Page 36

chapter thirty six

come on, ruin the day

“ W e will shortly be arriving in Glacier Park International; cabin crew, please prepare for landing.”

The captain’s voice spilt through the overheadspeakers, drifting off into terminology that was lost on me, especially when I had more pressing matters to focus on. Like why I couldn’t feel my hand anymore.

I turned my head to find Rory, still gnawing onher bottom lip, her eyes tracing the clouds, like she had been the entire flight, and her hand still squeezing mine like I owed her money. I couldn’t help but let my lip curl up into a half smile as I watched her, pride completely outweighing the pain in my hand.

She hadn’t really spoken to us in the airport, onlyeating because I got her a cherry Danish, her favourite, and I knew her well enough to know that she’d eat it, purely because she’d feel bad if she didn’t. It was a snaky tactic, sure, but it meant she’d eaten, and that made my heart settle at least.

To say she was nervous was the understatementof the century. And I didn’t blame her one bit.

I'd tried to shake the memory of when I'd found her crying in the shade of St Bee's this past summer, but it was like the image had been burned in my brain, a perminant reminder of that version of her. The haunted look on her face when she spotted me, the palest I’d ever seen that gorgeous brown skin, the tears. All of it.

That morning after telling her I loved her, she opened up a little, going through the parts of that day only her and her thoughts knew about.She had done something that Daisy and I weretoo young to remember, and just thinking about it me squeeze her hand back, her head darting over to me for the first time since we took off.

I smiled at her. “How are you feeling?” I already had a good indication of the feelings occupying her mind, but still, I wanted her to answer. Wanted her to let them out so they weren’t weighing her down.

A slight smile graced her face, while hershoulders rolled. “Nervous.” She whispered, a slight crack in her voice. “There’s just… memories, you know.”Her eyes were back on the clouds.

I nodded. “I know.” Another squeeze of herhand earned me that golden-flecked stare. “But you know that if you want to go then we’ll be on the first flight back—”

“ I’d be on the next flight back.” Her other hand pointed at my chest. “ You’d be staying put. I couldn’t drag you away from your home on Christ mas—”

“Drag? Believe me, if I had the chance tonot see my Dad, I’d fly the plane myself.” A light laugh stuttered from me, before realising what I’d said.

Apart from Goldie’s birthday party, where itseemed everything I’d kept from Rory was suddenly ready to come out, I hadn’t spoken much about Dad. It was easy to forget him, seeing as though I’d decided to stop answering his calls altogether sometime in October. Odd? Sure. Considering that he was why I’d waited so long to have her by my side. But I didn’t want to talk about him.

But then again, I didn’t feel pressured to. If Rory wanted to know something, she’d ask. Just like that night she kissed me. But she hadn’t, and part of me was thankful for that.

So, instead of fighting me, muttering words ofencouragement that everything would be alright, she simply smiled at me and asked, “Can I be co-pilot if you want to fly?”

My eyes fell to my lap, a smile shining down tomy jeans.

What did I do to deserve her?

Her eyes dipped to meet mine, stealing my stareback. “You know that if you want to go back to New York, I’ll be on the first flight back with you.” Her smile lit up, tracing every part of my face, and I did the same with her.

Home seemed to be a complicated word for bothof us. For me, it was where meals were made, horses were ridden, and pride never seemed to come from the only person that it was meant to. For her, it was the place she grew up, where she fell in love with a sport she was falling back in love with, and where the people who raised her were simply there in spirit.

We were two halves of the same broken heart. In a way that's impossible to find. Everything she's been through, I've been through too. And every time I look into her eyes I see it—the same battles, the same ghosts, the same quiet ache that we never let the rest of the world see. Coming home this time would be hard—on both of us. But together?

I turned to her, drowning in the colour of her gaze.

Maybe together we'd be okay.

I squeezed her hand back on more time. “Whenwe get there, can I introduce you as my girlfriend?”

The swirls of liquid gold in her eyes glowed, hersmile lines dimpling the corners of her eyes in a way that made me want to say, “Screw that; let's just tell them we’re already married.”

The thought flew through my head. Too soon. Iknew that. But, hey, if she were to turn to me and ask I’d find it very difficult not to say—

“Yes.”

One word. One word was apparently all it took to make me the happiest person at thirty thousand feet.

My smile stretched so wide it ached, but I didn’tcare.

Aurora Greene.

My girlfriend.

I rolled the words around in my head, savouringthem like a secret I wanted to shout at the top of my lungs. I could already hear myself introducing her.

Oh, hey, Grandpa, this is Rory. My girlfriend.

Wait, no. That didn’t feel big enough.

Aurora. My wife.

Oka y, too far.

But still, I keep the thought tucked away for a rainy day.

I dipped my head toward her, the warmth of herbreath brushing my lips. My heart hammered in my chest as I closed the space between us, stopping just shy of kissing her to whisper, “I love you.”

“Miss Patty’s had a re-theme? Is the apocalypsecoming or something?” Rory giggled as her eyes held onto Miss Patty’s new storefront as we drove down Main Street.

I chuckled from beside her in the driver's seat aswe pulled up to a stop sign.

Daisy leant over from the back seat. “She, and Iquote, ‘wanted to appeal to a more hip demographic.’”

Unlike when I first saw it back in November, mystomach dropped, worried that Rory would onlysee how this place had changed even more since the last time she was here, worried that she’d spiral and we actually would be back on that flight back to New York like we’d joked about—

“I love it.”

I didn’t look at her, but my smile ached as herwords seeped into my head.

She was okay. She was doing okay.

We drove for another mile or so when the lanewe lived down finally came into view and I was turning left, up the ravine and through the steep path that took us to the top of the hillside. The ranch wasn’t at the very top of the mountain, for obvious reasons, but sat just somewhere between its base and the valley, looking over the faint lights of Honeywood, and the neighbouring town, Beauville.

“My house is… was … only five minutes fromhere,” Rory said aloud, to no one in particular, but then she threw her head over her shoulder. “How is it that we never knew one another if I lived close?”

Jess yawned as he said, “Surely we must havecrossed paths somewhere, if you were only five minutes from us.”

Daisy clapped giddily, shaking the car. “I’ll haveto get the photo albums out.”

My head fell back against the headrest. “Just aslong as the figure skating album stays—”

“Stays where? Hidden? Ha.” Daisy laughed.“Absolutely not. I have the opportunity to witness another person seeing you in a leotard for the first time and I’m not missing that.”

Rory turned to me, her voice a whisper.“Leotards?”

I eyed her, the unconscious smirk warming myface. “It was a phase.”

Jess snickered from behind me. “Tragic that henever grew out of it.”

After dropping Jess off at his house, a hundred paces away from ours, but still somehow on the next road over, we pulled up to the ranch not long after, passing the new sign for the Westbr ooke ranch that had been next door to ours for as long as Grandpa had owned the place. All their horses were out, mingling with ours in the shared meadow and letting the last of the day’s light wash over them. I couldn’t help but smile as we pulled up to the house, the gravel beneath the tyres of my truck popping as I braked.

This was the part of coming home that I liked;the drive, looking out at the fields and the mountains, and being reminded of all the reasons why coming back here didn’t seem so bad on the face of it. It was a facade that didn’t know it was hiding an ugly truth, like an inviting doorstep that hid away a broken home.

We all piled out of the car, grabbed the bags and headed towards the porch,escaping the light snowfall that only just started. It was a huge oak wrap-around that Daisy and I would always chase each other around when we were little, the red panels of the house popping even more after the repaint that me and Grandpa did in the peak heat of July.

And there he was, in his rocking chair with apaper and a pipe, completely in his element.

“Hey Grandpa!” Dais called as she lugged herbags up the porch steps.

“Hey, little one!” Grandpa chuckled as he tossedthe paper to the floor and ached up from his chair, bouncing over to Daisy’s open arms. “You’re getting taller, what did I tell you.”

“Or are you getting shorter?” I called from the topof the steps, Rory nestled in behind me.

Gra ndpa eyed me, not containing his laughter.“Confident words for a man who is five foot seven.” Daisy hunched over laughing, and I’m sure I heard Rory stifle a laugh too.

I nodded at him, my smirk high and my eyes turningto slits. “Oh look, your eyes are going, and your spine. I’ve been six-two since I was sixteen and you know it.”

“Yeah yeah, whatever, Finneas. Get in here.” Hisbig arms covered my back, reminding me that although he was pushing eighty, Grandpa still had some strength in him, and there was no doubt that it was from all those years dominating the ice.

I felt him chuckle into my chest as his head wasover my shoulder. “Oh, hello there.”

Before I knew it he was pulling away from me. Ispun my head around just in time to watch him bring Rory in for a hug.

Her hair was tucked behind her ears as she pulled away. “It’s lovely to meet you. Thank you so much for letting me stay, Sir—”

“It’s Jack to you,” Grandpa smiled down at her. “And it’s lovely to meet you too… miss…”

“Oh, sorry,” My throat cleared as I wedged myself back beside Rory. “Grandpa this is my girlfriend, Aurora Greene.”

God, I will never get tired of saying that.

My girlfriend.

I’d never seen Grandpa’s face light up soquickly. “Girlfriend? My, we’ve never had one of those here before, have we Dais?” He chuckled as we all look over to Daisy, and to say that she was gobsmacked would be doing the expression on her face a diss erive. Her jaw was practically hitting the porch, her hands paused mid-way through pulling apart her curls.

And before she could delay the entire day with questions, Grandpa reached his hands out to Rory, taking them in his hold. “How are you liking Montana, Aurora? First time out here?”

Quick as anything, Rory shook her head. “No, actually.” She swallowed, half her mouth lifting. “I grew up in Honeywood, my old house is just five minutes back down that way.”

Grandpa’s glacier-green eyes widened as theyfollow where she pointed. “You’re kidding! Small world.”

She nodded. “I don’t think I can believe myself,actually.”

Grandpa smiled back at her, before his facescrunched. “Huh, five minutes away you said?”

“Yep, it was the old cottage just off CottonDrive, with the lake.”

Grandpa’s eyes lit up. “And your last name isGreene?” She nodded again. “That makes you… oh, you’re Arnold and Aurelia’s girl, ain't ya?”

It was like the world stopped spinning as Daisy and I looked to Rory. I swore the snow stopped falling, and the porch swing stopped swaying in the breeze. Anything to quieten the moment.

I kept my eyes trained on Rory, watching herswallow the lump in her throat, blinking once, then twice, before a smile, soft as the snow that had started falling again, lit up the porch. “I am.” Her bashful little smile grew. “How did you know them?”

Gra ndpa smiled, craning his neck slightly and his eyes lifting to the sky. “Ha, that’s a story that we should have over some cocoa, let's get you kids inside.”

Daisy bound over to Rory, slipping her armaround her shoulders. “C’mon, I’ll show you where you’re staying.” All I got was a quick smile before Daisy tugged her into the house.

I heaved their bags over my shoulder, mineslung awkwardly on top, as I watched Grandpa bend down to grab his paper. The cold air scratched at my face, but it wasn’t the December chill that sent a shiver crawling down my back.

The question had been clawing at me from themoment I stepped off the plane, needling my chest until it ached. It burned at the back of my throat now, so close to spilling out that I felt my jaw tighten, trying to trap it.

Was he here?

The words never made it past my lips.

“He’s not here,” Grandpa said suddenly, hisvoice blunt, free of all the charm he’d showered Rory with. But his eyes softened, like he could see straight through me.

I didn’t even feel guilty about the way my chest felt lighter, and my head less heavy. All the made up scenarios I’d spent the flight obsessing over, images of him ruining this moment gone. Just like that.

Because, if it wasn't already obvious, I hated seeing him. Ihated that the man who was supposed to be my father had turned into this… spectre. A shadow of himself, haunted by every bottle he’d emptied and every promise he’d broken.

I h ated the feeling that came every time I stoodon this porch, my heart pounding like it knew something I didn’t. The way dread clung to me, heavy and suffocating, as I wondered if he was on the other side of the door—or worse, if we’d be left standing here until he stumbled up the steps, reeking of alcohol, eyes glassy and unfocused.

It was like standing under a tornado siren, waiting for the storm to hit, butnever knowing when or how bad the damage would be.

I shifted the weight of the bags, steeling myself.Still, the curiosity nipped at me like the cold was. “Where is he?” I asked, nodding my chin at him as he straightened up.

He sighed as his hand landed on my shoulder.“I’m not sure. Hasn’t been home in around a week.”

A week.

A fucking week?

The longest I’d known him to stay clear of homewas a day or two. But a week?

I shook my head. “He’s never been gone thatlong.”

Grandpa shrugged, the hopeless look I’d seen onhis face throughout my entire childhood masking the glow seeing us brought as the last of the sun hit him. “I can’t say anything to him anymore, Finn. You know that. It was different when you and Daisy were babies, he needed to show up for you. But you’ve both grown up without him, and now that you're adults it’s even harder for him to find a reason to turn his life around.”

Now that we’re adults and have done a fine jobraising ourselves.

“ Because he doesn’t care about us,” I said intothe air, not realising I’d spoken until I saw Grandpa’s brows crease, sympathy knitted between them.

He gripped the back of my neck, in the soothingway he always did. “Because he doesn’t care about being present in a world without your mother.”

“Does that make it any less of an insult?” Theporch creaked beneath as I faced him. “Me, Daisy and even you got on with our lives just fine, and yeah not having Mom around anymore hurt but—”

“It’s different for him and you know it.” Grandpashook his head. “And this isn’t me giving the son of a bitch a get out of jail free card, because I’m just as pissed with him as you are, but I know that kind of hurt.” My eyes flew to his. “I know what it’s like to lose the love of your life without any warning, and how badly you’d do anything to steal back just one minute with them.” I’d never heard his voice so clogged before. “But I found my joy watching you two become the amazing people that you have. And that was enough. Enough to keep me going.”

But not enough for Dad.

" You're lucky enough, son, that you haven't known heartbreak yet. And that's exactly why your Dad is the way he is." His eyes searched mine. "It's not an excuse, but it's the best answer I can give you."

I shook my head, frustration nipping at my fingertips. "I've known heartbreak, Grandpa. I pretended I didn't love Rory last year, because I was so scared of becoming him that I was willing to break my own heart just to save it." The flash flood of mem ories destroys my mind, but one thing sticks out more evident than ever. "But even when I lost her I didn't feel like… him. I didn't want to abandon everything I was working for, I didn't abandon Daisy or my friends because I couldn't face reality."

This was probably the first time when I realised, truly, how pointless turning her down last year had been. I let her go, she wasn't in my life and yet I still didn't turn out like him. And yeah, maybe our definitions of heartbreak were thousands of miles apart but… a broken heart was still broken regardless of what broke it. And the way I handled mine?

I was never him, was I?

Something pinched in my eyes as I blinked, my eyes zeroing in on Grandpa and the sad, almost longing look masking his. He studied me for barely a second before his mouth opened. "You did what?"

Hearing his voice clogged was one thing, but seeing this powerhouse of a man, the best and only thing I'd take as a father figure choking back tears and swallowing the obvious lump in his throat was enough for me to cave. I gave up trying to bite back my tears and instead wandered to his chest. His arms opened almost like he knew I needed this. Needed to be held. Needed to let that scared little boy out for just a moment.

And before the tears choked me too, I crumbled into his chest as my mouth opened. "I let her go because I didn't want to become him if I lost her."

That was all I could manage without sobbing. All Grandpa would let me say before he tugged me into him, wrapping his arms o ver me like he used to do when we were little and we were frightened of our shadows.

I couldn't remember the last time I let myself cry like this, but it felt good. Overdue. And whilst the moment was here I wasn't going to hold back on everything I'd been swallowing, the parts of myself I'd hiding behind the suit of arms I wore everyday.

His earthy, almost fire-lit scent held me captive, long enough for my heart to slow right back down and for everything to dry up. Once I stopped shaking he gripped my shoulders and pulled me away, dipping his eyes to search mine.

“You aren’t him, Finn.” I couldn’t help but let my face scrunch with the promise of tears. But quick as anything Grandpa swiped his calloused thumbs right under my eyes, the sting from that not nearly as bad as the one softening in the back of my eyes. “You’re the best parts of him. You’ve got his sense of humour, his smile, and hell you’ve even got the same bravado.” His head dipped one last time, his eyes serious. “But listen to me when I tell you. You. Aren’t. Him.”

My head shook. “How do you know?”

He took one long, calming breath, before setting his eyes back on me. “Because you raised yourself better than that.”

His hold on me with enough to let me know he wouldn’t let me sink into myself again, not if he had anything to do with it. So, my shoulders squared, and I breathed in every word, every syllable of what he’d just said, repeating it over in my head like a mantra.

Hea ring it from Rory was comforting. Hearing it from Dasiy was heart-warming. But hearing it from my hero was life-altering.

I'm not him.

“Come on,” Grandpa tapped me on my back to getme moving, wiping at rougue tear before clearing his throat. “It’s getting thick and I promised your girlfriend some cocoa.”

Those two words were enough to make me smile and forget everything.

My girlfriend.