Page 14 of Born to Run Back
We stood on opposite sides of our stone garden, this elaborate love letter we’d been writing without words, and I could feel the heavy weight of every Tuesday night, every painted rock, every flower placed with ritualistic devotion.
“I’m Wendy,” I said, and my name tasted foreign on my tongue, like I was introducing a stranger.
“Theo.”
Theo.
He stepped closer, close enough that I could see his face in the moonlight. Hollow-eyed, haunted, beautiful in the way that broken things could be beautiful. “Wendy.”
The way he said my name—like prayer, like worship, like something he’d been holding in his chest for months—made my knees weak.
“You’ve been—” I gestured helplessly at the memorial, at the evidence of our shared and parallel madness. “All this time.”
“Every week.” His voice was barely audible. “Sometimes more.”
And then we were moving toward each other like magnets, like gravity, like two people who’d been drowning separately and had finally found something solid to cling to. His hands found my face, cupping my cheeks with such tenderness that it made me want to sob. Months of careful distance dissolved between us with that one single touch.
“I dreamed about you,” he whispered, his thumb tracing the curve of my cheekbone. “Every night.”
“I know.” I pressed my palms against his chest, feeling his heart beating strongly beneath the wool of his jacket. “I dreamed about you, too.”
Theo
She felt exactly as I remembered—small and solid and perfect in a way that made everything else in the world disappear. Her dark hair was longer now, falling midway down her back, and her warm brown eyes reflected the moonlight like deep water.
Beautiful. Devastating. Real.
“Wendy,” I said again, because her name tasted like salvation on my lips.
Her hands fisted in my jacket, pulling me closer, and I could smell that same vanilla scent that had haunted my dreams for months. But underneath it was something new; it was desperation, need, the kind of hunger that came from starving for far too long.
“I tried to forget,” she whispered against my neck. “I tried to move on.”
“So did I.” My hands found her hair, threading through the silky strands the way I’d imagined a thousand times. “Couldn’t.”
“I touch myself thinking about you.” The words spilled out of her like a confession, fragmented and raw. “I’ve dreamt of your hands. The way they held me. The way those same hands…”
The admission hit me like a physical blow, desire slamming through me with such force that I had to grip her tighter to keep from falling over. “Wendy—”
“I’m broken,” she continued, her voice cracking dangerously. “I’m so fucking broken, Theo. I visit Beck’s grave. I research the accident obsessively. I’ve been losing my mind for months.”
“I know.” I pulled back to look at her face, seeing my own madness reflected in her eyes. “So have I. Panic attacks. Insomnia. I can barely do my job anymore.”
“We’re both crazy.”
“Completely.”
And then she was kissing me, or I was kissing her—I couldn’t tell who moved first, only that suddenly her mouth was on mine and months of desperate longing exploded between us like a dam breaking open. Her lips were soft and urgent, tasting of tears and need and something else indefinably sweet. I kissed her back with four months of starvation, of lying awake imagining this exact moment, this exact shade of desire fulfilled.
She made a sound against my mouth, a half sob, half moan, and pressed closer, her body molding against mine like she was trying to disappear inside me. I could feel her trembling, or maybe I was the one trembling. Maybe we both were.
“Need you,” she gasped between wet, burning kisses. “Need you so much it’s killing me.”
I backed her against her Honda, my hands roaming her body with desperate hunger. She was wearing jeans and a thick sweater. Too many layers between us, but I couldn’t wait a second longer. Couldn’t think beyond the need to be inside her, to finally claim what had been mine since that first terrible night in the pouring rain.
Her small hands were already working at my belt, fumbling with the buckle in the darkness. “Here,” she whispered hoarsely. “Right here.”
“Are you sure?” Even as I asked, I was pulling at her jeans, desperate to touch bare skin, to feel the wet heat of her.
