Page 27 of Of Heather and Thistle
She missed the father who should have been there. The one who should’ve picked her up from school without being half-drunk and furious at the world. The one who should’ve looked at her and seen a daughter, not the ghost of the woman he’d lost.
But he hadn’t been that man—not for a long, long time. And now he never would be.
Heather let out a choked, ragged sob as the weight of it all crashed over her.
She sank down onto the couch, curling in on herself, her body folding like it was trying to disappear. The tears slipped hot and fast down her cheeks, her breath catching on every shaky exhale.
Byrdie, curled up in her usual spot on the windowsill, lifted her head. The cat blinked at her slowly, then hopped down, landing lightly on the armrest.
Heather barely registered it until Byrdie climbed onto her side, pressing her small, warm weight against Heather’s ribs.
Right against the ache.
Heather let out a shuddering breath, the pressure grounding her and crushing her all at once.
Byrdie didn’t purr, didn’t knead or nuzzle—just settled there, steady and silent.
Like she knew.
Heather exhaled sharply, one hand buried in Byrdie’s fur, the other clamped over her mouth as she tried to quiet the grief swallowing her whole.
Heather swallowed back another sob. The movement made Byrdie snuggle tighter with her back legs on either side of Heather’s waist and her front paws and chin on Heather’s chest.
It had all been a lie. Her friendships… her family… her entire damn life.
Ivy had taken what she wanted; Sam had made his choice. And her father had left her behind long before the grave had made it final. They had all done whatever the hell they wanted.
They’d taken enough from her already. Her future wasn’t theirs to claim.
But why wasshethe one falling apart?
An hour had passed.
The ache in her chest calcified into something else. Something sharp… something cold. She wasn’t going to sit here alone, drowning in everyone else’s damage, one second longer.
She inhaled deeply, her fingers curling into Byrdie’s fur.
She was going to Scotland.
Chapter 7
On Wednesday, Heather woke up to the sharp buzz of her phone vibrating on the nightstand. She groaned, rolling over, her body aching with the weight of last night’s revelations. She had barely slept. Not from crying—she’d done enough of that. But from therage still simmering under her skin, from the betrayal thrumming in her bones, from the sheer, exhausting weight of realizing that the two people she was supposed to trust most—Ivy and her father—had never really seen her at all. She squinted at the screen, blinking against the pale morning light. Ivy’s name flashed across the notifications, one after the other, relentlessly:
“Heather, are you seriously ignoring me?”
“You’re really blowing this out of proportion. Can we talk?”
“Fine. Be mad. I don’t care.”
Heather stared at the messages, her thumb hovering over the screen, and for a second—just one second—her chest tightened. Because this was Ivy. Her best friend sincechildhood. The girl who had woven herself into every part of Heather’s life, who had made herself so essential that it felt impossible to untangle where Ivy ended and Heather began.
But now? Now she saw it for what it was. Ivy was panicking. Not because she regretted what she did, but because she got caught. No, if she was sorry, then the messages would have looked different.
Heather exhaled sharply with a sigh and turned her phone over, face down. She wasn’t dealing with that. Not today. Not now.
She grabbed it again a second later, firing off a quick text to Mark.“Not coming in today. Can you cover for me?”
A moment later, the dots appeared.“You okay?”
