Page 8 of Dove
He’d always run around town in his father’s old K10 Chevy before he left. Gifted to him when he’d gotten his license, he’dtreated it like his baby, fiddling with it whenever he had free time, making sure the oil was always changed. He’d loved that thing. I’d always suspected it was because it made him feel close to his distant father.
It was weird seeing him behind the wheel of something so new and shiny. Something so…different.
It made me feel like I didn’t know him.
In a way, I didn’t. Three years had passed. The Josh I knew was gone, replaced by someone who only shared the face of the person I had once considered myself closest to. Someone I’d known better than I’d known my own self.
As comforting as his presence had been these past few days, it hurt having him here, reminding me of everything his absence had erased between us. I no longer knew him, and he no longer knew me. We were strangers tied together by a shared past—and now that our parents were gone, those ties that lingered between us and kept us held together were gone as well. We weren’t forced together by our parents’ marriage anymore. We were nothing but past tense.
The thought curled up into my throat like pungent smoke, choking me.
A beep emitted from the lone vehicle sitting in the parking lot as the doors unlocked. A snort left me at the sound, reminding me of just another thing that had changed. Josh used to hate anything remotely technological. It was why he’d loved his father’s truck so much; it was so old, you had to roll the windows up and down manually with a crank, and the only way you could listen to music was by radio. I’d had a cellphone before he did, and he’d borrowed my computer if he needed to research anything for school.
How he managed before I came along, I had no idea.
Reaching for the cool silver of the handle, I tugged the door open, only for it to slip out of my grasp as it jerked shutbeneath my hand. Josh’s splayed hand rested over the top of the doorframe, holding it closed.
Heat radiated along my back as he stepped closer, shielding us from the chilly mist of rain with the umbrella he still held.
“Dove.” A shiver ran down my spine that I attributed to how wet and cold I was, and not how he said my name.
“What?” I snapped, refusing to face him, but peering at his reflection in the window.
His face fell, and he sighed at my tone, but his hand stayed where it was, keeping me from escaping. I didn’t even try; Josh was far larger and stronger than me, and it would be futile, but if he kept this up, a swift kick to the balls might be in order.
He’d tried to initiate conversation over the past few days, but we’d both been busy planning a funeral, and honestly, I was still fucking pissed at him. He’d ignored my calls and texts for years, had ignored them right up until the other day, even. He’d never once tried to explain why or how he’d gotten back to Haven so quickly.
There were a lot of things I didn’t know, starting with where he lived. Perhaps he hadn’t gone as far as I’d thought. Hope bloomed in my stomach. Maybe he’d stayed close?—
No.I stopped that line of thinking as quick as it came. I didn’t care how far he had or hadn’t gone. He left. He’d left and he’d stayed gone without one letter, one message, hell, not even ahappy birthdaypost on Facebook. Which was theleastsomeone could do, right?
Wrong.
Three birthdays had come and gone without him. I’d imagine a fourth would, too, if he was bound to leave just as quickly as he arrived, the dirt not even settled on our parents’ grave before he cut out. He probably had areally important lifehe had to get back to.
“Don’t do this,” he begged. “Don’t freeze me out.”
I swallowed the aborted laugh that threatened to spill past my lips. Was he for real?
There was nothing more I wanted than to turn in his arms and tell him what I really thought, to unleash the years of anger and pain I’d bottle up inside me since he’d left. Nothing more I wanted than to fall into his arms and cry, not just for me, but for him, for our loss. I wanted to ask him what we do next—how do we move on from this?
But there was noweanymore. He wasn’t Josh, my protector, the one who made everything better, and I wasn’t Dove, the girl who needed him to fix everything.
I’d learned to fix things myself in his absence, to lean on myself since he’d left.
There wasn’t space for him in my life anymore.
“Can’t we talk?” He leaned in closer as a car passed us, tires splashing through the shallow puddles left by the rain before parking a few spaces away. He continued in a lowered voice, “Let me explain?—"
His words curled in my heart, tempting me. I’d waited on them for years, but as much as I wanted to know, the time for explanations was over. Nothing would change the past or the time that had stretched between us. Would knowing why he left change anything? Would his reasons behind it ease those lonely years? We couldn’t turn back time no matter how hard we wished for it.
“Drop me off at home, Josh,” I cut him off coldly, my hand curling around the doorhandle. The tendons in his arms tensed briefly as his hand remained blocking the door, as if he was debating on whether to press the issue or not. When he stepped back, allowing me to open my door, I swore his hand brushed against my hair. My stomach flipped and my spine quivered. From behind clenched teeth, I said, “Then you can go back to whereveryoucall home these days.”
Slipping inside, I slammed the door and faced forward, ignoring as he stood there for a moment, peering at me through my window.
My heart ached like a bruise.
The distance between us felt so much bigger than a thin pane of glass.
