Melt For Him(62)

Hi Becker,

You’re off doing your job right now and my head is a mess, and my heart is shredding. My hands are shaking as I write this. But all I can think about now is losing you. It’s all I see, and all I can picture, and this hurts so much. I know what I’m feeling right now doesn’t compare to how you must have felt when you lost your friends. Maybe that’s why I need to go. Because I DO know what it might feel like if you don’t come back. I DO know what it looks like. I lived it for years. The more time I spend with you, the harder I fall. And the worse it will hurt. Because I’m already in love with you.

Megan.

His heart buzzed momentarily with happiness, as he read and reread the last sentence, both beautiful and painful. But the joy was far too short-lived. Because what did it matter if she was in love with him if she wouldn’t let herself be with him? He rubbed a soot-covered hand over his jaw and shook his head. He wished the heaviness he felt inside was just from work. That the sadness was from something else. But it was from her. From the way he cruelly learned how a new kind of missing felt.

He should have known better. She didn’t settle. She didn’t stay. She picked up and left; she’d done it since she was a kid. Moving through life from town to town, from secret hideout to secret hideout, was her way of dealing with life’s challenges. He should have been prepared for this. He’d always known she was bending to the point of breaking with him. But as he made his way to the closest horizontal surface, knowing all that didn’t stop his chest from hurting and his heart from aching.

He collapsed onto the couch, too tired to move, too worn out to do anything but ball up the note and toss it down the stairs. He could run and find her today. Or tomorrow. Or the next day. Try to convince her. Prove to her they were worth it. That falling for him wouldn’t be the scariest thing she’d ever do. But that would be a lie. Because being with him was scary to her, and he wanted to respect where she drew the line, even though it hurt like hell.

It hurt worse than his body felt right now.

That’s why he pushed himself up from the couch, flashing to the night in his bar when she helped him start to let go of the fear that had clutched at him. He didn’t know that she needed help right now, but he knew one thing about himself that was steady and constant—no matter the outcome, he had to try his hardest.

She might have left him, but she’d also told him something he couldn’t ignore.

He stood up and grabbed his keys. He knew where she was.

…

She swiped away a final tear. She refused to cry anymore. She’d cried enough on the hours she spent riding around on her bike before she returned to the river. She didn’t deserve to shed tears. Sucking in a deep breath to quiet her aching heart, she tried desperately to pull herself together as the water slipped over rocks. The river didn’t care that she’d come here through the years—to escape, to play, to be alone. The river didn’t need her, but it was always here. It never left; it never went away. It was steady and reliable as it traveled downstream, along the bends and curves in the riverbed, cut over the years by time. The one constant in her life—the one sure thing.

She drew her knees up to her chest, tucking herself in tight against the cold stone of the rock behind her. She stared at the scene before her, the trees curling their branches over the river, the rocks and paths carved through the woods that hugged the water. In the distance, she spotted a squirrel racing along a low branch, perhaps in hot pursuit of an acorn. She pictured him comically drawn, running on two sturdy little legs, arms outstretched and reaching. She’d surely never ink a squirrel tattoo for someone, but she liked to see the real world in caricature sometimes. That had always helped her to deal, to handle the vacancies she’d felt when she was younger—first her dad, then her mom. They had both been gone in different ways.

Though she came here alone today after hours and hours on her bike, no pens or sketch pad with her, she outlined the squirrel’s image in her mind, shading in his chest, drawing an oversize tail. The image brought a small smile to her lips. Becker would have liked it. She would have liked giving it to him.

She cringed. Hearing his name in her head brought a fresh wave of shame through her. She was a coward. She’d run because she couldn’t deal.

She wanted to ask the river all the questions in her heart. She wanted to know the answers to the fears that gnawed away at her. But there would never be any answers. There was only one person who had the answers for her. As the sun began to fall in the sky, she headed in that direction.

…