Page 134 of Dove
She nodded in agreement.
I noticed she hadn’t asked mewhyI hadn’t told my best friend. As if she wanted to avoid the question altogether, afraid of what my answer might be. Or maybe she was relieved I hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, least of all to a big mouth like Eddie. She wanted to keep us secret, after all. Thoughts spiraled around in my head faster than I could keep track, doubt and fear and shame mingling into an emotionally bleak cocktail.
As we walked back to the car, more space than we’d had all night distancing us, I wondered if coming here together had been a mistake after all.
30
DOVE
The minute Josh pulled up to the house and cut the engine, silence engulfed us.
Too many thoughts swirled in my head, too many emotions fastened like a choking necktie around my heart. We hadn’t spoken a word on the trip back home, not after I thanked him for opening the car door for me and he murmured something back in acknowledgement, but the low radio had helped fill the silence that followed us since the alley. Since I watched him shove Torrence up against that wall and become someone I’d never seen before. Or perhaps I had seen glimpses and just been blind to them. Like in the barn. Or that day on the road when Torrence had stopped.
But nothing like tonight.
I couldn’t think of a single time in my life I had feared Josh, and honestly, I hadn’t been scared of him back in that alley. I’d been scared of what he’d do to Torrence, but I wasn’t scared ofhim,yet seeing him react like that… it just confirmed everything I’d been worried about. Every nagging thought, every ill-ease feeling, every second guess. Today just reaffirmed that this was never going to be easy. Thatbeing togetherwas never going tobe easy for us. The thought of somehow losing him over it…thatscared me more than anything.
How could you give your whole heart to someone when you were afraid it would end up shattered into a million pieces? I’d already painstakingly put my heart back together once before, and it had barely survived losing my mom, something I was still actively trying to work through. Somewhere deep down I knew my heart couldn’t take another fracture, but I wasn’t worried for anything Josh might do to it. No, I was worried for what would happen the moment the wrong person found out about us.
Like Torrence.
“I’m sorry,” Josh’s apology filtered through the quiet that stretched between us and brought me out of my internal spiral. “For what happened back there. The last thing I wanted to do was ruin today.” His apology was weary and regretful, like he believed with all his heart he was at fault for earlier. I could only imagine what was going on insidehishead, and my heart panged for all the things Josh wasn’t saying right now. Knowing him, he was probably spiraling into his own self-imposed guilt trip, berating himself for how the tail end of our date turned out.
“No.” I shifted in my seat to look at him, seat belt sliding in a rasp against my chest. He kept his head turned, gaze determinedly focused away from me, but I saw his grimace from the moonlight that streamed in through the window across his face. He didn’t believe me.
“You didn’t,” I insisted. I wasn’t lying, either. Josh hadn’t done anything but defend me from a drunk bully. Torrence on the other hand… “It was a good day, agreatone, even. I had fun. I just wish…” My sentence died in my throat. WhatdidI wish for? And if I allowed myself to, would it even come true for the kind of things I wanted?
“What, Dove?” he pitched his voice low as he finally turned to look at me, asking the question softly, softer than his touch whenhe reached for my hand. I met him in the middle, threading our fingers together. “What do you wish for?”
Our hands rested in between us, twined together. Reminding me that no matter what, we had each other.Even when it got hard. Even when we hadno one else.I shoved away the tiny bit of doubt that still surrounded me about leaning on Josh, afraid he might leave again, and let myself be vulnerable.
“That things were different.” My whispered admission sounded loud in the hush of the evening considering there was no one around for miles to make a sound except the crickets beginning to chirp right outside my window. “That we were just a regular, normal couple.” Josh had been such a huge rock in my life since he entered it, but it didn’t stop me over the years wondering what would have happened if we’d met under different circumstances. Would I have felt the same connection to him, the pull for something more? Would he have looked at me twice? All I could do was wonder because that would never be our reality.
Silence filled the space between us again, until Josh’s hand slipped from mine and the engine rumbled to life as he turned the key in the ignition.
“What are you doing?”
“Giving you normal,” he answered cryptically. “At least for tonight.”
Josh pulled around the house, making his way down the dirt path that wound its way into the woods toward the lake. I had no idea what he was doing, but something fluttered excitedly in my stomach, and I allowed myself to have this moment, just Josh and me and whatever mysterious idea he’d conjured up.
A dull buzz sounded, and my phone lit up brightly in the dark from where it rested on the dash.
I picked it up, swiping to see I had a message from Reverie.
Hope you wore sexy underwear like I told you to.She punctuated the sentence with a winky emoji.
Josh’s focus was ahead, but I still titled my screen away and quickly darkened the screen, her text making my face flame with embarrassment. He cast a sideways glance at me, but otherwise stayed silent, navigating us down the worn trail, hanging a left at a cluster of berry bushes, until it opened up to?—
My mouth dropped open in surprise.
The lake was nothing extraordinary. It wasn’t what someone would call an oasis or a paradise, and the water was far from clear, but it had always been a secluded, tranquil spot that we’d come to view as ours. Surrounded by tall trees and a grassy shoreline, a faded dock led into the water with a small boat we used to take out fishing tethered to it. It was hardlyNational Geographicworthy, but to me it was more than perfect, and, before Josh left, it had been one of my favorite places in the world to visit to clear my mind.
I could have described it with my eyes closed, if you had asked.
Now? The lake I had come to know like the back of my hand had been transformed. My eyes zipped across the clearing, taking in every detail.
Twinkling fairy lights reflected along the water where they’d been strung up between the trees. Every few feet stood citronella tiki torches, their dancing flames casting shadows along the ground, providing not only a defense against bugs but additional light once the sun fully set. The most surprising detail was parked between two old tree stumps, just a few yards from the water’s edge. Josh’s truck. Iknewthat whole line about it not running right had seemed fishy.
