Page 90 of What Remains of Grace

The dots popped up almost immediately.

TRAVIS: I only left him for a minute.

TRAVIS: He texted you, didn’t he?

She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

JENNA: Yep.

JENNA: Take his keys. Get him home.

TRAVIS: Already done. And yes.

JENNA: Aspirin and Pedialyte.

TRAVIS: Will do.

TRAVIS: Hey, he really cares for you.

She stared at that last line until the screen went hazy.

Three dots flickered in the corner of Travis’s window, waiting. She typed, erased, typed again.

I care about him too.

Her thumb hovered over send.

No. Absolutely not.

Delete.

I’m scared.

The words sat there for three full seconds before shame crawled up her throat.

She couldn’t send that either.

Tell him I’m sorry. Tell him I’m not good at this.

Not good at what? Grief? Love? Staying?

She erased that one too.

None of it felt safe. Finally, she settled on the smallest truth she could manage.

JENNA: Thanks for taking care of him.

She hit send before she could change her mind and set the phone face down on the nightstand, the glow bleeding weakly onto the wall.

In the heavy quiet of her room, with Emmie gone for the weekend and the house too still, Jenna lay awake and listened to her own heartbeat hammering in her ears.

Avoidance had always kept her safe. Tonight, it just made her feel hollow.

23

The Olive Branch

Cole woke up to the kind of headache that suggested he’d made several terrible decisions in a very short period of time.