Jase didn’t answer for a long moment. “I will always love Kari. She was a great person. I don’t know where we’d be right now if she had lived, but I will always care for her.” His chest rose slowly. He looked like he was about to say more, but changed his mind.
I recalled what Cam had said about him being scared. Maybe that really was it. Maybe he did love me, but it wouldn’t be enough. Some wounds, festered by silence, ran too deep. And there would be nothing I could do to change him and how he saw relationships. He had to find that in himself and he had to want to. And I hoped he did. Not just for my sake, but because, even though the wound he’d left on my heart was fresh and bleeding, he was a good man.
He just needed to sort himself out.
As I watched him work through what to say, I did what was probably the most mature thing I’d ever done in my almost nineteen years. Like earn-a-medal-or-a-box-of-cookies type of mature, because I was still hurting so badly when it came to him.
I leaned across the seat and pressed my lips against his cool cheek. Jase sucked in a sharp breath and turned a wild gaze on me as I pulled back. “I’m sorry for everything you’ve had to go through and I . . . I still love you, so I hope one day you’re able to move on, because you deserve that, Jase Winstead.”
Twenty-seven
Living in Cam’s apartment should’ve made life better. It did in a lot of ways. Staying there made it easier to avoid fixating on Debbie’s death or living somewhere that creeped the bejesus out of me. It helped with steering clear of crazy-sauce Erik. I caught rides to campus with either Avery or my brother, and since my knee rarely hurt as badly as it did in the beginning, the trek from music over to east campus wasn’t a big deal.
Not that I was eating lunch with Cam and everyone anymore. I didn’t know if Jase was. I doubted it since I was sure my brother had gone off on his friend once he realized we weren’t together any longer. But I couldn’t deal with it and pretend everything was dandy if Jase was there, so I stayed far away from the Den.
It was bad enough seeing him three times a week in music and then every so often around campus. He never spoke to me. Never once approached me to see how I was doing after the funeral. And it was stupid and pointless to allow this ache to fester and spread. Kari was a ghost. She was in the past, but Jase had loved her. They had brought a child into this world and ghost or not, I could not rid myself of the pain.
But it was more than just Jase. It seemed like it finally had sunk in—that my dream of being a professional dancer was truly over and that school was my future, which meant I had a lot of catching up on the taking-school-seriously thing, which stressed me out.
I was drained like an overeager blood donor by the time finals rolled around.
Dark shadows had bloomed under my eyes. Some days they were swollen, because late at night, when I’d wake up and there was nothing but silence, the tears would come. It was embarrassing knowing that Cam and Avery knew I’d been crying. I looked like crap. Wasn’t like I could hide it.
Over Thanksgiving, when Cam and Avery left to visit our parents, I’d gone with them to just get away. The trip had been good for me and Mom had loaded us up with baked goodies—the first apple pie of the season, two pumpkin rolls, and fresh bread. Cam had looked like he’d won the lottery, and I had checked out my ever-expanding ass and sighed. But when it had come time to return to Shepherdstown, the reprieve ended.
I hadn’t wanted to go back, because it felt like there was nothing there but sadness for me now.
Right before we’d left, I’d gone upstairs to my bedroom to grab a couple of sweaters I hadn’t taken with me in August. I’d gotten lost in staring at all the trophies lining my bookshelves, the ribbons hanging from the walls, and the sparkling crowns that had been given out during some competitions.
I’d picked up almost every trophy and tried to remember what it had felt like when my name had been called for first place or best overall, but the emotions had seemed cut off from me—a well I couldn’t access.
“You okay?”
I’d put a trophy back in its place and turned at the sound of Mom’s voice. I nodded as I wiped the tears off my cheeks with the back of my hands. When I’d started crying, I didn’t know.
A sad, sympathetic smile appeared on her lips as she’d crossed the room. Her bright blue eyes were shining in a way that made me want to cry harder. Cupping my cheeks, she’d brushed away a few tears that had lingered. “It will get easier, baby. I promise you.”
“Which part?” I’d mumbled. She’d known about Debbie, of course, and I’d told her about Jase—everything about Jase. We’d decided to keep that part from Dad if Jase ever decided to visit home with Cam. That wasn’t likely, but if Dad had known that his little princess’s heart was broken, he probably would’ve taken Jase out for hunting and had an “accident” during it.