“Yeah, he told me about you guys when you were kids,” Aiden continued. “He told me what he did to you, too.”
I couldn’t hide my reaction to that. Mostly because it felt like just another betrayal in a long line of many. What else had he told this asshole about me? How I was just the caretaker’s son? How Bennett had deigned to let me live in his shadow until he’d no longer had any use for me? Did he tell this man about all the plans we’d made as kids? Did the fucker know he was everything I should have been to Bennett?
“You should walk away now,” I said coolly.
“Or what? You gonna grab me like you did him?” Aiden said snippily. “Yeah, I saw you yesterday, big man.”
I assumed he was talking about the moment I’d slammed Bennett against that tree when he’d mentioned my dad. My hands fisted on their own and then I stepped over the log. Aiden was about my size, though not quite as heavily built. But he’d still be a worthy opponent, especially since he didn’t back down once we were pressed chest to chest.
And just like that, Bennett was there, pressing between us. “Don’t,” he said quietly, though his voice was flustered and tense. He forced Aiden back a few steps. “Leave it alone, Aiden.”
“You were kids, Bennett,” Aiden bit out. “You made mistakes, but you were still just a kid.”
Aiden’s declaration set off something inside of me that I was helpless to control.
“He wasn’t a kid, asshole,” I barked. My eyes fell to Bennett’s wide ones. “He was my entire fucking world!” I yelled, my voice cracking as the wound inside my chest that had scabbed over so long ago ripped open and bled for all the world to see.
Aiden had the grace to look surprised, but I didn’t give a shit. Because my eyes were on Bennett, who was looking at me with so much pain and regret that it had tears stinging the backs of my eyes. Had he never really understood what he’d done to me? God, that made everything so much worse. I ignored Bear who’d begun whining at my side, and I turned and stumbled over the log, knocking my pack aside in my desperation to escape. I barely noticed that all the kids were standing shell-shocked just behind us, their mouths open wide.
I didn’t care.
All I cared about was doing what I’d done that night fifteen years ago when Bennett had taken away the one remaining good thing in my life.
I ran.
Chapter 4
Bennett
I wanted to go after him. In fact, my feet had carried me clear across the campsite before Aiden’s large arms grabbed me around the waist and spun me around.
“Don’t,” he said. “He’s not worth it.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I hissed. “You don’t know shit. You saw him! He’s hurting.”
“Let him hurt, Bennett. If he can’t forgive you for something you did when you were a child, he doesn’t deserve your comfort or your friendship. It wasn’t your fucking fault.”
I felt a stinging in my throat and my entire body ached to follow Xander into the forest. After a moment of internal struggle, I sagged in Aiden’s arms.
“He hates me. I mean, I knew he hated me, but I had no idea how affected he was by this.” I extricated myself from my friend’s arms and straightened my clothes. “I didn’t know it was… fuck. I didn’t know it was this bad.”
“Why don’t you go sit by the lake for a little while and calm down? I was going to do one of the ice breaker games with the kids before dinner anyway.”
“Yeah, okay,” I said, stepping away from him and retrieving my water bottle from my pack. “Thanks.”
As I made my way past the edge of the trees toward the lake, I was overwhelmed by the beauty of our surroundings. The late afternoon sun glinted off the surface of the water and cast shadows on the eastern side of the Woodland peaks in the distance beyond.
I thought about what Xander had said about hiking these woods since he’d moved to Colorado with his aunt. I’d never known where he was, where he’d ended up. There had been no way to even picture him in his new life. One minute he’d lived within a three-minute walk from my bedroom window and the next he’d been gone without a trace. I’d never even gotten to say goodbye.
After hearing a splash, I noticed a bird take off from the surface of the water. It pumped its wings to take it high into the fir trees to my left. I made my way to the edge of the lake and settled on a large boulder, reaching out to unlace my boots so I could test the temperature of the water.