Arcadia's Gift(61)

I squeezed my eyes to keep the tears from escaping. “Cane, I saw it. I remember every detail. You are not responsible for Lony getting hit by the train.”
He shook his head. His drunken dizziness slipped over me, making my head spin.
“You don’t understand,” he argued through clenched teeth, tugging on his hair in frustration. Now, anger filled him, adding to the mix. The cold burn of it filled my veins with ice water, causing me to hold the wall of the building for support. Cane turned on his heel and started in the direction of the parking lot.
“Cane, wait!” I yelled.
When he ignored me, I ran after him as quickly as my delicate shoes would allow, catching up to him just as he approached his truck. I grabbed his wrist as he reached for the door handle.
Cane spun me around and pressed my back up against the cold metal door. One arm was wrapped around my back, clutching my hair with his fist. The other hand pressed against the driver door, trapping me in place.
“It should have been me!” he hissed, his eyes moist with unshed tears.
The ferocity of his emotions froze me to the bone. My teeth chattered audibly.
“I fucked up, and it should have been me. If I hadn’t…” He trailed off.
“If you hadn’t what, Cane?” my voice shook. “There was nothing you could have done. What, do you wish you would’ve thrown yourself on the tracks too?”
“Maybe I should have! She didn’t deserve to die like that, with her heart broken.”
“What are you talking about?” My body trembled with the cold pulsing off of him. My headache was reaching migraine levels and causing my vision to blur. I couldn’t have blocked him now if I tried.
“I broke up with her,” Cane said through gritted teeth. “I told her that it was over, that I didn’t love her.”
I gasped, but couldn’t form any words.
“We were walking behind you guys, and she started in on me because she thought I was paying more attention to Carly Smith in the parking lot than to her.” His grip on my hair relaxed a bit, but he didn’t let me go.
I remembered the red-head from the parking lot.
“Lon was just mad because Carly and I know people that she didn’t, and she felt excluded by our conversation. I get that, but we’d been having the same sort of arguments repeatedly for months, and I was tired of it. Just because I talk to another girl, it doesn’t mean I’m interested in them. Carly is my second cousin, by the way, not that Lony asked before jumping to conclusions.”
Talking about that night seemed to be helping him, and I wondered if I was the first person he admitted any of this to. I had the distinct impression that I was somehow absorbing his anger. The waves of his emotions were still as cold, but were coming less intense now. Only in the places where he touched me did I feel any warmth at all. I leaned against him, drawn like a cat to a sunny spot.
“So, you broke up with her?”
“Yes,” he admitted. He bent to rest his forehead against mine. “I’m so sorry, Cady. I’m so sorry she had to die knowing that I didn’t want her anymore. And then people were so supportive and nice to me thinking I’d lost my girlfriend. It made everything a million times worse.”#p#分页标题#e#
I wasn’t sure how I felt about Cane’s confession. On one hand, the thought of Lony’s last moments being ones of pain broke my heart. I thought back to those minutes that I’d experienced before passing out. I remember that feeling of loss. At the time, I thought it was the loss of her life that had her so sorrowful, but now, I could see a whole different side to what must have been going through her head.
But another part of me understood how Cane felt and longed to comfort his sorrow away. Lony’s death was not his fault, and he’d had every right to break up with her if he wanted to. I never understood how they handled all of the stress from their bickering anyway. Perhaps it was due to the contact of our bodies making the emotional connection between us so strong, but I could feel how his guilt was tearing him up inside. I couldn’t be angry with him for hurting my sister. Not when he was hurting too. I reached my arms around his shoulders to pull him to me. He crumpled against me, burying his face into my shoulder.
After a moment, my friendly hug turned into a different kind of embrace. The full length of him was pressed against me, trapping me between his muscled body and the steel door of his truck. Our breathing grew shallow, and I was too aware of our hearts beating in unison. For the second time that night, my traitorous body echoed the stirrings of another’s arousal. The heat of his growing passion flowed through me, awakening a need deep in my belly. My mouth dropped open in shock just as Cane leaned in and kissed me deeply. I couldn’t fight my body’s response to his hot mouth, faintly tasting of vodka. For one moment, I allowed myself to kiss him back, letting my tongue match the rhythmic movements of his, trailing my fingers down the strong plane of his broad back. The feedback of our completed circuit of emotions threatened to carry me away…until I remembered Bryan. I brought my fists up to push against Cane’s chest.