Young me, gap toothed and freckled. Preteen me with wild hair and a bad attitude. Teenage me with a scrunched nose and bitten off smile. Me with downcast eyes. Me, curled up in bed. My mouth. My hands. Fingerscovered in rings pushed into wavy hair, gripping at the root. Burned into wood like scars.
I can't fucking breathe. The smell of burnt wood fills my lungs. It fills my head. I can't think around the smoke.
“What is this?” The words tumble from my lips just as the music pauses between songs.
Bowen's head snaps over to look at me. All the color drains from his face, and his shoulders go tight with the shock of seeing me here.
I once stood on a path looking out at the most beautiful, ethereal scene and felt like I was standing in the heart of Brett's soul. Welcoming and sharp in his beauty.
Now I feel like I'm standing in the depths of Bowen's, and I'm seconds away from being consumed by it.
“What the fuck are you doing in here?” he says after cutting off the music. The stool screeches against the floor when he stands abruptly. He tosses the burning tool he was using on the worktable, and I watch a thin line of smoke trail into the air from the hot end pressing into the center of a face I would know anywhere.
“What is this?” I ask again, but it's all around me. It's burned into every surface. Detailed from hands that spent hours crafting each one. I stumble back a step, and Bowen laughs.
He laughs. Low and dangerous. A laugh I have never once heard from him. “Open your pretty fucking eyes, kitten. Look around.” His chest is rising and falling with frantic breaths, eyes wild.
I'm standing with my toes on the edge of a cliff, pebbles coming loose and falling into a shadowed abyss below. My hair tickles my skin with my swiftly shaking head.
“Bowen…”
He squints his eyes at me, and the floor creaks with his steps forward. I shake my head harder.
“No. No, Bowen. You left me.” The feeling that was clawing up my throat tears free. Bowen halts, leaving only half the space between us.
It's not big enough to hold it all. This whole cabin isn't big enough to hold it all, not with what's already been packed away in these walls.
“You left me when I needed you. I needed you, Bowen… I need…” I scream out in frustration, the blanket I had wrapped around my shoulders fluttering around me, pooling at my muddy feet. Like the last shield falling.
“You almost left me!” His yell bounces off the walls, and Bowen cracks open right in front of me. “I was at the hospital, Kit. I saw you…” His voice splinters off, deep diving into a heartbreak I never had to endure. “You almost killed yourself. You almost fucking killed yourself, Kit. Do you have any idea what that would have done to everyone? To me? I begged you. Didn't I? I kissed my tears into your fucking skin, and I begged while I was still inside you.”
“A pity fuck…” I'm still shaking my head, holding my stomach to keep my insides from spilling out onto the floor.
“Don't you dare take that memory and twist it,” he cuts, desperate. “Why won't you see it, Kit? Open your eyes, baby, and look at me. Look at me!” His roar is loud enough to shake the foundation of everything I thought I knew.
He throws his arms out wide, showing the details of his bleeding heart all around us.
“I can't…” I choke on a sob.
“You can,” he rasps. Then he's on me. Cutting off any space left with sure steps until his hands are slipping up into the hair at my nape, and his lips are crushed to mine.
It's agony.
It's bliss.
I cry out from the devastation I can taste in the tears on my lips. From the onslaught of everything. The weight of it all crushes me, and my hands turn from clutching to thrashing. I push at him until our mouths separate.
His eyes are blue flames, and there are so many things waiting there to burn me alive.
I run.
It feels like every memory, every scarred image in that cabin, claws at my heels with every step I take. The ground squelches under my feet, and I run like the hounds of hell are after me.
The bright morning sun feels like a spotlight on my undoing. Every wall. Every brick I placed comes crumbling down. All I can do is run before I'm buried in the aftermath.
I don't stop. Not when Bowen calls my name. Not when my feet slip in the damp grass or when I wheeze to get air in my lungs.
The dock groans under my hard footfalls, and I suck in a breath and close my eyes.
