AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I’d also spent a lot of that time googling her family and wondering what kind of monsters they were that they didn’t care what Sage had gone through.
“I’m me, Emory,” I told her. “I’m not going to change.”
She narrowed her eyes, her gaze searching, and nodded her head. “You’re right. You’re not.”
Then she walked out of my life and didn’t look back.
I don’t understand why couples do three month anniversary posts. I’ve had cups in my room longer than that.
—Pepper’s secret thoughts
PEPPER
1 year ago
“She said not to call her or she’d disown us,” my brother, Tarrant, said. “I know this is big, but this could turn into a fucking huge thing. Maybe we should get Dad to try?”
That was an immediate no.
Dad wouldn’t be able to accomplish anything more with our sister than I would. Worse, he’d just be confused about why, and I couldn’t do that to him.
I turned to my brother, staring him dead in the eyes, and said, “She told me not to call her while she finds herself. But Tarrant, our mother just fucking died. What, exactly, are you wanting me to do? Not tell her? It’s just our fucking luck. We’ll heed her wishes, not tell her, and then she’ll freakin’ freak. I’m in a shit situation. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.”
“Personally,” Tarrant answered, “I think we should fuckin’ write her off.”
I’d been saying that for fifteen years, and only now they wanted to listen and follow through?
I looked at my brother. “We can’t do that.”
He knew why we couldn’t do that.
Mom had a dying wish.
One.
To try one more time with Sage.
And I didn’t care what I had to do.
“It’s been two years, Pepper,” Tarrant said. “I’m not sure that we can do anything else but give her what she wants. She wanted to be left alone. She didn’t want to hear from Mom, or you, or me, or Everest. Hell, she won’t even answer Coke’s calls anymore.”
Uncle Coke was a great guy.
The only problem was, Coke wasn’t in the trenches like we were. He didn’t know all the bad, ugly things that we did when it came to Sage Solomon.
“Then I guess I’ll have to go find her,” I said as I finished packing my things. “Like I’ve already explained to you.”
Tarrant sighed, long and loud. “Does Everest know?”
Nope.
That would be my first stop tomorrow.
Though I’d have to drive an hour and a half to talk with him.
At least it’d be in the direction that I was going.
After the Air Force Academy, then years in the Air Force, Tarrant had moved back home to Kilgore, where he worked in the weapons industry for a company in Longview, Texas.
