Caught up in righteous outrage on Linden’s behalf, I’d almost forgotten that piece of things. On a Halloween-month weekend like this one, the orchard should have been slammed with a steady stream of visitors, bouncing along on the hayride that became charmingly “haunted” after dark, rambling their way through the hedge maze, wandering through the tidy rows of trees with lumpy totes slung over their shoulders, apples rolling in their wake. But instead I’d seen only a thin trickle of tourists the whole time we’d been here.
And given how teeming the town was with visitors, there should have been more than enough to go around—had things not become so rigged in the Blackmoores’ favor.
“That just makes me hate that jagbag even more,” I said, jaw tight. “Him and his whole shitty family.”
Linden let out a surprised little burst of laughter. “That what?”
“Jagbag, it’s a Chicago thing. I think it’s a slightly more couth version of jackass, or maybe jerkoff? I just like how it sounds.”
“Jagbag,” she repeated, trying it on. “Yeah, you know, I like it for him, too. It fits.”
We lapsed into companionable silence as the sunflowers bobbed above us, their heads rippling as a brisker edge of wind scythed through the field. I tugged my fisherman’s sweater tighter over my shoulders with a cozy shiver, enjoying both the spun wool and the chill.
“I’ve missed this, Lins,” I said, tilting my head back to squint up at the sun. “Just talking with you. And all the dumb stuff we used to pull together, thinking we were such hot shit. Remember when we went swimming in the water tower à la the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, like that was ever gonna end well?”
“And then our hard cider buzz wore off, and we both remembered how we felt about heights. Poor Rowan had to come grow us a rescue vine.” She breathed out a laugh, shaking her head. “We were so ridiculous.”
“But in the best way, right? I really have missed us, Lin. I’ve missed you.”
“Have you?” Linden said, in such a quietly wounded tone that my head snapped up, my heart suddenly tripping over itself. “Because I’ve tried so hard, Em, so hard to keep us together. To keep us friends. And sometimes it seems like you want that, too, and I feel like I still have you, like we’re still us. But then other times . . .” She shook her head, the corners of her mouth drawing down. “You feel so far away. Like if we never saw each other again, you might be totally okay with it.”
I stayed silent for a moment, a burst of pain blooming in my chest like a sharp-edged star, so gutted I didn’t even know where to begin. I’d had no idea Linden felt this way.
Or maybe it was more that I’d thought she and I were on the same page, when it came to slowly letting each other go.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered finally. “Lin, really, I . . .”
“You know, I honestly didn’t think you were ever coming back,” she cut me off, tears thick in her voice. “That’s why the thing with Gareth even stood a chance. I’d never have looked at him twice, otherwise, but I thought you were over Thistle Grove for good. Done with this place, done with . . . with me. And that blows, Emmy. It . . . it truly fucking blows, on top of everything else, to feel like my best friend in the world had disappeared on me.”
At that, she started crying in earnest, fat tears sliding in hitching trails down her face.
I’d heard Linden curse with her whole chest like that maybe two other times in my life, and only when driven to the most emotional extremes. Hearing it, and seeing those terrible tears, made me feel like my heart was cracking open like a geode. Breaking down a hidden fault line into two hunks of saw-toothed stone. It made me feel not just ashamed, but like I was even worse than Gareth, somehow, in my own special, garbage way.
While I spun in place like a broken compass needle, Jasper whined, nosing Linden’s knee. She set a palm on his head, hiding her face behind her other hand as she cried.
My standard schnauzer was apparently a better person than me, a dismal truth that just about summed up this entire mess I’d made.
“Lin,” I started, helplessly. She shook her head, her spine tense as a drawn bow and shoulders quivering as she cried into her palm.
So I did the only thing I knew to do, the only thing I’d ever done when something threatened to drive a wedge between us. Even though this time, the wedge was me.
I reached for her.
For a moment, she held herself apart like I’d been afraid she would, and I felt a yawning fear at the possibility that I’d lost her, like standing at the edge of a precipice with miles of empty air gaping below my toes. It had been so foolish of me, so short-sighted and selfish and borderline cruel, to think that just because I’d excised this town from my heart, I could live without her, too. How could I have thought that, when Linden Thorn was such an essential part of me, the two of us braided into each other like trees grafted together when they were only saplings?