I’d never forget the moment as I stood there in The Silent Bookshop. It was one of the big moments. One of the ones that truly defined who I’d be from that point on. It was the moment that changed me from the person I’d always been.

It was the exact moment when I lost my last mustard seed of faith. It was the exact moment when I no longer believed in God.

“Come with me,” Jackson whispered.

“But…” I started.

“Princess,” he said, his voice smoky as it always had been. He took my hands into his and lightly squeezed them both. “Come with me.”

And with his guidance, I followed him.

We walked the streets of Chester with my hand in his, and it still felt as if time was frozen. We reached his property, and he took me to the area in the back of the shop where the broken-down car sat.

He stood me in front of the car and then grabbed a pair of safety goggles and placed them over my eyes. Then he grabbed the sledgehammer and handed it my way.

“Okay, he said, nodding toward the vehicle. “Go wild.”

I took a deep breath, pulled the sledgehammer over my head, and slammed it into the car. I kept swinging, unaware of how long I beat the car. I couldn’t stop pounding the metal piece of junk in front of me. I slung the hammer into the back window, shattering the glass as my eyes released a floodgate. I couldn’t see through the goggles, but I kept swinging over and over again, taking all the strength left in my body and releasing it onto the vehicle. I might not have had much left inside me, but I had enough power to release the anger inside me.

“All right,” Jackson stated. “That’s enough.”

But I didn’t stop. I kept pounding away at the balled-up sheet metal.

“Princess, that’s enough,” he said, this time sterner, yet still, I didn’t listen.

Everything inside me ached in a way that I didn’t know could hurt. It was as if my soul was set on fire, and it would be an eternal burn.

I swung the sledgehammer over my head, and when I was unable to swing it down, I turned to see Jackson’s hands gripped around the head.

“Let go,” I ordered.

“No,” he replied.

“Jackson, let go,” I begged, taking off the goggles.

“No.”

“Let go!” I barked, this time with tears falling down my face, my heart racing faster and faster.

“Grace, please…” he whispered, his voice quiet, almost a whisper as he stared straight into my eyes. He moved closer to me, and his fingers landed against mine as he started to loosen my grip. “Let go.”

I released the sledgehammer and took a few steps backward.

Jackson placed the hammer down, and he gave me the most pathetic look.

“I’m okay,” I lied, sniffling. “I’m okay.”

“You’re not.”

“No. I am. Everything’s fine. Everything’s always fine. Everything’s—”

He moved in closer and narrowed his eyes as he stared my way. The closer he got, the more my nerves began to build. “Seriously, I’m okay. I lost it there for a minute, but I’m okay. I’m—”

“You’re bleeding,” he told me.

I am?

He wiped his thumb against my cheek, and when he pulled it back, I noticed the blood resting against his fingertip. Then I felt the sting.

“It’s a deep cut. I think some of the glass from the car must’ve struck you,” he said. “Come to my place. I’ll get you cleaned up.”

I wiped my hand against my cheek and shook my head back and forth a little. “It’s fine. I’m okay. I’m fine.” I kept saying those words over and over again, hoping that I’d somehow start to believe them.

“Come on,” he said, holding his hand out to me. I took his grip, and a chill raced over me as he walked me to his cabin. I didn’t say a word on the whole walk over, mainly because my mind was numb. We walked into the house, and I stood in his living room, where an easel was set up and a piano sat in the far corner of the place. The cabin looked bigger on the inside than it appeared from the outside, and it was a very clean place. The artwork on all the walls, many different paintings of sunrises and sunsets, was all breathtakingly stunning.

“Sit here,” Jackson ordered, leading me to the couch. I did as he said, and he hurried away to get a towel and some Band-Aids. Tucker was quick to come greet me, and when he tried and failed to jump on the couch, I helped him up, and he snuggled right into my lap, wagging his tail.

“Good boy,” I whispered, somehow finding instant comfort.

When Jackson came back, he kneeled in front of me with a warm cloth and placed it against my cheek. I flinched a little, and he frowned. “Sorry,” he muttered.

“It’s fine,” I replied.

We sat in silence as he attended to my wound, and Tucker fell fast asleep in my lap.

“Jackson—”

“Look—”

We spoke at the same time, and I nervously laughed as his fingers brushed against my face. “You first,” I told him.

He swallowed hard. “I didn’t mean for you to get hurt. I’m sorry. I just thought some of the energy you had needed to find an outlet.”

“Is that why you hit the cars? As an energy outlet?”

He didn’t reply.

I lowered my head.

“You might need stitches,” he told me. He cleared his throat, and when he looked up at my eyes, the guilt in that hazel stare made my heart feel as if it were being squeezed. “I’m sorry.”

“No worries,” I said. “I did, after all, make you drop a sledgehammer on your foot, so I assume we’re even,” I joked.

“No, that’s not what I mean.”

He stared at me with a hard look, and his lips stayed turned down into a frown. “I’m sorry for the way I’ve been. For the way I’ve treated you.”

“If I knew all it would take for you to be nice to me was my husband getting my best friend pregnant, I would’ve done that ages ago.” I laughed, but he kept frowning.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Do what?”

“Laugh when nothing’s funny.”

“Yes, I do, because otherwise…” As he stared at me that way, I had to turn away because I felt my emotions finally catching up with me as my heartbeats slowed down. A small, uncomfortable laugh fell from my lips. “Because otherwise you’re going to be annoyed by me,” I warned him.

“Why?”

My bottom lip trembled, and I felt my body start to shake as my hands covered my face. “Because this is the part where I cry.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. His hands brushed against mine, and he took them into his hold, lowering them from my face. “And this is the part where I let you.” He moved Tucker from my lap onto another couch cushion. Next, Jackson placed his hands into mine and lifted me up from the couch and wrapped his arms around me. He held me close to him, and he became the one who held me up as I began to fall. I sobbed against his T-shirt, thinking of all the years of struggles, all the years of pain as I tried to create the life that Autumn had stolen straight from under my feet.

Every now and then, Jackson’s hand gently rubbed my back, bringing about an odd sense of comfort.

As I pulled back a little, I thanked him for holding me, for allowing me to fall apart. He brushed his thumb against my cheeks, wiping away my tears that kept falling.

I laughed nervously. “Hot mess,” I said, stating what he’d been calling me for the longest time.

He kept wiping my tears. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice deep and smooth. “For calling you a hot mess when I met you.”

“Don’t be. It’s true, after all. I am a hot mess.”

“Everyone’s a hot mess,” he insisted. “Some people are just better at hiding it.”

I didn’t know why, but that statement eased my mind a bit.

Jackson rubbed the side of his neck and cleared his throat. “You want water?”

“Yes. Please.”

He hurried into the back of the cabin, toward the kitchen, and I took deep breaths. My fingers lightly touched the Band-Aids against my face, and I walked toward the walls to study the sunsets more closely. They were stunning. So stunning and realistic that they almost looked like photographs. Each one had the initials H.E. in the bottom corner.

“These are beautiful,” I told him as he reentered the room with the glass of water. He handed the glass my way. “Who’s H.E.?” I asked.

“Hannah Emery,” he quietly replied as he stuffed his hands into his pockets. “My mother.”

“She was an amazing artist,” I told him.

He nodded once. “She was more than that.” Before I could ask him anything about his mother, he shifted the conversation back to me. “Are you all right?”

I snickered. “Truth or lie?”

“Truth,” he replied. “Always truth.”

I took a deep breath, and tears fell as I exhaled. I couldn’t even reply.

“I’m sorry you’re hurting,” he told me.

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not.”

He was right, it wasn’t all right, and I wasn’t certain that it would ever be all right.

“You were right about everyone in town. They were just comforting me so they could get more gossip. They didn’t care about my heart or how it beat. They just wanted something to talk about.”

“I’m sorry I was right.”

“It’s okay. I just…I feel like I have no one, you know? I mean, I can talk to my sister and my father, but that’s pretty much it, and I don’t want to burden them. Everyone else in this town just feels like a stranger to me.”

“Even your mom?”