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“Sure thing, hon. Take as long as you need.” She pats my back as I walk past her to go grab my jacket.
Three sets of eyes follow me as I walk out the front door, zipping my jacket up against the wind. I walk down the sidewalk toward the docks. Aside from the campground, this is my favorite place. Watching the waves and occasionally seeing seals or whales swimming past.
I get all the way down to the end of one of the docks, all its slips empty of the seasonal tourist vessels, but I’m not down there for more than two minutes before I hear heavy footsteps behind me. I know without looking that it’s Cody who’s joined me.
“Why aren’t you working the ranch, Cody?” I ask the question that’s been floating around my mind the past few days. I turn to look at him as I sense his body deflate. “And how did you get the money to purchase the property?”
“Here I thought we were going to have a moment,” he jokes sardonically.
I don’t say anything, just keep my eyes on him, waiting for his answer.
“My family bought me out of my share of the ranch.”
“What? Why?” I grab his arm, concerned and confused. He was super close to his family and never wanted to do anything else besides play football and take over the ranch someday.
His eyes darken. “Are you sure you want to know the reason?”
“Yes.” I draw a breath in and hold it, waiting for his story.
“Do you remember taking that photo of the three of us in the cabin?”
Dread builds within me, turning the blood in my veins to ice as I nod.
“Well, it uploaded to my family’s cloud drive. It took a few months, but once they found it, they sat me down and asked if I was gay.” He walks to the edge of the dock and looks down into blueish gray waves. “I told them I might be bisexual.” He takes a deep breath and sighs. “Dad went on a bender, yelling about how he didn’t want our good family name dirtied by…” He runs his hands through his hair, unable to speak the words that I’m sure hurt more than anything. “Anyway, the next morning I woke up to an envelope taped to my bedroom door with a massive check and a goodbye letter from my mom.”
My limbs go cold and a lump forms in my throat as the realization sinks in. Tears sting my eyes as the briny spray from the ocean hits me in the face. I did this. It’s my fault. All because I couldn’t stay with them, but I couldn’t fully cut the string connecting me to them. A strangled cry bubbles up and I turn from him, pressing the heels of my palms against my eyes.
I don’t deserve to cry for him.
I deserve to bleed for what I did to him.
“Hey, hey, hey,” he croons as he turns me around. “Look at me.”
I shake my head. I don’t deserve any kindness from him. I don’t deserve it from any of them.
“Violet,” he says my name quietly but firmly and he pulls my hands down.
When I look in his eyes, all I see is a deep well of care and compassion that I don’t deserve. The way he looks at me is a lot like love and I haven’t deserved that in a long time. My body feels like it’s too small to contain the emotions battering it from within.
“I’m so sorry, Cody.” I sob. “I ruined your life.”
Searing hot tears roll down my cheeks, but they aren’t hot enough. I deserve to burn for this. I try to struggle out of his hold because I’m definitely not the one who should be comforted right now.
“Violet.” He grasps me firmly, forcing me to look at his face. “You didn’t ruin my life, you saved it.”
I shake my head. He’s wrong, so wrong.
“Listen, I had a crush on Blake for so long before that night on the mountain. There were nights when he’d fall asleep and I’d rub one out lying beside him. Looking back on it in hindsight, that was probably a sign. It just took me a long time to understand it. To get that I loved him in ways beyond friendship or brotherhood like I do West. If you hadn’t taken that photo and my parents hadn’t found it, I might not even understand myself now.”
Another sob tears from my throat as the tears fall faster.
“Listen to me, Cherry.” He steps into my space and cups my face with his palms, forcing me to look into his eyes. “I would choose those two over my family a million times over. Hopefully you’ll let us choose you, too.”
He pulls me to him, kissing me deep and thoroughly as I wrap my hands around his wrists. His tongue strokes mine in tender sweeps, so different from all our other kisses. Our noses are frozen, but I’m warm on the inside from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. In this moment, I almost feel like I could confess everything, and he’d hold me and keep me safe.
But the voice in the back of my mind reminds me that this just makes it even more apparent that I don’t deserve them. That I don’t deserve love.
ChapterThirty-Two
