Page 222 of Wild Then Wed
“It was snowing. I remember that. The road was covered in ice. Slippery as hell. I remember getting out of the car and screaming. Calling 911. Someone else saw it too and pulled over. Tried CPR while we waited for the ambulance.”
He swallows. Hard.
“I remember her dress. Dark green. She kept joking about how it looked like she wrapped herself in velvet curtains.”
A small, sad smile. Then it’s gone.
“There was so much blood,” he says, his voice cracking completely now. “I remember thinking that. Just…so much. And her body…it was so mangled. So bad.”
Tears are rolling down my face now, and I don’t bother wiping them away.
“They told me later that the truck driver had a seizure. That he lost control and couldn’t stop.”
He rubs at his eyes, but it doesn’t help. The tears are still coming, and his voice is fraying at the edges.
“I feel so guilty,” he says, barely louder than a whisper. “All the time.”
I look at him, and he looks like he’s been holding this in so long it warped him from the inside out.
“I let her go alone,” he says, choking a little on the words. “I should’ve said no. I should’ve made her ride with me. I should’ve figured out a different way.”
His voice gets sharper, more broken with every sentence.
“I was right there, Wren. Right behind her. And I couldn’t do a goddamn thing. I just sat there and watched it happen. I would’ve taken her place in a second. I wish it had been me. Every fucking day, I wish it had been me.”
He bends forward, his hands over his face like he’s trying to press the memory out of his skull.
I reach for his hand and thread my fingers through his. He holds on like the grip might keep him from sliding under.
“Sawyer.”
He looks up, and I swear, there’s something in his eyes I’ve never seen before. Not grief. That’s always been there. This is shame. Self-hatred, self-loathing. It cuts me right open. I hate seeing him like this.
“You feel guilty because you survived,” I say, quiet. “But you’re not broken because of that. You’re human. And being human means sometimes you do everything right, and things still go terribly wrong.”
His jaw clenches, but he doesn’t speak.
“I know you think it should’ve been you,” I go on, “and maybe sometimes…I don’t know, maybe sometimes people need to think that, just to survive it. To give the pain somewhere to go.”
I pause, letting my own breath catch. “But I don’t think that’s what she would’ve wanted. I don’t think she would’ve wanted you to walk around everyday thinking the wrong person died.”
He blinks. Tears start falling again.
“I never knew her,” I say, “but I knowyou.And if she loved you even half as much as I do, then there’s no way in hell would she want that for you. Not a single day of it.”
“And maybe I can’t take that guilt away. I wouldn’t even try. But I do know what it feels like to walk around with a weight that doesn’t belong to you. And I’m telling you—you can set it down. Even if it’s just for a minute. Even if it’s just with me.”
I squeeze his hand. “You don’t have to keep choosing the pain just because it’s what you know. You can lay it down.”
He squeezes my hand back, then lifts it to his lips and kisses it.
And naturally, my minds drifts to horses.
The wild ones. The broken ones. The ones that rear and bolt when you so much as look at them wrong. Not because they’re dangerous, but because someone taught them once that people meant pain.
There’s a moment with those horses—always—when they stop flinching. When they let you in, just a little. Not because they trust you yet, but because theywantto. That’s what this feels like.
Sawyer, sitting here with his grief cracked wide open, letting me see it. Letting me touch it. That’s its own kind of permission.
