The Darkest Part (Living Heartwood 1)

HOLDEN

Okay. So maybe I went too far. But I didn’t toss her over my shoulder, at least. She scared the hell out of me, though. And I think I scared her right back.

Sam’s always been strong-willed, determined, independent. I glance at her out of the corner of my eye, pushed all the way against the door of the truck.

But she’s never been this.

Dammit. Why did I ever think I could do this trip with her? I’m not a masochist. I deserve her wrath for what went down in high school, but this is more. More than just angst over being rejected. And more than her grief over Tyler.

She’s afraid of me.

I slam my palm against the steering wheel, releasing a harsh curse when my injured hand flares with pain. She flinches. Fuck. That sure as hell didn’t help. Breathing deeply, I rein in my anger. I know what must be going through her head, what’s probably been going through it for the past eleven months, since the accident that took my mom. And now with Tyler . . . I don’t know how to handle this.

I crank my truck, check the rearview and glance over my shoulder, then pull out.

“Where are you taking me?” Her voice is small, broken. It makes the fiery lump burning at the back of my throat thicken.

“Home. Your house.” I swallow. “To get your car.”

She rubs her tiny hands over her face and groans. “Why did you have to follow me?”

Hiking an eyebrow, I swivel my body just enough to stare at her without losing sight of the road. “You don’t want to go home now?” I’m ready to ram my head through the windshield, just to stop thinking. I can’t figure her out.

She pulls one leg onto the bench seat, wraps her arms around it. Stares ahead. “No.” I wait patiently—not so much—for her to continue.

When she doesn’t, “Why?”

“I’m pretty sure my mom’s pissed, maybe even put a call into my doctor, and probably alerting the media as we drive that I’m a psycho on the loose who needs to be brought in by any means necessary.”

“What?” If I didn’t know better, all kinds of bad would be flashing through my mind: Sam’s been certified, I’ve been helping an escaped mental patient, my ass behind bars. But I do know better. And when I look at her—her pale face, a worry line between her brows, her lost expression—I have to admit that I have no idea what she’s been through since she lost Tyler. She looks more than drained. She looks on edge.

The compulsion to fix it surges through me.

“I’m exaggerating,” she says on a sigh. “Maybe. I don’t know. All I know is that I didn’t tell my parents where I was going because I don’t feel like dealing with any more guilt. I’ve put them through enough. And if I had to fight my way through this too . . . I don’t know.” She shakes her head. “I just couldn’t.”

My aggravation with her and the situation dissipates a fraction. I know what it’s like to run—to need to run. “You’re nineteen. They can’t really tell you what to do.”

“I know.”

“No,” I say, turning into a Wendy’s parking lot. “You apparently don’t.” I park and then turn my body so that I can focus just on her. “You don’t want the guilt of putting them through anything, but you’re missing the fact that you’ve been through hell. Anything they’re trying to do is their coping mechanism.” I rub my jaw. “Parents never stop being parents. They have to try and fix shit for you, or else they feel useless.” This just isn’t true of mine.

She looks at me, her knee still clasped by her arms, her dark curtain of hair draping her leg. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying, call your mom.” I nod toward the iPhone peeking out the pocket of her pack. “If you’re confident when you say it, she’ll probably be relieved that you’ve taken it upon yourself to fix whatever’s broken.”

Her brow furrows, and her eyes pin me with a look I can’t decipher. But then she grabs her phone and scrolls through. She exhales. “Five missed calls from her already.”

“Just call.”

After she presses the screen, she holds the phone to her ear, her other hand gripped tightly around her pack’s strap. “Mom . . . yeah, I’m fine.” She glares at me before looking out the passenger side window. “I’m with Holden.” She pauses, and the muffled sound of her mother’s voice pulses from the phone. “Savings.” Another beat. “No . . . you don’t have to put money in my account. I have enough . . . yes.” Her head whips around, her eyes large and round. “Dr. Hartman said that, really? Yeah. It was my idea . . . I think it will be good for me, too.”

A long pause, and Sam bows her head. “I love you, too. I’ll text when I reach my first stop.” She punches the screen. “Well, shit.”

I give her a lopsided grin and raise my brows. “Map?”

She rakes her teeth over her bottom lip, then moistens it with her tongue. I look away.

“You really think I’ll get into that much trouble on my own?” she asks.