Page 89 of The Way Back Home

“This is it,” he says, holding his hands out in a gesture that says, “this is all there is.” I think the man may actually be crazy.

“It’s a little bigger than I imagined,” I say, setting Betty down to explore. “Why don’t you live here?”

“I don’t know. It just always felt like my parents’ place,” he says. “When I was fifteen, my mamma and daddy got divorced, and I moved here with her. It just never felt like home. I only ever come out here when I want to clear my head.”

“Why haven’t you sold it?”

“I can’t,” he says, matter-of-factly. “It’s the only thing I have left of her—the only place in the world I can go and feel like someone still cares about me, even though she ain’t here.”

“Listen, I can find somewhere else. I don’t want you to feel like you can’t escape to this place anymore because I’m here.”

“No, I want you to stay here, as long as you need. Besides, it’s about time someone used this old house.”

“Well, at least now you’ll know that there’s definitely someone other than your mamma who cares about you here.”

“That’d be nice,” he says and tilts his head toward the huge house. “You ready to come on inside?”

“Sure.”

He walks up the stairs and pulls a set of keys from out of his pocket, handing them to me before using a key on his own ring to open the door. “It’s fully furnished. I was just here on the weekend so some of the dust will be moved already, but it might take a little extra cleaning. I try and get out here at least twice a season to do repairs, but since I ain’t stayed here in years, I don’t know if everything works the way it should, but you just give me a call if anythin’ gives you trouble, and I’ll come fix it.”

“Okay.” I let him lead me inside. The house is pristine with a big wrought-iron chandelier and a bunch of furniture that looks like it belongs in a Cracker Barrel catalog. It’s definitely not how I pictured it when Doc said he had a cabin; it’s so much more beautiful and bigger, definitely bigger.

“Bedrooms are upstairs. There are three bathrooms and a full kitchen with a deck out the back. Linens are in the closet,” he says. “Electric is on—water, too. I keep thinking one day I’ll come out here and stay, but I never do.”

“I can’t tell you what this means to me.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’ll be good to see this place have a little life again,” Jude says. “Well, I’ll leave you to get settled in, if you need anything you just holler at me.”

“I will.” I nod and see him out, collect my bags, and then I lean against the door and stare at my new surroundings. It’s quiet as hell. I walk over to the sheet-covered couch and fall into it. As I pick up Betty from the floor, I try to ignore the ache in my chest and the pit of grief in my stomach. I fell in love with a man who’s broken. And this is the price I pay for that.

In all the years since I tried to end my own life, I’ve never felt this alone. I’ve never felt this despair, and this desperate to hold onto something that could destroy me. In the beginning, August had been a project I could sink my teeth into. I’d treated him the same as I would any other Marine suffering with the weight of returning from war, but I never planned on falling. I never planned on being something his PTSD could sink its teeth into. I should have known from the start that I was too close to this, and if I didn’t already know, now I have the marks to remind me.

Stupid. So stupid. How could I have done this? How could I have fallen in love with him? My heart’s in tatters, my head filled with all of the sweetness we could have had, and it tastes like poison in my mouth. I’m miserable, alone, and broken because I climbed my way to the top of his high walls, I scaled the tower, cut myself on the iron thorns, and I fell all the way to the ground.

And there is nothing to be done for it now.

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