Page 85 of A Bittersweet Summer

Cass huffs a laugh and continues to sway.

I hold her in my arms, rocking in the dim light from the lamp.

Out the back of the house, the pond rests quietly, willow swaying in the warm night air. I can’t help but think I’d want to do this forever.

The farm, the girl. Even the cat lying on the corner of the couch is asleep and purring.

I love you, I think one last time, and hope she feels the same.

“Wes.”

I open my eyes. The nighttime is thick outside our window. The moon hovers above the fields, shadowed by lacey clouds.

Cass touches my arm, and I turn to get a good look at her. She’s sitting up, her face pale—void of color—void of life.

I rub sleep from my eyes, propping myself up on my elbows. My brow creases when her expression doesn’t change. Her breaths come out slow, but with weight.

“Are you okay?” I ask. Mud sleeps peacefully at my feet, taking up far more room than we have to give. I spot Rory on Cass’s side.

She clutches her phone to her chest, and worry snakes its way through my chest. I sit up more, touching her frozen face. “What is it?” I ask.

Her next words are breathed. If the night hadn’t been so silent around us, I would have missed them.

“Gus is gone.”

Three heartbeats punctuate the silence before the ache wedges its way into my chest. It’s a deep bruise—painful to the touch. “He left?” I ask, but the pit in my stomach knows before she says it.

“He… died.” When she pulls her phone away from her chest, her hands shaking as she stares at the screen. One o’clock reads on the screen over the picture of the sunset over the barn. “Megan woke up in the middle of the night to check on him,” she continues. She looks like the shell of herself—hollow. “He was just—”

She doesn’t finish the sentence.

I don’t have much experience with grief. I’ve watched horses pass, buried childhood dogs beneath the willow in our yard, but I’ve never been this close to death before.

It’s not what I thought it would be. In the movies, sound ceases to exist as people crumple. Tears wrack their bodies the moment grief sets in.

This is not what happens to Cassidy. She stares ahead as if in shock. I’m not sure what to do, so I reach out, pulling her stiff form to my chest as she takes a shuddering breath. There’s not a tear to be found.

“What do you need?” I whisper into her hair.

All I can picture is Gus in the hospital. Wejustsaw him. He wasjusthere.

Cass doesn’t say anything for a while as I hold her, and even though she doesn’t melt into me, I don’t let go.

“Can we leave?” she asks, and I’m nodding before she says another word. “My parents are at the apartment. So is Megan and her family.”

There is nothing else to be discussed. Anything she needs, I’ll provide. And if I can’t, I’ll find someone who can. “Let me grab my keys.”

The car ride is silent—nothing but the stretch of road dotted with flickering streetlights. My hand tightens on the wheel of my truck until my knuckles turn white. Cass is curled up in the seat next to me, her sweater pulled up over her hands as she rests her head against the windshield, watching the trees blur by.

Death exists.

I heard once that children often start realizing this around the age of five. I didn’t think much about death beyond that, but the concept lurked in the background. One year, when I was fourteen, a mare dropped a foal that hadn’t survived. I remember looking to my dad, desperate to emulate his behavior. He’d set the standard then, even if he didn’t realize it. He was always so unflappable—so capable when it came to the challenges this farm threw at him. I wanted to be just like that.

I did as he did and put my head down, wore my gloves, and dragged the body to the back of the property.

“It’s natural,” my dad had said with a shovel in the ground. “Even the seasons cycle through death and rebirth.”

I wiped my brow, hollow as I followed direction after direction.