As much as I wanted to turn down the offer of a ride, I knew Min would pitch a fit if I told her I was okay with walking on my bad knee. In truth, the pain had dissipated considerably and while it still hurt, it had nothing on the agony I was going through on the inside.
As soon as Min dropped me off, I went in the bunkhouse only long enough to pack my meager belongings into the singular duffel bag I had brought with me. I knew running home was the cowardly thing to do, but I didn't care. Nothing mattered to me anymore. Somehow my SAR dream had morphed into something entirely different. A different that included Zach. Now that he was leaving, I didn't know how to live the dream I’d once had. All I knew was that I needed to go somewhere where I could just be me again.
My fathers would be beyond happy to have me home, even though they had no idea what I’d been through or even where I’d been. It was time to come clean, but more than that, I needed to see them. Sleep in my own bed. Pet Bear and hope to hell returning to Haven would anchor me somehow. Maybe it was a childish thing to do, to run home to lick my wounds, but I didn't care. I just wanted the hurt inside to ease enough that I could breathe again.
The bunkhouse was empty, so nobody saw me leaving. I'd send Tag a message once I was on the road. I didn't have the heart to say my goodbyes to any of my friends since I felt like I was letting all of them down in some way by not being the happy-go-lucky guy I was supposed to be.
I began the drive to the highway, but the farther my car took me from the bunkhouse and the hangar, the more my chest hurt. I found myself driving in a different direction from the road to Kalispell and Helena. It was like my mind was on autopilot. I knew where I was supposed to go, of course, but I had no clue why I insisted on torturing myself. I just kept going in the opposite direction of home, and before I knew it, I was stopping at the edge of a clearing and staring across the road at the familiar truck parked in front of a small but meticulously maintained cabin. The back of the truck was open but empty except for a small cardboard box.
I stepped out and stared at the box as if it somehow held the key to the scene in front of me.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been standing there when the sound of the cabin door opening made my heart jump into my throat. I held my breath as I watched Zach walk from the cabin to the truck and toss a large bag in the back. I'd expected him to already be gone and had only made my way to the cabin in the hope of finding some strange sense of closure. But seeing Zach was pure torture.
He looked perfect. Besides the slight limp in his leg, he looked completely healthy. He was wearing a pair of jeans and a light green shirt with the long sleeves rolled up to reveal his strong forearms.
Zach slammed the truck shut but instead of going around it and getting in, he returned to the cabin. I ordered my feet to turn around and get back in the car, but my limbs refused to move. They suddenly felt too heavy for my own body.
I had no doubt that this was the moment.
The moment he was actually leaving. If I’d waited only five more minutes, I would've missed him.
I told myself to turn around so I would be the one choosing to walk away, but again, my body was no longer under my own control. All I could do was stare at the front door of the cabin.
I wanted to go to him but I also wanted to try and protect my heart, even though deep down I knew it was far too late for that. I'd been in love with Zach in some form or another since I was fifteen years old. If I’d thought my love for him had dwindled even a little over the years, I'd been proven wrong time and time again from the moment he’d come back into my life.
I loved him still, and that meant I couldn't be the one to walk away. I needed him to do it. I needed him to come out of the cabin, see me and then get in that truck and drive away without looking back. If he did anything else, it would just let that little spark of hope inside me continue to burn. And I needed that hope to die. I needed to learn to love him from afar and I needed his help to do it.