“You could have parked in front,” I tell him. “That way I would have known you were here when I arrived.”
“And would you have come in?” he asks.
I inhale. “Honestly?”
“We’re doing honesty today.”
I bite my lip. “I don’t know. I mean, probably, with the storm coming and all. What choice would I have had?”
He doesn’t reply.
I probably would have turned around, now that I think of it. And I would have been caught in the middle of nowhere when that storm hit. It wouldn’t have been pretty, especially after the sun sank behind the mountains.
The morning is heavy, the sky still cloudy. The earth is soaked, and the pine needles are slick underfoot. The air has that post-storm taste. Kind of like wet dirt.
We don’t go far. The cabin sits on a slight rise, and a narrow trail loops around to a creek overrun with rain. I match my steps to Henry’s, staying close but not touching, our hands brushing by accident and then not by accident, and then not at all, once I nearly slip on the slick mud and he catches me.
We hold hands after that.
He’s quiet. I’m worse. Words crowd my throat and jam there.
“About…you know,” he says finally.
“I wanted it,” I finally eke out. “All of it. I don’t regret it.”
His shoulders loosen a hair. “Good.”
“But I also want to do this the way I can live with in the daylight.” I swallow. “Which is a sentence I hate as much as I mean.”
He huffs a sound that isn’t quite a laugh. “Daylight is inconvenient like that.”
We walk. Mud grabs my soles, and I tighten my grip on Henry’s hand.
“Tell me,” he says.
“About what?”
“About the guy. Lance.”
I shrug. “Nothing to tell.”
He rubs at the back of his neck with his free hand. “Would you be seeing him if…”
If…what? If I wasn’t in the time-sucking seminar? If I wasn’t in love with Henry?
Of course, he doesn’t know that.
“I don’t know,” I answer truthfully. “He’s part of a night I’d rather forget, so even though he’s a great guy, I’m thinking no.”
And I’m being completely honest.
“Was that night…? What almost happened… Did that have anything to do with why you didn’t come when my mom asked?”
Whoa. Is that what he’s really thinking now? I was pretty screwed up after that night—still am—but that wasn’t the reason I didn’t go running.
I drag a breath in, inhaling the damp air. “I didn’t come to the hospital because I was afraid of turning into someone I don’t respect. The girl who abandons the one thing she worked for because a man is bleeding. But when your mom called? I almost did it anyway. I almost packed a bag and got in my car. Then I remembered you telling me we had no future, and I thought, okay, don’t go running toward nothing. Build the future you promised yourself.”
His mouth tightens. “I earned that,” he says. “And I’m trying to un-earn it.”
