Page 50 of Kellan & Emmett
We washed up, changed into clean T-shirts, and Emmett pulled together a picnic basket like it was second nature—fruit, sandwiches, bottled water, a couple of oatmeal cookies wrapped in wax paper. I carried it out while he grabbed his truck keys.
The hum of the engine filled the cab, windows rolled down to let the warm breeze cut through. My fingers drummed restlessly on my thigh until Emmett glanced at me, grin tugging.
“You know where we’re headed yet?”
I studied the road, the curve of trees bending familiar. My stomach dipped. “The creek?”
His grin widened, said all I needed to know.
Silence lingered a moment, easy but weighted, before he added, “Haven’t been back there with anyone since you.”
I swallowed, the words pressing at my tongue before I let them out. “I know I hurt you back then. Ditching you for the team, for… appearances. But I never wanted to.” My voice dropped, rougher. “I was just too scared to want you the way I did.”[12]
He looked at me quick, eyes bright, and then turned back to the road. His hand tightened on the wheel, but his mouth curved, soft and knowing. The air in the cab shifted—charged, vulnerable, alive.[13]
The road narrowed to a rutted track, trees closing in on either side until sunlight broke through in scattered shards. Emmett eased the truck to a stop and killed the engine. The hum died, leaving only the drone of cicadas and the rustle of leaves overhead.
When I stepped out, the air shifted cooler, shaded by thick pines and oaks. I knew the sound before I saw it—the low rush of water over stone. My chest tightened as we rounded the bend, and there it was: the creek.
Not a lake, not the wide open expanse of water the others bragged about. This was smaller, tucked away, half-hidden from the world. Sunlight dappled across the surface, flashing silverwhere it caught the current. Smooth rocks lined the bank, the same ones we’d sat on as boys with fishing lines tangled more often than not.
I let the sight wash over me, the memories crowding in so fast it almost hurt. We’d skipped rocks here until our arms ached, lay flat on the grass naming shapes in the clouds, whispered things we wouldn’t have said out loud anywhere else.
And now, twenty years later, Emmett stood beside me, looking like he belonged more here than anywhere else. His shoulders eased, his mouth curved—not the polite smile he wore for guests, but something freer, unguarded. He looked alive. Rooted. Like this creek wasn’t just water and stone, but part of him.
“I used to come here after you left,” he said, voice quiet, not looking at me but at the water. “The day after graduation, I drove to your house, knocked on the door. Your dad wouldn’t even tell me where you’d gone. Just shut me out.” His throat worked. “So I came here. Waited. Thought maybe you’d show.”
I swallowed hard, guilt crawling up my spine.
He picked up a pebble, turned it over in his palm. “Every Saturday for months I came back. Sat right there on that rock, waiting like an idiot. I don’t know how many times I told myself maybe this week you’d be here. But you never were.”
The words hit like a fist, sharp and clean. I’d thought running had only cost me my own skin, my own silence. I hadn’t thought about the hole it carved out in him.
“Emmy…” My voice cracked on the name. I wanted to tell him I was sorry, that I’d been too young, too scared, too poisoned by my father’s voice in my head. But the apology stuck somewhere between my ribs and my throat.
He finally looked at me then, green eyes catching the sunlight, and the weight of all those lost Saturdays pressed down so heavy I almost staggered.[14]
“Emmy…” The name rasped out of me like it had claws. My chest burned, shame crawling higher. “I’m sorry. For leaving. For blocking you out. For every Saturday you sat here waiting on me and I was too much of a coward to come back.” My hand fisted at my side, useless, because nothing could undo twenty years. “You didn’t deserve that. Not then, not ever.”
For a moment, silence pressed thick between us, broken only by the water running over stone. Emmett’s jaw tightened, and I braced for him to tell me I was right—that I’d ruined it all, that he should never have trusted me again.
Instead, he tossed the pebble into the creek, the ripples spreading out slow. “You were eighteen, Kelly. We both were. And scared kids make shitty choices.” He turned, finally meeting my eyes. “You’ve carried the guilt long enough. We don’t need to keep digging it back up.”
I blinked at him, throat tight. “You’re just going to let it go?”
He gave a small shrug, lips curving into the ghost of a smile. “Not just. I’m saying we put it to rest. No more apologies. No more silence. If something eats at us—say it. If we’re scared—say it. I don’t want another twenty years of not knowing what you’re thinking.”
Something unspooled in me at that, a knot I hadn’t realized I’d tied so tight. My shoulders dropped, air rushing out of me. “Always communicate,” I said quietly, testing the words like they might vanish if I said them too loud.
“Always,” Emmett echoed.
The ripples from his stone faded into the current, and for the first time in years, I felt like maybe I wasn’t drowning in my own.[15]
Emmett bent to grab another stone, thumb running over the flat surface before he flicked it across the creek. Three skips, then it vanished under. He gave a satisfied little grunt and shot me a sidelong look. “Bet you still can’t beat that.”
I huffed a laugh. “You’re ridiculous.”
“You’re scared,” he teased, and before I could fire back, he was tugging his shirt over his head.
