Page 117 of Forever Dark
Selena stared at her.She had known Jessie might have been unhappy.Angry.Lonely, maybe.Divorced.But this?
Her heart sank.
“I’m sorry,” Selena said quietly.“If I’d known, I’d have…”
Jessie cut her off at once.“Given me sympathy?I don’t want that.”
A tear gathered at the corner of Jessie’s eye, and she wiped it away before it could fall.
“But you know,” she said, voice roughening despite the effort to keep it level, “I could’ve used a friend.”
That one did it.
Selena felt her own eyes sting.“You have one here.You still do.”
Jessie looked at her for a long second, deciding whether to believe it.
Then she nodded once.
“So how long you around for?”she asked.
“I don’t know.Until this case is figured out, at least.”
“And then what?Leave again?Back to the big city away from us country bumpkins?”
Selena sat back.“It’s not like that.”
The question should have been easy.It was not.A few days earlier she would have answered without thinking.Back to Washington.Back to work.Back to the life she had chosen and defended for fifteen years.
Now the answer caught.
“I don’t know what I’ll do after, to be honest,” she said.“When I first came here a few days ago, I wanted to get out as quickly as I could.But seeing my dad, you, even Connor and the town… I feel like I’ve left something behind that I didn’t realize I needed.God, I don’t even know if that makes sense.”
Jessie’s eyes narrowed slightly, not with suspicion this time but with interest.
“So, you might hang around for a while?”
Selena smiled faintly.“Maybe.I don’t know.I guess we’ll just have to see if I catch this bad guy first.Then the rest will take care of itself.”
Jessie took another sip of her shake.“There are rumors you guys are chasing down Elias Croft.”
Selena reached for her own drink.“Oh?Do you know him?”
“Sure I do.”Jessie glanced toward the window, then back.“When I was still using, I ended up at a few of his sermons.They helped.”
Selena nodded carefully.“Oh.Well, if it helped.”
She did not want to contest that.Not after what Jessie had just shared.Not when comfort, even borrowed comfort, might have been the thing that kept her upright at all.
Jessie pointed a finger at her.“Don’t tell my brother I flirted with religion.You know what he’s like about these sorts of things.He’d think they were taking advantage of me.”
Selena laughed, and this time it came easily.“Yeah, he’s like that.”
Jessie’s smile faded first.
“You know,” she said, quieter now, “my brother missed you terribly when you left after the accident.It was hard on him.Hard on all of us.”
Selena felt the words land in the center of her.Seeing Jessie.Hearing her voice.They had always confided in each other growing up.Somehow, her presence tore away at the facade Selena had built herself.The truth just poured out like it had been caught, trapped behind a dam wall.
