Page 32 of Puck Me

And he’s right. I know he’s right. If it hadn’t been for us losing our shit, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I took the best thing that’s ever happened to me and ruined it.

Doesn’t she remember what I said? She won’t look at me — and the harder I stare, the more determined she is to avoid looking me in the eye. I told her I love her. Does that mean anything? “Isn’t there anything we can do to fix this?” I know what she’s going to say, but dammit, I have to try. I’m not going to watch her walk away without at least trying.

“I wish there were. Really, you have no idea how much I wish there were.” I’m going to have to call bullshit on that one, because I know what it’s like to wish. I’m wishing right now. Wishing I could go back and change things. Wishing I had worked it out with Soren. Wishing there had never been any fight that set all of this in motion. I started that first fight with Soren, didn’t I? Why the hell did I let that happen?

I guess in the end, I thought I was protecting what mattered the most. All I was doing was destroying it.

So that’s it. I have no choice but to sit here and accept this. I love her, but it doesn’t matter. We’re over anyway.

I’m shaking when I stand. I can’t help it. It’s like my body doesn’t want to process this any more than my brain – or my heart. “You’re making a big mistake.” All she does is hang her head. She still won’t look at me.

I have to get out of here.

“Ash, hang on!” I keep moving without acknowledging Soren’s shouts. I have nothing to say to him now, anyway, and I don’t want to hear anything from him. How could I have let this happen?

* * *

This is what I needed.I step out of my truck and right away, I fill my lungs with all the fresh mountain air they can hold. Air that’s a good thirty degrees cooler than it is down in the valley.

I’m only an hour away from my house, but I might as well be in a different world. Surrounded by towering trees set against a cloudless blue sky. I hear the scratching of small critters nearby and look up to find a hawk circling overhead. “Be careful,” I murmur to whatever is nearby. “You probably look like dinner to him.”

But that’s part of nature, isn’t it? Something I had to learn as a kid. Nobody wants to see a tiny, innocent little creature getting snatched up by a predator, but then how does the predator live? That’s nature at work. That’s the way things have to be, without all our human feelings wrapped up in it.

The sort of feelings I really wish I didn’t possess right now, as I begin my hike further up into the mountains near Idlewild. I’m king of the world up here, untouchable — at least, that’s what I want to believe. That I’m so far removed from the disaster my personal life has become, it can’t touch me. I can’t feel it. I can almost imagine being the version of myself I used to be before I met her. I can go back to screwing around, enjoying myself with no strings attached. I can believe that once I get back home, none of this will matter anymore. That I can shake it off the way I’d shake dirt from the treads of my boots.

Maybe the higher altitude is screwing with my head. I don’t even know where my thoughts are coming from, like a stream of consciousness gone berserk. That’s how I’ve been all afternoon, ever since that disaster at the picnic tables. I could hardly wait for practice to end before I got the hell out of there, and I’ve never been so glad that I keep hiking clothes in the truck. I was already planning on coming up here at some point before getting called back up to Seattle.

I didn’t expect it to be more like an escape from reality, though. Like a refuge or something.

This isn’t like me. I don’t roll over and accept things. I don’t cower like some pussy, yet here I am. Not cowering, exactly, but it’s pretty damn close.

Especially when my phone rings yet again, reminding me of all the phone calls I’ve ignored. It’s more of the same when I pull it out. It was Harlow this time. Last time, it was Soren. Both of them went straight to voicemail.

I haven’t had a chance to return the phone to my pocket before it buzzes with a text.

Harlow: Please, don’t ignore me. I’m worried about you. At least send me a text back and let me know you’re alright.

“Gee, I would, but I’d be lying.” There’s a sudden rush of blazing heat in my head, and for one moment, I can see myself throwing the phone as hard as I can. I can almost see it’s wide arc and the way it would fall. Eventually, the trees would hide it.

Right. Because that would help everything.

She wants to know if I’m alright. What a fucking joke. How kind of her, after she basically spat in my face. I understand why she did what she did, but dammit, she could’ve pulled me aside. I fucking told her I love her. The first time in my life I’ve let myself be vulnerable like that, and this is what I get. I get treated like just one of the guys, like there’s nothing special about me. About us.

I guess that was the way it was always going to be. She could never afford to give any of us special treatment over the others. What an idiot I’ve been – we all have. We told ourselves we wanted things to be a certain way, because that was the only way it would work. Well, it didn’t work, did it? Not really. We were all kidding ourselves. Harlow included.

But I went and got my feelings involved anyway, didn’t I? I knew better. Somewhere deep inside, I knew this couldn’t last forever.

And there’s a part of me, a part so big it almost scares me a little, that wants nothing less than forever with her. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place.

By the time I come to a bluff overlooking the valley, I’m breathing hard and sweating a little, even in the cooler air. I take a seat and pull out a water bottle, gulping deeply. There’s nothing quite like the sensation of cold water working its way through my overheated body.

My phone starts buzzing again before I’ve had time to catch my breath. It’s Soren this time.

Come on, man. Enough is enough. None of us want it to be this way, but you can’t shut us out.

“Oh, yeah? Watch me.” Instead of throwing the phone, I put it away with a sigh. Sometimes I wonder about him. I really do. I get that a lot of his attitude is an act. Not that he would ever admit it, but I see it. I’ve known him long enough to sense when he’s saving face. That’s the only way I can describe what he was doing earlier. He feels something. I know he does. But he’ll be damned before he shows it. He would rather act like I’m being a little bitch.

Maybe that is how I’m acting. Maybe I’m being a little bitch about this. But goddamnit, she means too much to me to pretend I’m okay with this.

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