But then…other days…a switch would flip inside me, and I’d struggle to see him as family and only saw things I shouldn’t.
Forbidden things.
Things that had the potential not only to get me in trouble but to steal Ren from me forever.
I’d focused on the glisten of his sweat, and instead of thinking he needed a bath, I’d think how salty he would taste. I’d watched him break off dead tree limbs for our fire and instead of worrying he’d hurt himself, I only noticed how strong he was. How his arms bunched and his belly clenched and how everything about him was virile and perfect and just begging to be touched.
Things were alive inside me. Heat and hunger.
Sometimes, he’d look at me before I could bury my feelings and he’d freeze. His eyes would lock on mine, understanding the look of naked need even if he didn’t want to.
I’d swallow it all down, let my hair curtain my eyes, and pretend all over again that things were normal and I wasn’t drowning beneath right and wrong.
One dawn, when Ren slept beside me in our tiny tent, he rolled toward me as he sometimes did and gathered me close. I couldn’t help myself. I let myself be gathered, melting into the way his front cradled my back.
He was asleep. I was awake. I knew who was innocent and who was not, but it didn’t stop me from wriggling closer, my belly tightening as Ren’s hips jutted forward with something hard and—
Yep, stopping right there.
I can’t write the horror of what happened when I gasped and woke him up. How he’d ripped himself away from me. How he’d thrown himself out of the tent and refused to talk to me for the rest of the day.
It was yet another incident swept away, dirtying our relationship in ways I didn’t know how to clean.
In fact, this whole chapter I should delete, but ugh, I don’t like editing, and this is so close to being burned anyway.
I won’t litter the rest of this assignment with teenage awareness of how his normally comforting face was suddenly a treasure trove of harsh jawlines, straight noses, and black eyelashes. I’m not gonna remember the beard he grew or the fact that it wasn’t patchy like before but full and rugged and—
Why do I do this to myself?
Why do I insist on slicing through the sticky tape on my constantly breaking heart and stabbing it over and over again?
Can you answer me because I’m honestly at the end of my limit.
I know I can’t have him.
I made him believe I don’t want him.
Yet…I can’t forget him.
I just want him to go back to being Ren.
So why won’t that happen?!
God, you’re no use.
This is a waste of time.
You know what? I’m done.
This is beyond stupid. It’s become a mess of words and boring.
I’d get an F for this if I turned it in.
These secrets are just stupid really. I’m sure other people have the same issues. I’m not special. Just because I’ve been in love with someone I shouldn’t be for almost a decade doesn’t mean I can justify my heartache to you.
Ugh!
Okay, that’s it.
No more.
Nice knowing you, assignment.
Deleting…
* * * * *
So…I’m back.
Yesterday was a bad day.
I always have bad days remembering the forest in-between the Wilsons and what happened next. Probably because it was the last time we laughed together. The last time we could sleep side by side—when Ren wasn’t hunched against the tent to avoid me—and not have every other shit I caused become a third wheel between us.
God, I don’t want to write this anymore.
Not because I’m afraid of bad grades because that no longer matters, but because the end is coming. The end of everything, and the end of what I can tell you.
But before I can write those two little words and be done with this horrible excuse of literature, I have to tell you what happened in the next five years of my life.
I have to tell you why our fourth separation has lasted the longest.
I have to tell you why it’s my fault.
And I have to tell you why Ren will never forgive me even though he did in the forest.
I did something even worse than kissing him.
Wow, I didn’t think words had the power to make me tear up and tremble, but they did. Clever, huh? I’m making myself insane. I’m dragging everything into the light that I’ve done my best to keep buried in the dark.
Let’s see how my hands shake typing it again. Let’s do it in bold, shall we? Just for even more dramatic effect…
I did something even worse than kissing him.
Yep, that got my heart galloping.
Bet you’re wondering what the hell I could do, right?
What else could I possibly do to destroy everything I ever cared about?