I headed toward town to try to get some air, to try to come to grips with what had just happened, but it didn’t take long for me to realize I’d made a major mistake by walking through downtown Chester. Everywhere I turned, I ran into the familiar face of someone who wanted to talk to me, wanted to ask me questions, wanted to know why my eyes were flooded with tears.

Each person made my heart crack. Each question singed my skin. I wasn’t in the right mindset to deal with anyone or anything.

I can’t breathe…

I began rushing, trying my best to avoid people on the whole. Everyone in town seemed so happy, and that was hard for me. It hurt more than I thought possible to push my way through a space filled with happiness. Everyone was alive, everyone was filled with life, and my insides felt hollow.

Whenever I blinked, I was certain I was seconds away from falling apart.

How was it possible?

How could one be in the middle of a town, surrounded by people who knew you, yet feel so unbelievably alone?

I took a moment to slow down in front of the pizzeria, leaning against the brick wall and trying to inhale, but the air was still hard to take in.

My body was sweaty, and my vision blurry. Whenever I blinked, I saw him with her. Whenever I breathed, the shards of my heart stabbed my soul.

I was seconds away from a mental breakdown, moments away from losing myself when a hand landed on my shoulder and I flipped around, panicking as I made eye contact with Jackson. The palms of my hands were sweaty, and my heart pounded rapidly against my ribcage.

“Hey,” he said, holding his hands up in surrender. The concern on his face was heavy, and I was surprised to find that a man like him could be concerned.

I must’ve looked that bad off.

“I-I-I…” I tried to say I was okay, nodding so he wouldn’t worry. “I’m o-okay. I think I’m j-ju-just…” I couldn’t push the words out, so I started waving my hands toward me, trying to collect my next breaths, and Jackson shook his head.

“You’re having a panic attack,” he told me.

I nodded once more. “Yes. That.” My hands fell to my chest, and I swore any second I’d be okay. I had to be okay. There had to be a point when the breaking pieces stopped breaking, right?

“Come here,” Jackson said, holding his hand out toward me.

“I’m…I’m f-fine,” I stuttered, but he just shook his head as people walked past us on the street, whispering and staring.

“Princess,” he said, his voice low. He moved his hand closer and gave me the gentlest stare. “Trust me.”

I didn’t. I didn’t know what trust was anymore. The two people who were supposed to always stand by my side had ruined my idea of trust, but…

I needed to breathe.

Just for a moment.

I took Jackson’s hand, and he walked me around the corner to the alleyway. Stepping back against a mural, we leaned against the brick wall. As I began to fall apart, I tried to apologize to him, but my words came out jumbled and incoherent.

“You’re fine,” he said sternly.

I kept huffing and puffing, but nothing was working. As my body was about to hit the concrete, as I was about to surrender to my pain, I was surprised when I melted into Jackson Emery’s arms.

He caught me.

He held me.

He wouldn’t let me fall.

I yanked on his shirt, pulling him closer as I fell apart against him. I wanted to be brave, wanted to end my meltdown, but for a split second, as Jackson held me, it felt okay to have my moment and fall apart. When my sobbing became too intense, when it felt like anxiety and panic would swallow me whole, he held me closer.

“You’re okay,” he soothed, his voice deep and steady. He let me go as I kept trying to regroup. “Hey, come here,” he said, lowering himself to the ground. “Just sit down for a second. Breathe.”

Easier said than done.

I sat down beside him, leaning my back against the mural of our town.

“Good,” he told me. “Now lower your head between your legs and take deep breaths.”

“I-I ca-can’t…”

“Yes, princess, you can. Just slow down. Lower your head and lace your fingers together on the back of your neck. You can do this.”

I did as he said, and every time I tried to apologize, he told me to stop and just breathe.

Slowly but surely, my heartbeats began to return to a normal pace. Slowly but surely, embarrassment filled me as I raised my head and found Jackson’s intense stare on me.

I wiped my eyes and inhaled. “I’m so sorry.”

“Stop saying that.”

“Sorry,” I murmured, making him roll his eyes.

“I said stop saying that.”

“Sor—” I started but then caught myself. “Okay.”

He sighed, his face still hard. “Okay.”

I combed my hands through my hair and shook my head back and forth. “You can go, I swear. I’m just a bit of a hot mess, remember? I should probably get going, too,” I said, moving to stand, but he placed his hand on my forearm.

“Just give it a minute. Let your body calm down. Panic attacks take a second to disappear completely.”

“You’ve had panic attacks before?”

He fiddled with his hands and looked down at the ground. “My mother used to suffer from them.” He kept staring down at his hands before saying, “You’ll be fine. Just give it a minute, all right? Take small breaths.”

Take small breaths.

I can do that.

We sat in silence, both staring forward and letting the warm night air touch our skin.

“What’s your story?” I asked, tilting my head toward him, somewhat confused by his entire existence. He was so mean, so dark, but at the same time, he managed to somehow be gentle…

A gentle monster.

“You know my story, remember? You said you know me. Everyone in this place seems to know me,” he replied, almost growling. “I’m the town asshole, and that’s all there is to it.” He stood and then cleared his throat. “Just give it about five more minutes, all right?”

“Okay. Thanks.”

He brushed his hands on the back of his neck and shook his head. “Stop talking. Just breathe.”

His hazel eyes locked with mine, and we spent a moment taking one another in. It was as if we truly saw each other for the first time. As I looked into his eyes, I recognized something I saw in my own soul: loneliness.

The way he stared made me think he recognized it, too.

He glanced my way one last time. He didn’t smile, but he didn’t frown, and somehow, that felt like a small victory.

As he left, I silently thanked him again. After an evening of drowning, the town’s bad seed was the one who’d helped me come up for a small breath of air.

6

Jackson

“I see we’re out and about, making new friends,” Alex remarked as I walked back into the shop with a pizza a while later. I tossed it in the break room then came back out, arching an eyebrow in his direction.

“What the hell are you doing?” I asked as he stood under the hood of that disgustingly pink automobile.

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m working on Grace’s car.”

“I said take it to the scrapyard, not here.”

“Oh? Did you? I must’ve missed that,” he lied. Alex was a great listener; he never missed a word anyone said. “Well, since it’s here…” He smirked at me, and I rolled my eyes, making him laugh. “Come on, man. It could be our newest passion project. We’ve been looking for the perfect new toy to play with.”

I walked around the car, kicking one of the tires. “There’s nothing about this thing that makes me passionate. It’s a piece of shit. It’s seriously a piece of actual shit. If it were an animal’s shit, it would be a monkey’s. If it were a person’s shit, it would be yours. It’s the worst piece of shit that ever existed.”

“Hmm…” Alex whistled low. “I’m glad to see you’ve been working on watching your language, and really? You think monkey shit is worse than hippo shit?”

“Well, I guess it depends on the size of the monkey.”

“No, Jackson”—he shook his head—“it doesn’t.”

“I’m serious, man. Get this out of the shop.”

“Listen, kiddo, you know I love you like you’re my own son, but I think it’s childish that you are refusing a perfectly good learning experience on this pink hot mama because of the hate you have for the family it belongs to.”

“That family is nothing but shit,” I barked. “You should hate them, too.”

“Yes, sure, of course. But this”—Alex hugged the car—“this is a precious baby. It didn’t choose its family. It had no say in who owned it. It’s just sitting in our shop, looking for a little love. Can’t we give it a little love, Jack-Jack?”

He gave me his best puppy-dog eyes, and he knew how much I hated when he did that.

Alex was my uncle, my mother’s older brother, and he’d moved to Chester a few years back when Dad wasn’t in any shape to take care of the shop or me. He was pretty much the only person in the whole town I gave a damn about.

We were close, at least as close as I allowed people to get, which wasn’t saying too much.