Page 63 of Split You Open

Shit. Rhett put his foot in his mouth earlier and now I’ve done the same thing. When she puts it like this, I can’t argue with her logic.

Her bottom lip wobbles before Blair turns her head away and sucks in a deep, steadying breath.

“Blair, I… I’m sorry. I wasn’t implying that we could replace your dad. I was just saying⁠—”

“I know, Santi. You were just showing me what I’ve gained from all of this,” she mutters. “And I see it—that’s not lost on me. It’s not that I regret meeting you or the others. I just hate how it happened.”

When she looks at me, her expression is unreadable again. When she smiles, it's small and it doesn’t touch her eyes.

“Come on, we should head back to the cabin.”

With that, she leaves me to get dressed alone.

I stare after her, my heart dropping deep into my chest. She’s right, she’ll never get to heal from any of this without closure in some way or another. She’ll always wonder what happened when it comes to her dad. The unknown can be a horrible thing.

Ledger built my world.

Yet he destroyed Blair’s for reasons unknown.

I brought Blair here to show her where I was before Ledger, and to explain that he has some good in him. But as I stand here, I realize that the good doesn’t outweigh the bad he’s brought down on her.

Maybe a little torture would do Ledger some good.

I still don’t think we should kill him though…

Fifteen

Wesley

“You know she loves him, right?”

My axe freezes over my head. Not because of what Rhett said, but because he was the one to bring it up. Rhett and feelings… he doesn’t talk about them and he tries hard not to feel them. I lower the axe slowly, forgetting about the log that needs splitting.

We don’t need it.

I’ve been chopping away for the past hour trying to preoccupy myself. It’s more productive than staring into the fire like Rhett has been from his seat and less violent than practicing axe throwing with Santi, who goes still a few feet behind me.

“Well, yeah, that’s why the betrayal hurts so much,” I agree. “Ledger was a second father to her.”

Rhett shakes his head.

“That’s not what I meant. This—” he waves his hand behind him toward the cabin that Blair is currently tearing apart in search of clues for reasons behind Ledger’s betrayal, “—is a broken heart. Her need to torture rather than put a bullet in his head is because he ripped her heart in half.”

None of us have talked about what to do since Blair and Santiago came back from Santi’s house this afternoon.

It’s been the elephant in the room.

The conversation of the death, or the torturing, of Ledger has been relatively easy to ignore since Blair kicked us out of the cabin after dinner, demanding she get the chance to comb through every nook and cranny without interruption or anyone in her way. Given that no one wants to discuss it, we’ve busied ourselves in our own ways.

But apparently, Rhett’s done avoiding it.

“Are you sure? ‘Cause Ledger is, like, a million years older than her,” Santi hedges, his voice filled with uncertainty. “I can’t imagine how that would’ve worked.”

I shift to glare at him over my shoulder. “Watch it. Forty-seven isn’t old.”

“Yeah, it is. If it makes you feel better, though, you wear it well,” Santi counters with a weak smirk.

“Apparently, she’s loved him a long time,” Rhett says, bringing the both of us back to the topic at hand. “But I’m bringing it up because maybe… maybe we can salvage this somehow? How do you mend a broken heart?”