for my phone. It’s facedown on the windowsill next to me, quiet and black. A viper waiting to strike. I haven’t checked it since I left the ranch, ignoring messages, emails, and news alerts since the article hit and my life fell apart.

Even if I wanted to, how can I go back to work when my CEO and deputy gutted and sensationalized my story and ruined my name? My mind is a flashing reel of everything I’ve written since I graduated. All the stupid articles about inconsequential shit that I don’t care about.They might have been asinine, but at least I could always hear my voice behind them, my twist on even the more trivial of subjects. But what Rianna turned my piece into sounded like someone else. Cold and tabloid-trash cruel.

I can’t even think about the family I’ve left behind, who were already torn open by life and have now been served up for public consumption and humiliation because of me.

Loving isn’t wrong—reaching out to hold someone’s hand, choosing to care for someone, fiercely and gently, like you care for yourself—but Rianna made it sound terrible.

I’m weighed down by my life and the emptiness of it, crushed under the heel of consequences I don’t deserve to face. I tell myself that all I need to do is let the dust settle. I’ll wake up tomorrow with a clearer head, and I’ll be able to work out what to do. But it’s a lie.

I’m hiding.

From their anger.

From their heartbreak.

From the part of me that doesn’t want to believe I might have lost something I never believed could be mine.

Conway’s voice barrels through my mind, steady and cold, telling me to go.

God, I should’ve fought harder, explained better. I should never have trusted my notes to my cloud drive or trusted Rianna with anything personal. I’ve spent my whole adult life dealing in sensationalism. I should have known better.

But what has it cost me?

The trust I had in my work colleagues. The belief I had about my role at Fine Line Magazine. The faith and hope those good men placed in me.

Their love, my mind whispers.It cost you their love.

I shake my head. I never had it. They didn’t know the real me. They were lonely and in need of female company, and I was convenient. That’s all. That’s always been my role. The stand-in. The layover. I’m the person people walk away from: my dad, my friends, men who spin through therevolving door of my life. Even my mom filled the house with other people’s kids, like I wasn’t enough.

It’s best this way. What would be the point of pretending to myself any longer that I could fit in their world and they’d want to keep me? At least this way, I can nurse my heart and move on, and those good men and those sweet children can find the life they want with a better woman than me.

I look out the window, watching people go about their day like the world hasn’t shifted. Like I’m not unraveling, inch by inch.