She stared at Declan, her eyes round, her mouth a perfect O. She didn’t know what to say to that. She wasn’t quite sure there was anything to say to that.

He couldn’t mean that he took a gun and shot her, obviously. Declan would never do that. Her mind scrambled to remember the details. His mom had died in a car wreck outside of Boise. Declan had been at home with Iris in Pocatello when he’d gotten the call. He couldn’t have killed his mom. He wasn’t within 200 miles of her when she died.

“I don’t understand,” she finally whispered, when it became clear he wasn’t going to say anything else.

He rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands, looking twenty years older. Haggard.

“I told her about being dyslexic,” he said, so quietly, she almost couldn’t hear him above the water and the frog and the light rustling of the leaves in the wind. “I was struggling. Do you remember that? Even with your help, I was just pulling in a D in a couple of my classes.”

She nodded. She did remember that now. She’d forgotten – lost in the mists of time. He’d made jokes at the time about how Ds get degrees. She’d known he was trying to cover up his frustration about not doing well – that he was using humor to play it down – but she hadn’t realized just how much it was really bothering him.

He truly was gifted at hiding his worries, if that could be considered a gift.

She wanted to tell him that he should’ve told her what was going on, that she would’ve wanted to know so she could help even more. 

But now was not the time for that. He needed to get this off his chest. It was his time to talk, and her time to listen.

“I called my mom, and I whined,” he said with a small smile. “I was 20, and maybe some people would consider me to be an adult, but I wasn’t. Not really. You know that Mom and I were always close. Closer than Dad and I ever would be. Dad had Wyatt, and then years later, Stetson. He taught me how to farm, but Mom…she taught me how to be. How to be an adult. How to be a gentleman. How to love.

“And when I called to vent my frustrations, it just sorta slipped out. I hadn’t meant to tell her, but I did, and…she went into mom mode. She told me that I was smart and kind and all of those things moms are supposed to tell their kids, and then she decided to surprise me. She made a batch of pumpkin chocolate chip cookies – my favorite of course – and packed them into the car and took off. I’m not even sure if she gave Dad a chance to say yes or no to the idea. She was going to come over to see me – drive across the state to bring me cookies – and…just be there for me.”

He stopped. He grew so quiet for so long, Iris wasn’t sure he was going to start talking again, but finally, he continued.

“I didn’t know what she was doing until I got that phone call from Dad. He was frantic. The police had just called to let him know that she was being life-flighted to Boise, and he wanted me to come help him take care of things. You were there. You know how that conversation went.”

She nodded slowly. How quiet Declan had been that day after she got home from her classes. How he’d answered the phone with a smile, and then how that smile had faded away into a frown and then full-blown panic as the conversation continued.

She’d been so confused, watching him. What was happening? She couldn’t hear his dad’s voice clearly enough to know what he was saying, but she could tell that whatever was going on, his dad was upset. It wasn’t a very long conversation, but…

It changed everything. She didn’t want to make his mother dying all about her, of course, but that day cost her Declan. She didn’t know it at the time, but he’d never be the same around her again. It wasn’t too much after his mom’s funeral that he broke things off with her.

“Declan, you told your mom that you were dyslexic. You didn’t kill her. There’s a—”

“Don’t you think I’ve told myself that? I know the truth. Logically. Up here.” He tapped the side of his head, the pain etched across his features. “But…”

He just sat there, the weight of it all physically crushing him down. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she whispered.

“And kill you, too?” He let out a short laugh. “I’d just killed my mother by admitting weakness to her, and you think I should’ve fixed that by admitting weakness to you, too?”

He stood up and strode around the glade, stomping through the bright green grass, shoving his hands into his hair. “I didn’t even tell my brothers what happened. My dad never did ask why Mom was so hell-bent on making it over to see me that day. His whole world had just been destroyed by the hoof of a deer. He didn’t have the mental capacity to ask me questions, and for that, I was glad. I don’t know what I would’ve told him if he’d asked.”

The hoof of a deer…

Iris had forgotten that detail. The deer had hit the grill of the car and twisted, sending the right front hoof straight through the windshield and into Declan’s mother’s forehead. The chances of that happening…if the deer had just twisted a little further to the side…

The whole thing was an awful story, too awful to be real.

Except it was.

No wonder Declan had thought it was the gods, exacting their revenge on him for admitting weakness.

She stood up and moved to his side, throwing her arms around him. “Oh Dec. I wish I’d known…”

So much made sense now. His complete refusal to tell her why he was breaking up with her. Moving up to northern Idaho, far away from friends and family. He’d stopped responding to her phone calls, and eventually, she’d just given up. Whatever had caused him to do what he did, she couldn’t fix it if he wouldn’t even talk to her.

“Declan, you have to know here,” she touched his heart, “that you didn’t do anything wrong. You have to believe it. You were just as innocent as everyone else.”

“But then you hit a deer too, and this happened,” he said, gesturing at her legs. “Maybe God is trying to tell me something. Maybe I shouldn’t be trusted to be in people’s lives. Maybe I should just be single and protect those I love from…me.”

She pulled away and frowned at him. 

“Declan Miller, you sure can be a dumbass sometimes,” she said bluntly. He stared at her, his mouth agape. “According to you, all you have to do is break up with me and stay single for the rest of your life, and that will somehow protect me from getting hurt? Need I remind you that this happened,” she gestured towards her legs, “while we were broken up? So I’m not sure how breaking up again will protect me from the terrible things that happen in life.”

She dropped her hands down by her sides and planted them on her hips. “If you think that I’m going to allow you to hide from your fears again, well, you’ve got another think a-comin’! I won’t put up with it, Declan, not for one minute. You pushed me out of your life before, and I’m not going to allow it again.” She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. “Now quit being a dumbass.”

“But…” he said weakly.

She leaned up on her tiptoes and kissed him. “Did you ever go see someone after your mom’s death?” she asked quietly as she pulled away. He shook his head slowly. “Let me guess: You didn’t think a ‘real man’ should go talk to a counselor?” He nodded, even more slowly. She rolled her eyes. “You are such a guy sometimes,” she informed him, and a puff of laughter escaped his lips. “Seriously though, you’d never catch a girl thinking that counseling is unnecessary and that they just have to tough through the awful things in life.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her and said dryly, “No, but I bet you I could find a girl who thinks that she ought to work herself into a state of blindness in order to pay down her medical bills.”

“Touché,” she grumbled, and he grinned. “Fine, so we both have things we need to work on. The point is, I’ve worked on my shit. It’s time for you to work on yours.”

He pulled her against him, tucking her head against his chest as he held her in his arms. “Yeah, you’re right,” he said softly. “Everyone thinks of Wyatt as being the one in the family who needs help. People think that I have an easy life. I try my best to get along with everyone; I haven’t gotten in a fist fight since the 9th grade, and he deserved it.” Iris laughed silently against his chest. He was right – Peter Rhamos did deserve it. He was picking on Ivy, and Declan stood up against him, just like he always stood up to the bullies of the world. “No one knows what it’s really like to be me.”

She draped her arms around his neck, running her fingers through his hair as they cuddled close. “It’s true,” she said into the stillness. “You make it all seem easy. Even as close as we were, I didn’t know. If I’d had any idea of what you were going through…”

“You would’ve pitied me, and 20-year-old me wouldn’t have dealt well with that,” Declan said bluntly. “Even 35-year-old me isn’t liking the situation all that much.”

She continued to stroke her fingers through his hair. “Dec, it isn’t pity, like you’d feel for a homeless puppy dog,” she said softly into his ear. “It’s understanding. You make a lot more sense when parts of you aren’t completely hidden from me.”

“When have I ever confused you?” he protested.

She rolled her eyes, even as she kept her head snuggled up against him. “Ummmm…there was that time that you broke up with me for no reason whatsoever,” she reminded him. 

“Oh.”

He didn’t seem to have much else to say to that, but Iris couldn’t stop. Not yet. “There was also that time you insisted that Miller boys are row crop farmers, not pig farmers, and were rude to Mr. Harther.”

He didn’t seem to have much to say to that either, and Iris decided to have pity on him and stop while she was ahead.

“Thank you for telling me,” she whispered. “It means a lot that you trusted me enough to tell me the truth.”

His arms were wrapped around her and he was stroking his hands through her hair, slowly, languidly, comfortingly. “I should’ve done it a long time ago. I know that now. We wasted a lot of time that we could’ve been—”

She pulled back and placed her index finger on his lips, stopping him. “Regrets won’t fix any of this,” she said, staring him straight in the eye. “We can’t go back in time and fix anything. And you know what? I don’t know if I’d want to, anyway. If it wasn’t this, it probably would’ve been something else. We were just kids. I didn’t know what I wanted, not really. I loved you…as much as a teenager can love anyone. But it’s a lot deeper, and it means a lot more, now that we’re adults. We can choose to be together, and we can keep making that choice, over and over again. For the rest of our lives.”

“I think we ought to choose to be together right now,” Declan said, his eyes hooded and dark with lust.

“I like how you think,” Iris sighed, and then they reenacted the first time they made love, but this time, there was knowledge and passion and wisdom, along with lust. 

She was right, of course. Everything was better now that they were adults.