I ignore the tightening in my gut at the sound. At least I’m not wearing thin shorts anymore.
Not that we can see much. The late afternoon light coming through the windows isn’t much with how much the sky is darkened by the storm. Bowen is cloaked in gray soaked shadows, which means so am I.
“Remember when that one storm wiped out the power for two days?” I hold my breath, looking away from his profile. Waiting to see if he’ll bite.
“You walked around with a flashlight for a week afterwards,” he eventually adds from next to me.
I relax back into the cushions. “The lights went out when we were playing hide and seek. I had myself wedged between the one bunk bed and wall.”
“Your pants got caught on a nail in the frame, and you were stuck. I remember.” It feels safer, with the low light. The air in the cabin is much calmer than the storm outside. “You slept in my bed for a week after, too.”
I move my head on the couch to look at him. His eyes are closed, arms crossed, but it feels like a relaxed pose not a defensive one.
“Can I tell you something without you getting mad?”
“Can’t make any promises.”
“Sometimes I pretended to be a bigger baby than I was.”
Bowen snorts and peeks an eye open to look at me. “Did you think you were slick?”
I gasp softly in mock outrage. “Are you saying I was a bad actor?”
He scans my face before closing his eye again. “You know damn well you were.”
About everything, Bowen?
I fiddle with my fingers in my lap as the quiet settles once again between us. I’m surrounded by his scent, and the comforting weight of his presence. Kit just a few months ago would have dreamed of this opportunity, even though the idea would have scared him to death.
“I’m not really scared of storms anymore. Or the dark. Total devastation and a ruined life has a way of putting silly childhood fears to rest, I guess.” The taste of truth is…exquisitely terrifying. I lick my lips and continue. “I actually found some relief when it stormed. Gave me a reason to hide out in the van. I didn’t feel pressured to go out and try to fix myself for just that one day, you know? An excuse granted by Mother Nature herself to stay in bed.”
Bowen is quiet, but his body is still, and I know he’s listening.
“I felt closest to you then,” I say softly. I frown and pick at the skin on the side of my thumb. “I had such an easy time finding Brett in everything. The sunshine. People laughing. A bag of candy.” My nostrils flare with mydeep inhale. “I found it impossible to replicate the feeling I felt when I was safe. With you. But I could almost pretend when there was a storm.”
“Kit…”
“Please, let me say this,” I plead quietly. I half expect him to jump up and storm off. He doesn’t.
“I wasn’t a good friend to you, Bowen. Not just after Brett, but for a long time before, too. I want to be better. I want…” I exhale and breathe through the burning in my throat. “I want to be a space you can come to on your bad days and know I’ll always be there. I want to give you the same support you gave me, even…even when I didn’t fucking deserve it. I’m so sor—”
“Please,” he rasps, quick and desperate. For what I’m not sure. The emotion in it guts me either way.
“Tomorrow is two years from the day I left. I’m sorry it took me so long to find my way home. But just know, Boe…I’m not going anywhere this time.”
I feel raw and exposed. And just like on the stormy nights I lay awake in the van, the deepening shadows hold me in a way that Bowen can’t.
His silence is expected, but just because I expect it doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. Like a finger digging into a deep bruise. It aches, but I sit in the ache anyway.
So does he.
He may not forgive me today. Or tomorrow. But he doesn’t leave.
I don’t know how long we sit there in silence. But it’s long enough for both of us to fall asleep.
Kit
I fell asleep to the sound of the storm, the crackle of the fire burning in the hearth, and the weight of my truth in the air. Now I'm under the weight of a blanket that still smells like cedar and smoke that I know I didn't put there, breathing in the thick air swollen with all the things the night bore witness to, and dawn has yet to chase away.
