Page 117 of Brim Over Boot
Chapter 32
Noah
“Fuck,”Isayforthe hundredth time, my voice getting lost to the wind as I take a turn on my bike. Daphne guides me along the outskirts of town as my mind runs winding paths of its own.
All this time… All this fucking time, and Colton had no clue who I am. Who Iwas.
The kid who moved in with his uncle, grieving and trying to acclimate to a new school months from graduation. One who’d hit it off talking about horses, of all things, with another boy from his class.
One who—hopeful he’d found somegoodin this fucked-up world—found himself learning another reality entirely.
It took meso longto forgive Colton for that. For kicking me when I was down. For being heartless and cruel when all I’d been looking for was a friend.
I did forgive him. Eventually. I had to let it go for my own sanity.
Even as I never forgot.
And now, what? It wasn’t even him to begin with? He never knew. He never fuckingknew. His coldness, his aloofness, all those scowls he sent my way for years… It had nothing to do with that prank pulled on me when we were only seventeen years old.
He didn’t even remember me.
Fuck.
I take a corner faster than I should and immediately slow down, not wanting to wreck poor Daphne’s body once more. I still haven’t buffed out the prior damage, even as I fixed the tire.
My heart thumps viciously as I pull off onto the side of the road, needing a goddamn minute to process. My boots hit gravel and dirt, and I pace a few steps away, stopping in front of a railing that overlooks a small ravine. The sun is setting, painting the sky in red and orange and brilliant purple.
“Fuck!” I screamat it all, my voice echoing.
Pulling my helmet off, I do it again.
“Godfuckingdamn it! Why him? Of all the goddamn people, why did it have to behim?”
The painted clouds offer no answer, the mountains stretching so high I can’t see their peaks.
“I trusted him,” I say, my voice cracking. “I forgave him, and I chose to trust him again. And you’re telling me it was literally for nothing? That I wasso goddamn angryat him for nofuckingreason?”
I heave out a breath, my sides aching, my lungs feeling raw.
“It could’ve been anyone. I could have fallen foranyone. Why did you make me needhim?”
My hands catch the rail, the metal supporting me. It takes me a moment through my blurry vision to see the rack of antlers appear below. Down past the guard rail, between a copse of trees.
The elk seems entirely unconcerned with me, weaving through branches, careful to turn his head just so to make his way through the world. I let out a disbelieving laugh. He’s easily the biggest bull I’ve ever come across in the wild.
“What are you trying to tell me?” I ask, expecting no answer.
The elk looks up at me for a long moment, assessing, before he moves on.
Colton didn’t remember me.
What’s worse? Finding out the seventeen-year-old Darling boy I thought I knew never existed in the first place?
Or learning the only reason he ever hated me…is because ofme.
My actions. My anger. Me.
A bugle cuts through the still air, the sound eerie and haunting. The elk cries again, and with it comes the memory of my dad.
