But he's still the most beautiful human I've ever seen.
“Hi,” I say and sniffle, wiping my nose with my hand. His jaw ticks, and my eyes zero in on the movement before moving right back to his eyes. His lips. The little line between his brows. His beard covers the freckle above his lip, but my eyes look where it would be anyway.
“Inside,” he says, softer than anything he's said to me this far. When he turns around and walks again, I don't stop him. I just follow.
I don’t realize how loud the storm is until the cabin door closes behind me. I watch Bowen continue through the cabin, all while my back stays glued to the wooden door behind me. I was in here the other day, but this feels different. I walked in and closed the door with the knowledge that he would be closed in here with me. It doesn’t take long for him to come back into the main living room area, and I almost don’t move fast enough when a towel comes sailing through the air at me.
“Thanks,” I murmur. I unfold it. It's nothing special. In fact, it's old and worn to hell with parts that are completely threadbare and see-through. But it's black and white stripes, and it’s still so soft. It’s the kind of towel that’s been used and washed so many times it doesn’t even feel like a towel anymore. It doesn’t make my skin crawl when touching it with my wet hands, like so many towels do.
It wasmycabin towel. The one I always used when we were here. I didn’t see it in the cupboard the other day, or any of the other towels that used to be here. They had all been replaced with a stack of new ones. The lump in my throat feels big enough to suffocate me. I bite my lip and use the towel to dry my hair, peeking up at Bowen.
He’s already watching me. One of the new towels in his hands, as he dries off his own head. His bun is down, wet curls around his shoulders. It’s longer than I’ve ever seen it before. The hair, the beard. He’s the same, but so different. His eyes are watching me, but they’re guarded. Like I’m a wild mutt he let in from outside, and he’s scared I may attack at any moment.My heart aches. Fuckingaches.It has nothing to do with anything other than standing feet away from someone who used to be everything to me and acknowledging that I don’t really know him anymore.
I didn’t know he lived here, for one. Or, apparently, bought the land from my parents. I didn’t even know they were selling it.
So much can change in a few years. And if I’m honest with myself, I wasn’t really present before I left, either. I was so caught up inme.My shattered heart. My grief and endless despair.
“Your hair’s long,” I finally say, breaking the silence.
Bowen’s eyes rip away from mine with a cleared throat. He covers his face with the towel and gives said hair a good scrub before slinging it over his shoulder. Now he’s the one who isn’t looking at me.
“Want something to wear?”
My body tenses with another loud bang of thunder, and I swallow thickly. I nod, and he must see it because he’s walking out of the room again. I use my towel to dry my legs the best I can, squeezing out my shorts so they stop dripping on the floor.
Minutes pass before he comes back into the room. He’s changed into dry clothes himself, and this time, instead of tossing them at me, he holds them out. I take them with a mumbled thanks, but he doesn’t hang around to watch me walk out like I watched him. He moved into the small kitchen area. I hear the sink go and something bang onto the range before the bathroom door closes behind me.
Your hair’s long? Really?
I make quick work of shedding my wet clothes and drying my body before pulling dry ones on. They smell like clean laundry and the unmistakable scent of man. Bowen. A sharp, rich scent that lingers in the air. I rub my chest and take a slow, deep breath.
The mirror shows that I was very, very wrong. Bowen doesn’t look wrecked at all. Not compared to me. My eyes are red-rimmed and swollen,my cheeks blotchy. I have dirt smeared on my cheek and neck, probably from when I was face down, screaming like a banshee. It’s a shock he even bothered letting me in. I look unhinged and on the cusp of a mental breakdown. Which may not be far from the truth.
I crouch on the floor, head bent, and pull in slow, ragged breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth.
I’m okay.
I close my eyes, and I’m no longer in the bathroom. I’m nineteen, curled up in a stupid olive-toned chair with Dr. Martin watching me with careful eyes.
I’m sobbing. Not the angry tears that sneak out sometimes when Dr. Martin digs and pushes where it hurts. No, these are full-body sobs. My chest feels like it’s been cracked open in the center, and my heart is being strangled. I haven’t been able to take a full breath since I opened my eyes this morning to Bowen’s face right in front of mine.
He was sleeping. Even in sleep, he looked like a ghost of the boy he used to be. The same shadows lived under his eyes that I had under mine. His lips were chapped, his hair wild in a way that spoke of neglect and not just wind in curls. His brows drew together, and he made a low, pained sound in his sleep.
He was never here still when I woke up. But the sun had barely just come up, and the spaces around the top and bottom of my curtains let in enough light to get a good look at the boy in my bed.
He made another sound. Like he couldn’t outrun his monsters in his sleep. Like they followed him to his dreams, just like they followed me. My hand shook when I lifted it to his cheek, softly grazing my knuckles over the scruff on his jaw. He sounded wounded. Shattered.
It was at that moment that it all crashed in on me. I did that. I put those shadows under his eyes. I caused it. Caused him to cry out in his sleep. He was holding onto me like I was a buoy in a thrashing sea, yet Iwasthe sea. I wasthe dark waters. I was the crashing waves trying to pull him under, to hold him inside me where he couldn’t escape.
“It’s okay, Kit. It’s okay for it to be difficult. Bowen and Brett are identical twins. Of course it will be hard.”
I couldn’t find even a crack between my tears to try to explain what I knew all along. It was never about them looking alike, not really.
Another ragged breath, and I stand. My hazel eyes shine with even more tears. I look like a child wearing his clothes, and I don’t deserve howsafeI feel drowning in them. I don’t deserve to stand here in his space. Not after everything.
I find him in the kitchen, leaning back against the counter. He has a mug in his hands, and another sitting on the counter next to him. He flicks his blue eyes up to me, and he pauses with the mug close to his mouth.
“My dad said he could get me and the van after he gets home. I guess they’re in Florida for the week.” I sniff and look down at the mug. Tiny marshmallows float on top of the brown liquid. He made hot chocolate. “I really had no clue you lived here. I’m… I apologize for showing up the way I did. If you want… If you wouldn’t mind taking me…home…or-or I could call Tucker.”
