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“Is therereallygoing to be a parade?” he asked.

An egotistical thing to ask in most cases. But this was Pyrite Falls, and he was Gideon Payne. It wasn’t ego, it was just...the way it was.

“I think they were planning a small thing with a welcome-home banner. But not really a parade. But we’re a Purple Heart City because of you and...”

So. A parade.

“I know. But I don’t have todoanything, do I?”

Lydia was hesitant. “You probably need to go.”

“Right. Well, I’m not all that comfortable with things like that.”

“Gideon...”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I wanted some time to be back here on my terms because there are expectations of me. And I knew that there would be. Hell, I could’ve gone and moved to the middle of nowhere if I didn’t want any expectations on me.”

As soon as he said it, it made him feel near panic. Like he was falling into an abyss.

He didn’t have his military career. He didn’t have his marriage. He didn’t have all these things that he had defined himself by for years. If he cut ties with his hometown on top of it, with his family, he might as well...

He might as well have just died overseas.

He let himself have those thoughts now. Because he recognized that when he didn’t, they became worse. Survivor’s guilt was a real thing. Unfortunately, he hadn’t finished his counseling. He’d had a fair amount of it in the hospital, and then once he’d got home, he’d been consumed by trying to get back to where he was before.

He’d convinced himself he didn’t need therapy, he just needed to get back to normal.

So that’s what he’d done.

He’d gone home. He’d tried to be the husband he had promised to be. Tried to ignore the pain. Tried to ignore his mood swings. And when he couldn’t, he’d just medicated it. Every day demanding another pill, and another and another. Until what had started as a quest fornormalgot lost in the haze. Until what the pills had done was worse than the pain, worse than the mood swings.

What he’d learned was that those pills hadn’t made his pain go away. They’d deferred it.

When the world had collapsed, he’d felt it all.

The devil always came to collect.

Always.

After more than a year of denying every dark thought and ending up in hell anyway, he’d come to the conclusion that you might as well think the dark thought. It was inside you whether you gave it a voice or not. Best not to surprise yourself. Especially not when your defenses were down. Best to know, fully know, the kind of capacity for darkness that lived inside you.

“I’m sorry. But...how could we have known this would be hard for you, Gideon? You haven’t told us anything.”

“I didn’t have anything to tell. I needed to make a plan. When Cassidy left, I didn’t know what to do.”

Left.That was funny. And kind of a lie.

She’d kicked him out. But she left him emotionally, so he found that an easier way to put it. He was the one who’d physically left, but at her request.

“I’m sorry,” Lydia said, her voice acidic. “But I don’t have any sympathy for Cassidy. She abandoned you when you needed her the most.”

“I left her when she neededmemost,” he said. “I didn’t call you, Lydia. I didn’t call Mom, because I was in no state to be...around people. Cass was living with me. She had to deal with the fact that I wasn’t the same person all day every day. She had to deal with my injuries, with my career ending, with uncertainty about where our money was going to come from, and I couldn’t be there to reassure her. It was all because of me, and I couldn’t... I couldn’t make it okay.”

“That is an awfully kind interpretation,” Lydia said.

“I’m not trying to bekind. But I loved her for a long time. You don’t just stop loving somebody. I still see the woman I married when I think of her. Not the end of everything.”

“Good. You see it. I’m glad you see it because I can’t especially. I can’t.”