Page 56 of Beautiful Rush
We walked in silence for a while and I tried to gather my thoughts and come up with a decent apology. “I’m sorry I dragged you into my mess. I never meant to get you involved.”
“Keira, Iaminvolved. Maybe you don’t understand that. Maybe you don’t understand how much I care about you.” His frustration seeped into every syllable of every word. “Youliedto me. Then you went off and did the one thing you promised me you wouldn’t do.”
Almost immediately, my defenses went up. “I know. I’m sorry, okay? But I never asked you to track me down. You should have stayed out of it. That was my deal. My mess. Not yours.”
He wrapped his hands around my upper arms and backed me against a tree, the rough bark digging into my back. “No. It’s not fucking okay.You could have been killed. Because of a stupid street race,” he shouted into my face. He stopped and took a breath, breathing through his nose, trying to calm down. His green eyes flashed with anger, but when he spoke again, his voice was lower and softer. “If anything had happened to you, do you know what that would have done to your brothers…tome?”
It was the soft tone and the pained look on his face that unraveled me.
His eyes searched my face, wanting to see that I felt his anger and hurt. I saw it. I saw his pain, but I didn’t want to see it, any more than I wanted to look at his bruises and cracked lips or his honest eyes.
When he said he’d fight to the death for me, I had believed him. I knew he would. But I had never wanted to test him on that.
Tears stung my eyes, but I forced them back. I didn’t want to cry. I didn’t want to fall apart. If I fell apart now, I’d never be able to pick up the pieces and put myself back together again. “If you’re trying to make me feel guiltier than I already do, congratulations. Mission accomplished.” He had me pinned to the tree with his body, his hands braced on either side of my head like he was planning to hold me hostage until I told him whatever it was he wanted to hear. “Is that why you invited me up here…so you could yell at me and make me feel worse than I already do? Just let me go, Deacon. This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have come here. This…us…it’s not…”
With a small humorless laugh, he shook his head. “Just like that? We have one disagreement and you’re giving up?”
“What do you want from me?”
“Everything. I want everything from you.”
“That wasn’t the deal. We weren’t even looking for a relationship—”
“That ship has sailed, babe. Wearein a relationship. Stop fighting this.”
I shoved him away and power walked away from him, taking the dirt trail we’d just walked, back in the direction of the house.
“Keira.”
I sped up. I needed to get back to my car and leave. Put this whole mess behind me.
“For fuck’s sake, Keira. I don’t want to lose you. Don’t you get that? I want to keep you safe and protect you.” He was right behind me, pleading with me to understand. To fight for us the way he would fight for me. “I wanted to kill those guys. Beat them to a pulp until they couldn’t even walk out of that fucking parking lot.”
Tears blurred my vision. I was running blind. Running away from the man who had wanted to kill those guys for tampering with my car. Running away from something good in my life. Someone who cared about me and someone I knew, in my heart, that I loved. But if I stuck around long enough, he’d figure out that I’m so messed up that I’ll sabotage everything that is good.
My foot caught on a tree root and I stumbled, bracing myself for the impact of my knees and hands hitting the ground.
I never hit the ground.
He caught me before I fell. Turning me around, he pulled me against him and wrapped me up in his arms. Tears streamed down my face, my body wracked with sobs. He held me close and I cried all over his clean white T-shirt. I cried all the tears I’d never shed.
* * *
We were sittingin a round clearing in the woods, our backs resting against a fallen tree. An old stone fireplace sat in the middle, like it had once been inside a house, but now it stood alone. Deacon said he used to call it the altar; the clearing was the cathedral. I tipped my head back and felt the sun on my face, heard the soft rustling of a warm summer’s breeze in the trees. Maybe this was where God lived. I didn’t even know if I believed in God. But I felt peaceful in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time. Maybe that’s what happens after you ugly cry all over your boyfriend’s T-shirt and instead of making you feel foolish for running away, he tries to hold all your broken pieces together. And when you’re done crying and there’s nothing left inside you except a cracked, hollowed out shell, he tells you it’s okay. That he’s got you.
“I have strong shoulders. Lay it all on me.”
That was what he said, and he meant it. Because he was good, and he was brave. He was strong enough to carry us both and even though he knew that I was a mess of a girl, damaged and maybe a little bit broken, he wanted me anyway. That’s love, I think. When you don’t try to fix someone or change them or turn them into some ideal of what you wish they were. You just love them, with all their faults and weaknesses and their bad decisions and their silly superstitions. Even when they lie to you or run away from you, you’re there to catch them when they fall.
I climbed onto the log behind him, my legs on either side of his shoulders and finger-combed his hair. He had good hair—thick and wavy, dark blond shot through with lighter strands, cut in long layers. He closed his eyes and let me play with his hair and massage his head. I gathered his hair in my hand and secured it with one of the elastics on my wrist.
“What have you done to my hair?” he asked.
“I gave you a man bun.”
He tipped his head back and looked up at me. “You’ll ruin my street cred.”
I lowered my head and kissed his forehead. “You look so pretty. But in a badass way.”
