Page 36 of Never Stay Gone
“For two years, I read every news article they wrote about you. I followed your recovery in every news page I could find. I put your surgery date in my phone when they published it. I read everythin’ I could about what happened to your knee to understand it all too. The ACL, the MCL. Patella ligaments. Hell, I can draw you an internal diagram of a knee joint now. And every night, I imagined I was there with you, massagin’ your knee. Bringin’ you ice packs. Heat packs. Tellin’ you it would be all right, that you’d get back on the field. That I’d help you.”
Tears rolled down Shane’s cheeks. He didn’t wipe them away.
“And then… the news stopped. You fell off the edge of the world. I scoured everythin’. I checked the rosters of every college football team, Division I through IV. I thought maybe you transferred or went down a league to take some time to recover. Nothin’. Hell, Shane, I started callin’ coroners to see if you’d died. I was searchin’ for your obituary for a year. But there wasnothin’. You’d just vanished. So I had to lose you all over again. For eleven years now, I ain’t known where the hell you was or what you was doin’, or if you were alive or dead or married or a father or—” He shook his head, his voice fracturing. “I didn’t know you was here. I had no idea until Heath drove me out to the grave and I heard your voice.”
“Why didn’t you call? Or email?”
“Why didn’t I?” Dakota barked out a single, dark chuckle. “You made damn sure I wouldn’t make that mistake. Jesus, Shane, you ripped out my heart completely the first time. You think I was gonna give you another shot, let you break it all over again? I can only take your rejection once in this life. I ain’t a strong enough man to live through that a second time.”
“We were just kids, Dakota.”
“Yeah, we were. Dumbass kids. Specially me, ’cause I thought I’d found the love of my life. What a fuckin’ fool I was, huh?”
Shane buried his face in his palms. He wanted to crawl under the table and fall apart, break into a million pieces. Burrow into the earth and rot in his shame. Turn himself inside out, show Dakota the empty space where his heart used to be.
“You know what the worst part is?” Dakota leaned across the table. “I’m still a goddamn dumbass, because here it is, thirteen years since you broke my heart, and I’m still sofuckin’in love with you. You moved on, though. You’reengaged. I used to dream about what it would be like for you and me to get hitched in some secret lil ceremony. So you think I don’t care?” Dakota snorted. “Every time I look at you, I wanna cry. I can’t be around you without thinkin’ of what we used to be. I tried to escape you and how you broke my heart, and look at where the fuck I am: right here, head over heels in love with the same goddamn guy who don’t love me back.”
Footsteps beside their booth, and the waitress’s voice rolled over Shane. “You boys decide what you wanna eat?”
Shane heard the creak of the seat and the slide of Dakota’s boots over the floor. “Sorry, ma’am,” Dakota said, “I’m not feelin’ all that great at the moment. I’ll come back for dinner again soon.”
Shane kept his head bowed, but he heard Dakota pull out his wallet. A twenty appeared on the edge of the table beneath Dakota’s calloused fingers at the same time a picture fluttered to the floor, landing beside Shane’s boot. He reached for it.
The photo was cut by hand from a larger one, the edges slightly uneven. By the look of it, it had been inside Dakota’s wallet for years. Water stains warped one corner, and there were creases on the sides like it had been folded and refolded, maybe to highlight one of the faces in the center of the picture, where he and Dakota had their arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders and they were smiling like they were the happiest boys in the whole world.
Shane’s fingers brushed over something taped to the back. He flipped the photo over.
A dried and pressed ocotillo flower was preserved under an X of old clear tape.
No. Dakotacouldn’thave kept the flower Shane gave him after their first kiss. Not for all these years.
But… Dakota had carried that little red flower all afternoon, spinning and spinning it in his fingers, grinning down at it when he thought Shane wasn’t sneaking longing looks at him. He’d carried it back to the truck and set it on Shane’s dashboard, close enough to the AC vent that it wouldn’t wilt on the long drive back to town.
Dakota snatched the photo out of Shane’s grasp. He wouldn’t look at Shane as he tucked the picture gently back into his wallet. He said nothing, wouldn’t meet Shane’s eyes, but he lingered by the table’s edge, breathing in and out, as if waiting.
Waiting for Shane to say something. Do something.
That same pit that had opened inside Shane that day opened again. He felt himself falling backward, saw blackness swallowing him on all sides. He grasped the table, dug his bootheels into the ground. Gasped and tried to hold on as the world spun and spun. Dakota was right there, in front of him, but—
Dakota shook his head and walked away.
Every footstep was a knife to Shane’s heart.
He watched Dakota stride out of the truck stop and cross the parking lot. Watched him walk away,again,and disappear.
Like thirteen years ago, Shane’s heart shattered, and he cursed himself. Cursed his fear, his failures, his fucking life. Hehatedhis life. Hated himself. Hated the whole fucking world.
Except for Dakota.
It was better when he hadn’t known the truth. When he thought Dakota was happy somewhere else and only Shane was in purgatory, stuck forever in his memories with his broken heart. He wanted to think of Dakota content and full of life. Dakota deserved to be happy.
Shane’s pocket buzzed, and his heart leaped. He clawed at the phone, holding his breath, hoping, praying that it would be Dakota.
Why would he call when he’d just walked away? Shane didn’t know.Please, please, please.
It was Shelly.
Shane, we need to talk. Come home now.
