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“I came back for you,” my voice cracks and mentally I yell at myself for showing the emotions.
Get it together Trav.
“You were too late.”
There’s a sadness in her eyes unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It’s devastating. Heartbreaking. I can feel my soul crushing beneath her gaze. Her eyes are sadder than that night on the rooftop after her mom’s funeral.
“I had to Spencer, I had to.”
She opens her mouth to speak and the words audibly stunt in her throat. Clearing her throat, she tries again. “Had to what? Had to leave me? Did I suffocate you that much?”
“What?” my voice hits a higher pitch, and I’m completely floored at what she just asked me.
“You heard me. Was I that suffocating? That needy?”
“No! Fuck. No Spencer. Is that what you think?”
“I ate up all of your time,” a tear rolls from the inner corner of her eye, down the bridge of her nose. “You started pulling away. For months you pulled disappearing acts, and then you were just gone. I didn’t mean to be clingy. I didn’t mean to need you so much. She was gone, and I was so lost. You were the only thing that made me want to keep breathing day in and day out.”
“Spencer…”
“You could have just said something,” she whispers. “I would have fixed it. I would have backed off. You didn’t have to go. You call me a runaway Travis, but you ran away first.”
Her tears are flowing freely now, and there’s an intense stabbing feeling in my chest. It feels like she’s sliced my heart wide open and I’m bleeding all over the both of us. I open my mouth but what do I say? I don’t know.
So I close my lips and I just look at her. I try to tell her with my eyes instead, because what the hell can I say to fix this? There are no goddamn words to fix what I broke.
“I know everyone knows. And I know everyone always wonders why I’ve stayed with him. And I think it’s because I didn’t want to be alone. I smile on the outside, I laugh on the outside, but Travis…. Some days I just wanted to die. I can’t fucking do it anymore, I can’t live like this, but I’m scared to stay and even more terrified to leave.”
“Spencer…”
“No. No Travis let me finish, because I’m never going to have the nerve to do this again.”
I shut my mouth and give a nod, waiting for her to continue.
“You have no idea what happened when you left. Every night Travis. He came to me every single night, and I was so alone. There was no one to run to. The really messed up part in all of it? I learned to live with it. I’d hear the creek of my bedroom door, and I’d just disappear. I’d disassociate. I’d go to our special place. To the lake. Just me and you, and I wouldn’t come back until he was gone and it was over. It wasn’t even him that broke me though. It was coming back from that place, and facing all over again the fact that you were gone, and you were never coming back.”
Her slow flowing tears are a waterfall now. Her nose is red and she sniffles between words. I want to reach out and hold her, but I’m so afraid to touch her.
“I hate you Travis. I hate you so fucking much. I hate the way you broke me into a million little pieces. I hate that you left me, and I really hate that after everything I still love you so much, and that looking into your eyes right now hurts so much more than every moment we were apart. Because I know now that you really did just leave me. You storm into my life and you say all these pretty and fucked up words about how I’m yours and how you want me back… but I can’t. I can’t do it. Because I can’t survive you breaking my heart again. It will break me.”
Her sobs are strangled and she’s trying to hold back. I want to fix it all, I want to dig down deep and find all the words to make everything ok, but there are secrets I keep, and there are things she can’t know. So I do the only thing I know how to do. I lean in and press my lips against hers. Gentle. Soft. There’s no force or anger behind my kiss this time. Just lips that want to catch her as she falls.
Hesitantly I bring my hand to her hair and softly sweep the strands of hair from her face. She doesn’t push me away this time, but she doesn’t deepen anything. I roll her to her back and pull my lips from hers. Her chest stutters through her breathing and soft sobs, and I hover my hand above her face.
“Shhh,” I whisper.
Slowly I trail my middle finger from her forehead, down her nose, over her lips, and down her chin. I rest my hand on her chest and she slows her breathing. Turning to face me, she looks for me to say something. Anything. So I ask her the question that's been eating at me ever since I saw her face again. Because I have to know.
“Why Havok Hills, Spence?”
Pressing her eyes closed, she takes a deep breath. “You.”
And I know in that moment exactly what she means. It’s always been us, and she’s been aching for me all this time, the same way I’ve been aching for her. So I pick up her right hand and place it against my chest.
“Feel that?” I whisper.
She opens her eyes and gives me a barely there nod.
