Page 37 of The Edge of Never

It took Kit a few minutes to settle before they wrapped one hand around my waist and placed the other on my chest.

It was the first time I’d willingly held another person this way since Jenna. It was almost alien to me. To want that with anyone else but her. I could kid myself into thinking it was merely to keep Kit warm. Keeping up that pretence wouldn’t do me any favours. And yet the guilt kept flaring. Moving on from Jenna wasn’t possible. I certainly couldn’t do it with a person who pushed all of my buttons the way Kit did.

“Why did ye come on this course?”

I asked it as a way of distracting myself from my racing thoughts. If I was going to get my shite together, I had to find a way through this situation without doing something I’d regret. That meant keeping my mind occupied.

Kit let out a nervous chuckle.

“Um, that’s kind of complicated.”

“In what way?”

“I mean, the simple answer is that I’ve always enjoyed walking. Dad always used to worry when I’d take off on these long walks along the coastline when I was younger. I still do. It helps clear my head. It always feels so overcrowded, like my thoughts don’t shut off. Then I go for a walk and I’m okay, you know. I sort through things in a way I can’t when there’s all this noise around me.”

Their fingers absently stroked along my waist. I tried not to let it affect me.

“I walked up Scafell Pike a few years ago, but I wanted more experience before I attempted another mountain, so I booked this trip as a treat for my birthday.”

They shrugged a wee bit and shifted against me. A grunt got stuck in my throat at the movement. Kit was going to be the death of me.

“Yer birthday?”

They sighed.

“Yeah. It’s tomorrow actually. Didn’t think I’d be bringing in the big three-o stuck in the mountains in the snow.”

Well, fuck.

There wasn’t much I could do to make our situation any better, but I’d made a start by deciding not to provoke them any further today. I couldn’t promise that I wouldn’t do it at all, given the way Kit reacted to some of the things I said. But I could try. Spending their birthday stuck with me in this tent wasn’t exactly going to be fun. The least I could do was not make it worse.

“What’s the complicated answer?”

It took a long time for Kit to respond. I wanted to look down at them to see their expression, but I refrained. Maybe they didn’t want to tell me. And that was okay. They didn’t owe me anything. I was just trying to pass the time and distract the both of us with conversation.

“I needed to get away from my life… to forget about it all for a minute because it hurts too much,” they finally said in a quiet voice that was full of agony.

My arms instinctively tightened around them. It wasn’t to provide more warmth. I needed to shield them from whatever it was that they ran away from. Why that was, I had no fucking clue. Kit messed with my head. One minute I couldn’t stand them, the next, I wanted to reassure them everything would be okay.

“But I don’t want to talk about that right now.”

“Am sorry I made ye bring it up.”

“It’s okay. You didn’t know.”

I rubbed a hand over their lower back without thinking about it. I almost stopped when they stiffened slightly, but after a few seconds went by, Kit relaxed again.

“Ye want me tae ask something else?”

“You can do. Although I have to admit, I’m surprised you’re being so agreeable right now.”

I couldn’t help but allow the laugh to spill out from my mouth.

“Mibbe am tired of fighting with ye.”

“Is this your way of asking for a truce?”

“If ye wannae think of it that way.”

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