Page 15 of Chasing After You
But it’s Nessa. She’s always been good at compartmentalizing her life. Her feelings. If I had been honest with myself abouthow deeply she’d honed this skill over the years, maybe I would have understood sooner that her need to forge a new path would mean leaving the old, weathered, and worn one we traveled together. Instead, I let myself believe our adventure was the foundation of everything we sought, separate or together, and that in the end, our journeys always led back to the same path and to each other.
Except the last time they didn’t.
I sigh, letting the moment pass on the exhale, and all the words I want to say with it.
Then, I force a quiet laugh and shake my head. Because I’m an idiot. In more ways than one.
“Pretty dumb, right?”
NESSA
Not nearly as dumb as he must think I am if he expects me to believe all of that. And he can’t possibly. But whatever it is he’s not ready to say, isn’t my job to force out of him. Not anymore.
“It’s certainly not a story I would go around retelling people,” I remark dryly.
He chuckles, tilting his head down at an angle, making strands of his long black hair fall over his left eye. “No, I guess not.”
Now that I’m not flustered by the near collision anymore, my levelheadedness is being slowly restored. But it’ll swiftly disappear again if I continue to stand here, staring at him and his rich, golden-brown eyes, stupid long lashes catching in his messy hair. It’s also not helping my mental clarity that he’s shirtless, muscles rippling with every in and out of his heavy breathing, sweat still pearling over his otherwise smooth skin, trailing their way down until they blend into the black of his tattoos. Not to mention I’m close enough to...well, I’m closeenough to do a lot of things I have no business doing now, especially since there’s apparently a Kenley in the picture, but annoyingly, still have the desire for.
Feeling my face flush hot, I step back and pretend to study the trail we’re on in great detail. “I don’t suppose you remember which way either of us was traveling before you nearly ran me over?”
Whether he noticed me blush or not, he doesn’t show. Just looks back and forth along the path for a moment. “Um, no clue.” He takes a few steps in one direction as if searching for something familiar. Then repeats the act going the other way.
“Nothing?” I start to retrace his steps. Maybe something will trigger a flash of recognition for me. Doubtful, since I was so busy staring at my phone screen, reading while walking, I never even saw Matti coming.
“Nope.” He turns back to look at me, grinning. “Good news is, either way will lead us back to the ranch, right?”
“There is that.” I’m suddenly wiped out though. Between the traveling, my sisters, and their scheming, and now Matti and this Kenley business, I feel like I just tapped empty. If one way is closer to my destination than the other, I’d prefer to be headed in that direction. “If you had to guess, which one do you think is the fastest way back?”
He shrugs, laughing. “Iwouldhave to guess to answer that.”
I make a face. “Fine. So, pick a path and I’ll take the other one.”
His expression changes. For a second, sadness surfaces in his eyes. He recovers quickly, smirking. “I suppose that is the way we do things now.” His eyes don’t smile. They just stay blank.
“It seems to work for us,” I agree. I don’t know why I do. I don’t mean it. I don’t mean it at all. But I want to. Now more than ever.
He nods, slowly starting to jog in place. “I’ll take that way.” He points ahead to the left of me.
I swallow down any attempts to undo what I’ve done and point out how stupid it is to go separately when we’re both going to the same place, and instead turn myself away from him, toward my chosen end of the trail. “Try not to run anyone else over,” I call out, eyes cast at my phone again, though I doubt my brain has the capacity to read anymore.
Motivated to put this moment behind me as fast as I can, I speed up to a powerwalk my physical body would argue it lacks the energy for. But anxiety, anger, and pride make for explosive fuel, and so I march on, putting more and more distance between us.
The symbolism here isn’t lost on me. We’ve been here before. Maybe it wasn’t a collision the first time, but something imploded and I couldn’t see my way home. So, I took the only way I could find, and it led me out. Out of the life I knew. And out of my marriage.
I was lost, and selfish though I knew it was, part of me wanted him to find me.
Even if he never asked me to leave, I wanted him to ask me to stay. Something I knew he never would. While I knew he loved me too much to hold me, I wanted him to be selfish, as weak as I was, to cling to me with the same desperation I felt in wanting him to chase after me.
The way I want him to chase after me now.
“No!” I hiss, scolding myself. “Stop that!”
But I can’t stop.
And I’m starting to think I never will. And the dread which follows that thought is almost more than I can bear.
“There you are.”
