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He let out a low curse and shook his head, forcing his fists to unclench. There was nothing he could do about the tightness in his chest, except try to breathe normally.
One of the ladies—a kindly looking, elderly woman—peered at him. “Can I help you?”
“I’m fine.” Even to his own ears, he didn’t sound fine. He was breathless and panicked, his voice gravelled.
“Heath! Wait!” Lena ran towards him barefoot, her heels swinging in her free hand, Copper’s leash fluttering as he galloped at Lena’s side.
It was exactly what Heath had been afraid would happen. He should’ve said no. Right from the beginning. He’d known from the moment they’d turned off the main road and onto the teeming lane that led to the showgrounds that he wasn’t going to be able to handle Carols by Candlelight. He’d been an idiot to let Lena convince him to try. It had been even worse than usual: the one-two repetition of that cracking sound in the song had taken him right back to Syria, to Noah. Shot one to his leg, shot two—
He’d had no choice but to leave the grandstand, and Lena yelling for him to wait only made it all worse. He couldn’t stand the humiliation of losing his shit in front of a crowd.
That couldn’t happen again.
The evening proved that he couldn’t have a normal life. He couldn’t do something so simple as sit and listen to music with his—he stopped short, the truth of what he’d almost thought hitting him hard. His what? Girlfriend? That was absolutely out of the question.
What he needed even less than a confrontation with Lena was for the candle ladies to witness the whole bloody thing. More than enough people had already been party to his outburst in the audience. If he never showed his face in town again, it would be too soon.
He whirled towards Lena and intercepted her, turning her around by her shoulders, then pushing past her, headed for the entrance. “I need out.”
“Are you okay? Should we go home?” Lena’s words came in a breathless rush. When he didn’t— couldn’t—answer, she kept on. “We should, shouldn’t we? Yeah. Let’s go home.”
Home wasn’t what he needed at all. Not if Lena was going to be there. Because his every last nerve was jangling, every muscle ready to fire, tense with pent up energy. Hopped up on pure adrenaline, he wanted to lash out, punch his fists through something, knock it to the ground and pummel it.
He forced those impulses down. “Stay away from me, Lena.” His voice came out too rough, too full of anger. He wasn’t doing a good job controlling himself, and the effort it took to do the barest minimum told him he was even worse than he’d already known. He was damaged goods—too broken and out of control to be any good for anyone, or anything.
“What do you mean? Heath?” Lena reached to catch his hand, but he pulled away from her, his skin on fire where she’d brushed against him.
“I need space.” He was walking hard through the car park, his strides so quick she and Copper had to jog to keep up. “I mean it, Lena. Go back to the car.”
Her whole expression was one of hurt and confusion—like he’d seen the night she’d first shown up on his porch, but even worse. So much worse. But he was in no place to take care of her feelings, when he could barely manage his own.
“I’m sorry, Heath. I never should’ve—”
He couldn’t hold back, then, and he did what he should’ve done from the start. “No. I never should’ve agreed to a situation like that. It’s not going to happen again. It was fun while it lasted, Lena, but I can’t handle this. And you deserve better.”
“No, Heath—”
“I’m not going to debate this with you, Lena. You belong at stuff like this. I don’t. I’m never going to. Listen to me. You’ll be better off—I can’t give you what you want.”
She let out a frustrated growl. “Don’t tell me that! I’m sick of other people telling me what I want!”
She wasn’t going to make ending things easy. He jammed his hands into his pockets, to stop from clenching and unclenching them. “Look. I tried, but I can’t do this. I don’t want to. Go home, Lena.” Then he stalked away from her, because he couldn’t stand to see the way her eyes shimmered in the moonlight. He couldn’t take being the one to make her cry.
The Akuna Riverwas an easy enough walk from the showgrounds. It was quiet there. Dark. The rippling current sparkled in the moonlight, the running water soothing, drowning out any other sounds. He walked all the way past the little picnic area behind the Riverside Pub, under the Kingfisher Bridge before thinking better of walking the rest of the way home and turning back.
His phone vibrated in his pocket, but he ignored it. He knew who it was and he didn’t have the bandwidth to respond. He didn’t know what else to say to Lena. He was an embarrassment. He’d let her down and he couldn’t be the kind of man she deserved—the kind who could go to community events and celebrate holidays and have a family. She was probably furious with him. It shouldn’t matter, now he’d as good as ended things with her, except she was still staying at his house. He definitely wasn’t ready to see her. Maybe that made him a coward. Maybe liquid courage would help.
What he wanted more than anything was someone to call. A friend. Noah.
He knew what Noah would say.More risk, more fun, mate.But only one of them was still alive, so look how well that philosophy had panned out.
He’d never set foot inside the Riverside Pub. When he’d first gotten back from Syria, he’d found it too easy to lose himself in the bottom of a whisky glass and he’d worked hard to get himself off that path. That’s when he’d taken up woodworking in earnest.Woodworking.Lena had thought it was so funny, but the memory of her laughing that morning, was a lead weight, dragging him down, reminding him of the life he’d thought he’d have and the one he’d ended up with. He’d convinced himself he was, if not content, then resigned to his life, safe and risk free. Until Lena showed up and made him want more.
Instead of going inside the pub, he took up a spot at the deserted picnic tables by the river. When he finally got tired of sitting alone, staring out at the water, he pulled out his phone. The string of notifications was another weight. He dismissed them all, but not before he saw they were from Lena.
Despite what he’d said to her before he’d left, she hadn’t left him alone. Not really.
Regret nearly swamped him. He’d done the whole night wrong.
