Page 64 of Long Hard Fall

Her mom cut a hand through the air. “No. I know they did. Why was my son taken and no one else was even injured?”

There were injuries, but nothing severe, and definitely not a loss of life. “Because he disobeyed orders to fall back. Dil—my cousin relayed the order and we were working our way back out when I noticed Daniels wasn’t with me.”

Mrs. Daniels shook her head. “You’re lying. Protecting yourself. I knew you were hiding something. Perry wouldn’t have put himself in danger like that.”

“Mom, you don’t even know what you’re talking about. It was an accident.”

Mrs. Daniels charged him. “No! My son was killed because you made a mistake. You left him behind.”

“He was depressed.” The rest of Cash’s breath froze in his lungs. He’d said it. He’d only confessed it once, to Dillon several months ago, but now he was telling the people he’d sworn never to tell.

Mrs. Daniels gasped and drew up short. Abbi disengaged herself from his hold and peered up at him.

Cash shoved a hand through his hair. All those shitty nights of sleep and it hadn’t been the actual experience plaguing him, but the helpless feeling that had preceded it. He’d turned around and Daniels’s vest and Kevlar helmet had disappeared around a corner, into a room they’d just reported an IED in.

He sucked in a shallow breath and let it spill. “Daniels had been mentioning things here and there, like how he felt powerless to help you guys out and even if he got out of the army, he’d be no use. He just wanted to—” Cash shrugged weakly, “—help. He wanted to mean something and he’d been getting reckless, but I never thought— God, I’m so sorry, I would’ve dragged him out if I’d known he was going to go back in and kill…”

Cash couldn’t bring himself to say it. And he had a hard time not hating Daniels right now for putting him in this position.

Abbi’s face went ashen. “Perry killed himself.”

Cash ducked his head and it was all he could do to hold her gaze. “Yes. I didn’t say anything at the time because I was afraid of being wrong. I was afraid of being right. I was afraid of how much worse your family would take it if you knew it was intentional.”

No one moved except Ellis, who walked up behind Abbi’s parents and laid a hand on each of them.

“The money that paid off my school,” Abbi said woodenly. A strangled cry wrenched from her and tears welled in her eyes. “He thought his death would be better for me?”

She sobbed, seemed to try to hold it in, but another followed. Her mother silently wept behind her and her dad’s gaze was planted on the ground.

“He was depressed. It wasn’t your fault.”

“My son suffered from depression and no one helped him.” Mr. Daniels’s stricken tone cut Cash in two.

“We didn’t know. It wasn’t until afterward that I put it all together.”

Abbi’s dad speared him with a hard glare. “Because you were too busy having a good time.”

Cash bit down on his tongue. There was no hooking up or partying in Iraq. It was the most responsible he’d been in his life. But nothing he said would make any of them feel better.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Abbi’s ragged whisper barely cut through her tears.

“I wanted to protect you from it.”

She snarled. “You promised you wouldn’t do that!”

“Not about this, Abbi. I couldn’t let you blame yourself for this.”

She shoved her hair back and rolled her eyes skyward. “It wasn’t your decision to make. I came here to find out what happened to Perry. You knew that and you still didn’t tell me.”

No, he hadn’t. And if he had to do it over again, he wouldn’t have told any of them. The pain rolling off them was too much. He should’ve found another way to help Abbi’s relationship with her parents.

“You promised.” Her eyes glistened.

“I couldn’t do that to you.”

She spun on her heel and stormed to the house. “I’m getting my things.”

What? “Wait.”

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