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on.” Guiding me up the
stairs she knew so well, Emily pushed open my bedroom door and went straight to my closet, pulling out the eight-piece
luggage set Aunt Sara had sent me as an early graduation gift. She opened each
of the suitcases and started packing them with my clothes, shoes, and makeup.
All I could do was pick up the jewelry box my dad had given me and put it in
the overnight bag before wrapping the scarf my mom had made for me at Christmas
around my neck.
    When the
bags were packed, she helped me lug them down the stairs and plunk them into
the trunk of her car. I locked the door to the house again and slid into the
front seat next to Emily.
    “You
okay?” she asked, putting a hand on my arm.
    I shook my
head. “No. But maybe I will be, eventually.”
    “You know,
you don’t have to hold it together for me.” God, she knows me. Hearing those
words broke the floodgates and I bawled like I hadn’t before. I don’t think I
had really let it out before that moment. Sure, in the hospital I’d lost it,
but when the doctor came out and told us they were actually gone, I was just
numb. At the funeral home visitation the night before, I was out of tears to
cry and screams to scream. But in the car with Emily, I finally let myself
actually feel it.
    She didn’t
say a word, just sat there silently with a hand stroking my hair as I melted
down. I needed that.
    If I
hadn’t had that breakdown, I wouldn’t have been able to make it through the
funeral that afternoon. Thankfully, Aunt Sara had made all of the preparations,
because I was too busy blaming myself to do a
damn thing . She had said that the reason my parents were on the road
that day was to pick up some last minute supplies for the surprise graduation
party they’d planned for me to come home to. If they hadn’t been trying to
finish getting the party ready for me, they wouldn’t have been on the road and
they’d still be alive.
    After the
service, Aunt Sara asked how I was holding up. She knew I was essentially
living with Emily because there were so many memories of my parents in the
house I grew up in that I just couldn’t stay there.
    “You need
to be with family now more than ever,” Aunt Sara declared.
    I couldn’t
argue with her. Only, the family I wanted was gone.
    She
insisted I come spend the summer on the family ranch in Alabama. A part of me
remembered the ranch from when I was very young, maybe four or five. I had
memories of riding a horse for the first time ever with my mom there. It dawned
on me that I hadn’t seen my grandma in at least ten years. Filming didn’t start
until August, and anything that needed dealing with on that front was being
taken care of by Jason, my dad’s second in command at his agency—something else
I now owned and didn’t know what to do with. Nothing was keeping me from going
and I couldn’t just sit around wallowing.
    Two days
later, I got in my car with the bags Emily had packed for me and the plane
ticket Aunt Sara had left for me and I watched it all fade in the rearview
mirror.
    Airport, here I come.

 
 
    Chapter Four - Noah

 
    “You’ve
got to be joking. Please tell me you’re joking,” I begged. Every year since
going pro, I’ve gone back to my parents’ ranch in good old Stevenson, Alabama,
to give them a hand when the PBR circuit broke for the summer. June and July
are usually a little too hot for bull riding. As I was packing up the day after
my last event, I noticed that my absolute favorite boots were literally peeling
apart at the soles. Not willing to say goodbye to them just yet, I stuffed them
into my bag and angrily zipped it shut, hoping Mom would know where to take
them to get them repaired.
    Of course,
leave it to Jamie to come into my room just as I start letting a string of
expletives loose, including a few very crude words I wouldn’t normally say in
front of a lady.
    “Do you
kiss your mother with that mouth?” she blurted out.
    “As a
matter of fact, I