My phone rings around seven in the morning. It pulls me from sleep, and for a second, I reach over to touch Cora. I grunt when I realize that she’s not there before I roll over and grab the phone.

“Yeah?” I say, answering it.

“Wyatt, it’s Mitch.”

That perks me up. “Hey, man,” I say. “You caught me sleeping.”

“Sorry, I know it’s early. I just thought you’d want to know.”

I suddenly feel nervous. This is the call I’ve been expecting. “What’s up?”

“We got a judge and both Kristi and Jaxson were indicted for Atticus’s murder. Obviously it’s early days, but we’re already talking plea deals.”

I get out of bed, taking in this information. I put the phone on speaker and push the curtains open, letting light wash across my face. “What kind of deal?”

“In exchange for info on his gang, we’ll probably give him twenty-five to life,” Mitch says.

“Doesn’t sound like a good deal.”

“Better than death penalty. We’ll leave in the chance for parole after twenty-five years.”

I sigh and turn away from the window. I wish Cora were here, so we could talk about this. “Okay,” I say, letting out a breath. “What about the girl?”

“Kristi?” He chuckles. “She’s been… tough.”

“How so?”

“Less cooperative. They had to restrain her yesterday, apparently.”

“Really? I gotta admit, I’m surprised. I thought Jaxson would be the fighter.”

“Nope,” Mitch says, chuckling. “He gave up pretty fast. Kristi though, she’s not talking.”

“What’s her sentence look like?”

“Up in the air right now. Depends on how much she tries to pin it on Jaxson, but so far she hasn’t said much.”

“Maybe she’s not as stupid as she seems,” I say.

“She did ask for a lawyer so, you know.”

I laugh a little. “Well, hopefully she gets a bad one.”

“Truth is, Wyatt, I doubt she’ll go to jail forever. But she sure is looking at a long, long time behind bars.”

“Good. Bitch killed my friend.” I’m surprised at how angry I sound.

“Yeah,” he says softly. “She did. Anyway, that’s it for now. I’ll keep you posted if anything changes but… well, thanks, Wyatt. I think this is going to be good for Mason.”

“Just doing my job,” I grunt, although I have to admit, I’m a little proud.

“When are you going back?” he asks.

“Soon,” I say.

“Well, if you ever want to moonlight at Mason, you let me know.”

I laugh again. “Will do.”

“Thanks again,” he says. “We could have easily let that slide under the radar, but you forced our asses into gears. Some people might not like that, but I appreciate it.”

“Thanks, Mitch,” I say, deciding that he’s one of the good guys.

“See you later.”

“See you.”

We hang up the phone. I stretch and go into the bathroom. I brush my teeth, shower, and get ready for the day. I kill an hour that way before packing up my stuff slowly. When I’m done, I call up Cora, but she doesn’t answer.

I decide not to wait. I lug my stuff down to the car, get it packed, and head into the office. I pay my bill, hand in my key, and I am officially leaving this fucking dump.

When I’m done, I’m surprised to find Cora standing over by my car. She smiles a little bit as I walk over toward her.

“Morning,” she says.

“Morning,” I reply. I stop a few feet away from her.

“I thought I’d come say goodbye.”

I nod. “Thanks. I was going to come see you.”

“Got time for breakfast?”

I smile. “Yeah. I think I do.”

We get into my car and I drive us to the Great American. I can feel the tension in the car, but I don’t succumb to it. I ask her about her mother, and she talks about it as we head inside and grab a table.

Once our food arrives, I tell her about my call with Mitch. I’m surprised that she doesn’t seem to think much about it either way.

“I’m just glad I know the truth,” she says. “That’s all I really wanted.”

“Well, you’re getting justice. Or some kind of it, at least.”

She nods. “Good. I know it won’t help Atticus now… but at least those two people won’t be out there on the streets.”

“No, they won’t. Not for a very long time, at least, and who knows. Maybe prison will be good for them.”

That gets a smile out of her, but it quickly fades away. We move on to simpler things, stuff about my trip back home, what I’ll do there, promises that we’ll keep in touch, although I’m afraid they don’t mean much. I can see the pain on her face, and I feel it too.

Everything inside of me wants to stay. It’s screaming for me to stay. I’ve never felt like this about a woman before, and I have to realize by now that it’s real. It’s not just some stress-induced delusion. It’s a good thing, it’s pure and simple and it makes me happy. I don’t understand how I’m going to walk away from it.

I pay the bill and we leave. We get into my car and I drive her back to her mom’s place, not really thinking about the car she left back at the motel. She doesn’t say anything about it, probably because she wants to spend more time with me.

We get to her mom’s place and I park out front. On a whim, I suddenly get out of the car. “Follow me,” I say to her, shutting the door behind me.

“Wait,” she says, getting out. I’m already walking away, past her mom’s place, toward the back yard.

She has to run to catch up. “What are you doing?” she asks.

“Come on,” I say.

We cut through the woods, down a short slope, and around a little bend. We find a path, mostly overgrown now, but still familiar. She keeps step behind me as we walk, down around another bend, and up ahead I can hear the bubbling of running water over rocks.

We pass through the trees and underbrush and step up to the bank of a stream. It’s the same little body of water we used to play in as kids. We came here so many times, back in the day. Cora steps up next to me and I lean against her.

“Smaller now,” I say.

“I know.” She sighs. “We spent a lot of time down here.”

“Atticus loved it. He used to catch frogs and throw them into the water again.” I laugh to myself. “Remember the time he fell in?”

“Yeah, because you pushed him.”

I grin at her. “It was up there further, toward a deeper part.”

“We thought there were alligators in the water.”

“That’s right. I forgot about that.”

“There were rumors that the alligators came up and ate cats and dogs in the night.”

I laugh again and she’s grinning too. “I don’t know why we ever believed that.”

“We were kids.”

“Yeah, we were.”

We stand there, side by side, looking at the water. I half-turn toward her, but there’s this look on her face that stops me.

“Cora,” I say.

“It’s okay,” she interrupts me. “I know you have to leave. I get it. What we had… it’s fine, okay? You did enough. You didn’t have to do this.”

“Do what?” I ask softly.

“Bring me here. Remind me what I’ll be missing.”

“Cora,” I say again.

“Just go, okay? Just leave me. You don’t owe me anything.”

I take a step back. I could turn around right now, walk away quickly, get in my car, and never look back. I could do that and it would be okay. I’d hurt for a while, so would she, but we’d heal. She’s right, I don’t owe her anything. I already gave her a lot, much more than I expected.

But that’s the thing about love. You give more than you ever dreamed of giving, and then you give more, because you want to give. You want to give so badly you’re willing to give it all, absolutely everything about you, in order to make that other person happy.

It hits me all at once, standing there. The problem with the little story I’ve been telling myself is, I don’t think I’ll get over her. I don’t think I’ll heal. And I don’t want to.

I turn toward her completely. She looks up at me. “No,” I say.

“No, what?” She blinks.

“No, I don’t owe you shit.” I step closer to her. She doesn’t back away. “And what I do, I do because I want to. Do you understand?”

“Wyatt,” she says, and I can hear the pain in her voice, but she has to let me finish.

“I do what I want to do, because it makes me feel good. You make me feel good, better than anyone ever has. Maybe this is stupid…” I don’t finish my sentence. I grab her hips and pull her against me, kissing her deep and hard.

She kisses me back after a second, and I know I crossed a line. But it’s the sort of line I never want to go back over.

When our kiss slowly breaks off, I smile at her. “I love you, Cora. I’m not going anywhere.”

“You can’t,” she says softly.

“I can get another job.” I cock my head. “Do you want me to stay?”

“I love you,” she says, and it comes out in a rush.

I grin, kiss her again, and I know I’m making the right choice.

I’m leaving something behind, but that’s what you do for love. You sacrifice, you make choices. You choose to be a partner with someone and you give it your all, because at the end of the day, that’s what love is. It’s a choice, and nothing more, and you have to choose to give yourself up to it, to be swept along by its currents.

I’m choosing Cora. I’m choosing love. I’ll leave all that other stuff behind me, my old life, my old nicknames, my old jobs. None of it matters anymore, not compared to Cora. Not compared to what we can have, what we will have.

I kiss her again, deeper this time, because I know there are more to come.