Travis

Go to her now?

Wait until tomorrow?

I sat in the darkened sitting room, plotting.

Tap, tap, tap.

There were a hundred things I could do to delay what she planned as the inevitable. Take the spark plugs out of her car . . . set up a roadblock for some trumped-up “criminal on the run” who didn’t really exist . . .

I’d seen the indecision on her face. The way it hurt her to hurt me.

Once my emotions had settled and I’d stopped spiraling, I’d realized what I knew to be true. She cared about me, I knew she did. To what extent, I wasn’t sure, but she did. I’d seen it. I’d felt it.

She was scared. And I understood that. I longed to comfort her, to convince her that I wouldn’t hurt her. And maybe she’d be most receptive tonight. Or perhaps a night alone—missing me—would do the trick. Then, if not, I’d move to plan B. C, if necessary.

Tap, tap, tap.

I stilled my fingers, drumming distractedly on the wooden armrest of the chair I was sitting in.

Was I plotting again after I just had a breakthrough?

Confusion descended.

Okay, yes, but this was different. This—letting Haven go without a fight—hurt in a way that giving up material things did not. I could handle certain types of losses in the face of more important goals. But this . . . surely there was something I could do, something to make this pain stop, to twist things back in my favor.

The front door opened, then closed, the soft sound of drunken singing meeting my ears. The person stumbled, swore, and commenced singing, entering the living room where I sat.

“Hello, Easton.”

“Holy fuck!” He tripped, catching himself, jumping upright when he spotted me, reaching blindly for—I assumed—the nearest weapon and coming up with an umbrella in a stand by the door. He held it out in front of him comically, stabbing it at the air.

“Relax. You don’t need to defend yourself.”

Easton, seemingly unconvinced, stared suspiciously at me, only weaving slightly.

“I heard you’re doing well at the firehouse.” One of my best friends worked there and he’d told me the kid was a hard worker. A quick learner. Diligent.

The suspicion in his expression mixed with fear, and some amount of surprise, his drunkenness not allowing him to conceal his every emotion.

He tried though. “So?” He stood straight, feigning nonchalance.

“So that’s good.”

He squinted at me as if trying to determine what trick I was playing on him. “You’re not going to do anything to ruin it for me?”

“No, I’m not going to do anything to ruin it for you. Though you’re leaving soon, so what does it matter?”

He watched me for a moment and then let out a long sigh, swaying and sinking down into the chair next to him. He ran his hand through his hair. It was wavy, not curly like Haven’s. And his eyes were a different color, but the shape was the same.

“Listen . . . Chief.” He looked up at me, and though he was obviously drunk, to his credit, he was barely slurring. He obviously held his alcohol well. “I’m sorry, okay? I knew about you right from the start just like you said. Your girlfriend—” He squinted one eye as if trying to recall something.

“Phoebe.”

“Yes, right. Phoebe. She had a picture of you in your uniform as the screensaver on her phone. I saw it.”

I regarded him. “It added a little challenge for you?”

“I guess.” He looked slightly dejected as if the admittance brought him no joy.

Good.

I sighed, leaning forward, and placing my elbows on my knees. “You hurt your sister when you do things that reflect poorly on her, Easton. Don’t you think you owe her more than that?”

His shoulders sank and he was quiet for a moment. “Did she tell you why we’re on this road trip?” His eyes met mine and despite his drunkenness, they gleamed with emotion. “Did she tell you our junkie mom accidentally dropped her pipe and almost burned us all to death? The whole place went up in flames like some goddamned inferno that represented the hell that was our lives.”

He let out a breath, his head dropping. I stared, my muscles clenched tight.

“I dragged Haven out of there,” he said, as he massaged the back of his neck, his palms facing outward so I saw the raised and twisted skin. Melted. Burned. Healed. But not the same. Never the same. “And I managed to get our mom out too. But she was already dead. She’d died of an overdose before the flames even started spreading.” He let out another long breath. “We’re better off, you know? Haven spent her life trying to help her . . . cooking food for her, cleaning up after her, attending the things she was supposed to attend. I would have been in foster care a thousand times over if it wasn’t for Haven.” He leaned forward. “Once, our electricity had been turned off, and she asked for help from one of the guys she thought might be her dad.” His face twisted in distaste. “There were a few possibilities. I think Haven had this idea that one of them might be decent. Anyway, instead of helping, the dude hit on her. She came home sobbing her eyeballs out, and our mom just looked right through her like she wasn’t even there. And she still can’t manage to hate the worthless bitch. I can. Most days I can. And if I forget, I just remind myself what it looked like, our mom lying there, dead on the street, her skin burned, track marks littering her arms, our building in flames and Haven trying to run back inside for those fucking plants, trying to save them like they were her children.”

Oh God. The plants from the Kims’ garden. The ones she’d nourished and cared for after they’d left.

Not her children. A representation of the only stability she’d ever known. Before it, too, went away.

Just like everything and everyone that had ever meant anything to her. Whether they’d earned it or not.

I couldn’t breathe.

Haven Torres had been hurt and abandoned by the people who were supposed to care for and protect her. All her life. But instead of lashing out at others, she’d sought to be a protector, a rescuer. She’d remained good and loving despite all that she’d endured.

Unlike me, who’d turned my pain in the opposite direction.

I knew what it was like to lose someone a part of you wished you could hate. I had turned that hate outward. But Haven had found a way to love around it. And it was honorable and brave and beautiful. But I knew better than anyone that it was still there, inside, that ball of complex emotion that festered and hurt.

And so she’d run.

She’d cared for others, even to her own detriment. And she’d given every last ounce she had to give until she couldn’t do it anymore. And even then, her loving spirit demanded that she rescue something, and so she’d rescued plants.

She was a goddamn miracle.

How could I demand more? If I truly cared for her, and I did, God, I did, then I could not ask for more than she was willing to give. If I cared for her, I could not manipulate or plot, or try to control, the way I’d always done.

That was my fallback. Always. Manipulate. Position myself. And when I took a moment to consider this, I knew why. It was familiar and it made me feel artificially powerful because I was doing something to attempt to lessen my hurt. My feelings of being less-than. Second best.

Grasp. Hold. Attain for myself what no one else would give me, because I wasn’t worth the effort.

And it’d brought nothing but unhappiness. Loneliness. Even when a crowd of people surrounded me.

I shut my eyes, pain winding through me at the mere idea of just . . . letting go.

For her.

The way I’d done with Archer and that amendment, but harder. Infinitely harder.

The lessons just kept on coming, didn’t they?

Life testing whether I’d truly gotten it.

Archer’s words came back to me. She made me braver, and stronger. Because of her, I wanted to be the best version of myself. And that, I think, is what love does, if it’s really love.

The best version of myself wouldn’t try to force Haven to choose me. The best version of myself would let her keep her fear because, for now at least, she needed it. It was helping her survive, and only she got to decide when to let it go.

Bree had given Archer the time he needed to overcome his fear once upon a time. And I’d give Haven hers. Despite that it killed me.

I wouldn’t plot. Not with Archer, and not with her. Not with anyone. I’d made my case. I’d bared my heart and it was all I could do. All I should do. I laced my fingers, clenching my joined hands, because I’d thought it earlier, and I thought it now: old habits died hard.

My eyes remained fixed on the kid in front of me. He carried things too. And he was all she had. Whatever his reasons, he’d turned his pain outward.

I was no better, and probably worse.

“Go to bed, Easton,” I said, my voice thick. “You’re probably going to have a hangover in the morning.”

“Yeah.” He ran his hand through his hair again and pulled himself to his feet. He stumbled toward the doorway, stopping and turning his head back toward me. “Goodnight, Chief Hale.”

“Goodnight.”

I sat there for a few more minutes, letting the suffering wash through me, over me. And then I stood, making my way to my room and packing hastily. I left the key on the dresser and then I exited, looking down the hall at Haven’s closed door, longing to go to her, but resisting.

I walked quietly down the stairs, stopping only to write a brief note to Betty before I left.