Free Where All Light Tends to Go by David Joy Page A

me.”
    I made my way through a thin line of brush and stood beside her on the path. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
    “No, not like that, Jacob. You just surprised me, that’s all.”
    “I had to see you.”
    “I wish it weren’t like this.” Maggie looked herself over, eyed the places where she sweated as if she were embarrassed. She took a long swig of water from a sports bottle. She was still out of breath.
    “You look beautiful.”
    “That’s sweet. Maybe a little bit of a lie, but sweet.”
    “I’ve never lied to you.”
    Maggie’s eyes were fixed on me. We didn’t speak, and she didn’t come any closer, but there was something brewing in that space between us. It was me who broke the silence.
    “I have to ask you something.”
    “What is it?”
    “I want to know if you’ve forgiven me.”
    “Forgiven you?”
    “Yeah, Mags. That shit has haunted me since the minute we broke up, and I thought I was over it, and then you were graduating, and the thought of you leaving without me ever knowing for sure is fucked. It’s just fucked.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “I know it doesn’t make sense. I know it doesn’t. I left you. I did it. I’m the one who fucked it all up. But the thing is it never felt right, and then you came to the house, and the way you were looking at me—”
    “How was I looking at you?”
    “Fuck, I don’t know, Maggie. You were looking at me like you used to.”
    “I’m not trying to be difficult, Jacob. I just want to hear it.”
    “You looked like there were feelings still there.”
    Maggie stared at the ground as if looking at me any longer just might destroy her. She didn’t say anything for a while, and I didn’t know how to fill that silence. There was nothing I could say to fill that space. Then her head came up and her eyes were filled with a sadness and anger that I hadn’t seen since the day I left her. When I walked out of high school, my life was decided, and with my life decided, keeping her any longer would have bound her just the same. I broke her heart in the parking lot and drove away with her crying her eyes out, left that school and her and any shot I’d ever had of making it off this mountain in one clean cut. That sadness and anger is what I’d spent the last two years trying my damnedest to forget. But there was something different about it this time. There was strength with it. There was something solid about her now, a confidence that seemed to guarantee that what I broke would never be broken again.
    “I loved you, Jacob. I always loved you. From the time we were tiny. But you broke my heart. You left me and you broke my heart and I’ve done everything I can to get over it.”
    “I know I did. I know I did, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Maggie.”
    “I needed an apology a long time ago, Jacob. I needed you to be there. I needed you to be there until it quit hurting, and the fact that you weren’t is what hurt most of all. The fact that you just upped and left. But if there’s one thing you can do for me, it’s tell me why you thought you had to do it? I’ve never been able to understand why you left.”
    “Because I loved you.”
    “I don’t think you and I have the same meaning of that word.”
    “I loved you then and I love you now. I can’t imagine ever not loving you.”
    “That doesn’t make any sense.”
    I’d always known why I left her, but I’d never had to put it into words. I knew the words would be too hard to come by. I knew the words would have to be perfect. She deserved those kinds of words, but I didn’t know if I’d ever had them inside of me. The only thing I could offer Maggie was honesty, brutal honesty. That was the one thing I’d always given her.
    “I couldn’t stand the thought of keeping you here. I couldn’t stand the thought of it then and I can’t stand the thought of it now. You’re better than this place. You always have been. You’ve had your eyes set on someplace else since we