I jump at the next crack of thunder and barely register the figure hovering on the porch of the cabin until it moves closer to the banister.
“What are you doing, Meyer?” Bowen snaps, his voice like its own whip of thunder cutting through the rain.
I laugh, wiping under my nose with the back of my hand. “Oh, so you do talk.” Whatever adrenaline fueled my one-man fight with the earth is rapidly disappearing, leaving me a jittery, exhausted husk of a man.
The van is so close, yet so far. I know I'm going to have blisters tomorrow. My knee aches. My palms sting. I limp another few steps closer to the van when Bowen clomping down the cabin steps registers in my brain.
“You don't get to do that.” His voice is sharp and cutting, nothing like the whispers of memory that chased me through the woods. This isn't the same boy I fell irrevocably in love with.
This is the man that my love broke and abandoned.
If it wasn't for my love, I never would have pushed him away.
If it wasn't for my love, I wouldn't have put a wedge between him and his brother.
If it wasn't formeand my unrequited feelings, Brett never would have gotten in that car angry. He wouldn't have been on the road. He wouldn't have been taken from us.
My love is a fucking parasite.
I'm sorry, Bowen.
He doesn't want my apologies. He doesn't want me. He made that abundantly clear two years ago. And why would he want me? I've caused so much damage. What am I even doing here?
I groan, low and wrecked. My eyes ache from crying, and I dig my palms into them. “What can't I do, Bowen? Anything right? I'm aware.”
He doesn't touch me, but he stops an arm's reach away.
“Stop it," he rushes out through gritted teeth. "You don't get to show up here unannounced and get pissy with me for how I handle it.”
“I didn't realize I needed to announce myself. I didn't know you would be here!”
“It's my fucking house!”
“It's my family's property!”
“I bought this property over a year ago,” he snaps. Then looks up to the dark sky like he's praying to a higher power for patience. Or maybe willing me to disappear. Be flushed away with the storm, so he doesn't have to continue with a conversation he obviously doesn't want to have. “Fuck.”
“What do you mean?” I ask quietly. My voice quivers, but I steel my spine. I want to crumple into a ball at his feet. I want him to bundle me up in his arms and hold together all my fucked up pieces.
Bowen sighs and pushes the wet hair out of his eyes. A crack of thunder has me jumping.
“Can we do this inside?” he doesn't wait to hear my answer, just turns around and makes his way back to the cabin.
I stand there in the rain, battered heart thumping like it knows it's in for more bruising tonight. I contemplate hiding away in the van. I could lock the doors and refuse to continue down a path that's bound to hurt.
“Bowen…” I call, voice cracking. He stops. Just like earlier, he doesn't turn around. He's soaking wet, and the rain isn't letting up. The sun is gone, just the waning light from the moon through the clouds and the lamp post not far from the van gives enough to see him in the dark. “We don't have to do this.”
He turns around, his shoulders tense, but he moves swiftly, taking the steps back to where he was. The rain is clinging to his beard, running down his nose. His eyelashes are wet. His mouth opens to no doubt stick me with another verbal dagger, but then it snaps shut.
I hiccup over a sob I try my hardest to contain.
He's beautiful.
He's always been beautiful.
His eyes are like blue flames; even in the dark, I can see the intensity behind them. His features lost any soft edges of boyhood a long time ago, I bet. He's all chiseled angles and sharp features now. My eyes can't stop moving from one point to the next and back again. They've been desperate for years, and now that I've given them permission to look, they can't get enough.
Bowen looks almost as wrecked as I feel. He looks tired and beaten down by rain. By the day. By me? Probably.
