I felt thick heat at the back of my throat, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to contain it this time. I tried. I tried to choke it down like vomit, but it came up anyway, spurting past my teeth in ragged whimpers. I heard myself gasp, and then keen high in my throat, a long, tortured moan.
Colton clapped his hands over the strings, silencing them. “Nell? You okay?”
His voice was the the impetus that pushed me over the edge. I shot up out of the chair, hopping away off the dock, limping. I ran, hobbling desperately. I hit the grass and kept going. Not for the house, not for the road, just…going. Away. Anywhere. I ended up in the sand, where my feet sank deep and slipped. I fell to my knees, sobs clattering in my throat, shivering in my mouth.
I crawled across the sand, pulled myself the softly lapping water’s edge. Agony bolted through my arm as it slid over the sand. Cold liquid licked my fingertips. I felt tears streaming down my cheeks, but I was silent still. I heard Colton’s feet crunching in the sand, saw his bare feet stop a foot away, toes curling in the sand, rocking back on his heels, digging deep as he crouched next to me.
“Leave me alone.” I managed to grate the words past my clenched teeth.
He didn’t answer, but didn’t move either. I dragged deep breaths in and out, fighting to keep it in.
“Let go, Nell. Just let it out.”
“I can’t.”
“No one will know. It’ll be our secret.”
I could only shake my head, tasting sand on my lips. My breathing turned desperate, ragged, puffing into the grit of the beach. His hand touched my shoulder blade.
I writhed away, but his hand stayed in place as if attached. That simple, innocent touch was fire on my skin, burning through me and unlocking the gates around my sorrow.
It was just a single sob at first, a quick, hysterical inhalation. Then a second. And then I couldn’t stop it. Tears, a flood of them. I felt the sand grow cold and muddy under my face, felt my body shuddering uncontrollably. He didn’t tell me it was okay. He didn’t try to pull me against him or onto his lap. He kept his hand on my shoulder and sat silent next to me.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop. I’d let go, and now the river would flow un-dammed.
No. No. I shook my head, clenched my teeth, lifted up and let myself fall down hard, sending a spear of pain spiderwebbing out from my arm. The pain was a drug, and I accepted it greedily. It was a dam, stemming the tide of tears. I panted, a whine emitting from my throat. I forced myself up, scrambling in the sand like a madwoman, hair wild and caked with grit. Colton stood up, caught my arm and lifted me to my feet. I landed hard, too hard, and I couldn’t stop the cry of pain as my ankle jarred. I fell forward, into Colton.
He caught me, of course.
He smelled of alcohol, cologne, cigarettes. His arms circled my shoulders and held me in place. The sobs rose and fell within me, brought up by guilt from finding pleasure and comfort, doused by the same.
I let my forehead rest under his chin, just for a moment. Only a moment. Just till I caught my breath. It didn’t mean anything.
It’s just a moment of comfort, Kyle. I found myself talking to him, as if he could hear me. It doesn’t mean anything. I love you. Only you.
But then he shifted, looking down at me. So, of course, I had to tilt my head up and meet his eyes. Damn his eyes, so soft, so piercing and bright and blue and beautiful. His eyes… they drowned me. Sucked me in. Dark sapphire laced with cornflower blue, sky blue, ice blue so many shades of blue.
I fell forward, into him. I tasted Jameson on his breath, heat on my lips, moist soft heat and scouring power of his lips. It was only a moment, the briefest instant of contact. A kiss, an instant of weakness like the inevitable pull of gravity.
Awareness rifled through me, struck me like a dagger to the heart.
I threw myself bodily backward, out of his arms, away from the drowning comfort of his arms, his lips.
“What am I doing?” I stumbled back, back. “What am I doing? What the f**k am I doing?” I turned and limped away as fast as I could, barely hanging on to my sanity, barely keeping the guilt from eating me alive.
Colton followed, ran around in front of me and stopped me with his hands on my shoulders. “Wait, Nell. Wait. Just wait.”
I wrenched free. “Don’t touch me. That…that was wrong. So wrong. I’m sorry…so sorry.”
He shook his head, eyes boiling with emotion. “No, Nell. It just happened. I’m sorry too. It just happened. It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay!” I was nearly yelling. “How can I kiss you when he’s dead? When the man I love is gone? How can I kiss you when…when I—when Kyle—”
“It’s not your fault. I let it happen too. It’s not your fault. It just happened.” He kept saying that, as if he could see the guilt, the secret weight of awful knowledge.
“Stop saying that!” The words were torn from me before I could stop them. “You don’t know! You weren’t there! He’s dead and I—” I chomped down on the last two words.
Thinking them, knowing them to be true is one thing; saying them out loud to Kyle’s brother, whom I just kissed, is another.
He was close to me again, somehow. Not touching, but only an inch separating us. That sliver of air between us crackled, sparked and spat.
“We’re not talking about the kiss anymore, are we?” His voice throbbed low, wired with passion, understanding.
I shook my head, my only answer for so many things. “I can’t—I can’t—I can’t…”
I could only turn away, and this time Colton Calloway let me leave. He watched me, I could feel his eyes on me. I could feel him knowing my thoughts, delving deep into my secret soul, where guilt and grief festered like an abscess.
I made it to my room, to my bed. My eyes closed, and all I saw was Kyle dying, over and over again. Between the images of his last indrawn breath, I saw Colton. His face growing closer, his mouth on mine.
I wanted to cry, to scream, to sob. But I couldn’t. Because if I did, I’d never stop. Never never. There would only be an ocean of tears.
Hot heart-blood leaked from my face. From my eyes and my nose and my mouth. Not tears, because those would never stop. This was just liquid heartbreak seeping from my pores.
The mountain of pressure, the weight of grief and guilt…it was all I could feel. It was all I would ever feel. I knew that. I knew, too, that I would learn to be normal once again, someday. To live, to be, to seem okay.