But I was baffled. Why in the hell would he chase after me and tackle me from behind? We weren’t playing football. We hadn’t been playing at all.
Quinton finally let go of me and I bent forward to brush off my knees and forgot Tyson was standing so close to me. My forehead smacked into his and we both jerked back.
“Ow,” he whined.
I rubbed at my forehead with my fingers and thought about just how absurd this whole night had been. It had started with me trying to escape a terrifying nightmare. Then I’d seen part of some kind of full moon ritual. I’d then went on to see three of my friend’s boy parts. Afterwards, I’d thrown a rock at scary dude Uncle Quinton and bloodied his nose. Then, Tyson got crazy and tackled me. And now this.
I couldn’t help myself. I started laughing. I laughed so hard my entire body shook with it.
Weeks, I had spent without them and even though I had had Mr. Cole with me almost constantly, it had still been what seemed to me like some of the loneliest weeks of my whole life. Yes, my depression had been a direct result of what had happened with my mother. But the loneliness had nothing to do with her death. I’d had but a small taste of their friendship, Tyson’s friendship the most, and I had been empty of emotions without it, without them. I had no idea how I had allowed it to happen.
I stopped laughing. It didn’t seem appropriate anymore.
I swallowed down my emotions, took a deep, shaky breath, and looked Tyson in the eyes. It was now or never. I had to put myself out there. I had to stop holding myself back. Had to stop pretending they weren’t as important to me as they were.
“I missed you,” I whispered hoarsely, honestly.
It was one of the hardest truths to ever come out of my mouth. To admit I missed him was to admit I needed him in some way. And I did not like needing another human being. Not in any way. It had just been me for so long, with only myself to look after, only my own feelings and welfare to care about, I didn’t really know how to go about doing it for someone else. I had already messed it all up by running away from them. What if I messed up worse than that after I let them in? What if I ended up all alone again? I didn’t want to be alone, I was honest enough with myself to admit that. But if I opened myself up to one of them they expected me to open myself up to all of them. With them, it was all or nothing.
The problem was, I didn’t want all of them.
Only some of them.
And I feared that wouldn’t be enough.
Chapter Six
Quinton had backed off the moment Tyson wrapped his arms around me in the tightest hug I had ever experienced. I thought about asking him to ease up a bit, but, truthfully, the hug felt nice. I had missed him very much.
“I’m sorry, girl,” Tyson whispered, “but you tried to run from me. I missed you so much and I am so tired of watching you run away. Don’t run away from me anymore, Ariel. I don’t think I could stand to watch you do it again.”
The pleading and sorrow in his voice broke my heart.
I pulled him in closer to me, as close as he could get and I clung to him for all I was worth.
“Missed you,” I whispered fiercely. “Thought about you every day. Thought about calling you just so I could hear your voice. I’m so sorry for-”
“You don’t have anything to be sorry about,” he whispered back just as fiercely. “I can’t even begin to imagine what you’ve been going through. It’s killed me not to be there for you when you needed me. You have no idea. So I’m not letting you run away from me because I can’t handle it.”
Guilt ate at me from the inside like a vicious thing. I hadn’t meant to hurt anyone, I’d just needed some space to make sure I didn’t fall apart and to get myself sorted.
“I’m not running,” I murmured.
“Girl, you just tried to.”
Since he was right, I didn’t try arguing with him.
He rubbed his face against my hair and inhaled deeply.
“Do you want to go back to the clearing?” he asked me.
Did I want to go back to the clearing? Where the Salt and Pepper twins were naked and Julian, Damien and Dash had just arrived and were probably naked under their robes too? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
Quinton was suddenly there, hovering over me. He placed his hand on Tyson’s shoulder and pulled him away from me.
“It’s late,” Qu
inton said. “Ariel needs to get inside where it’s safe and she needs to go to bed. What she doesn’t need to be doing is gallivanting through the woods with you in the middle of the night. She’s had enough of that for one night. Now, she’s going to bed. Alone.”