Page 70 of Higher Ground
She was so lost in her sobs that she didn’t hear the crunch of the gravel driveway under Byron’s large ute. She didn’t notice the shadow that moved over her as he parked next to her car, or the way the air shifted when Byron got out and stood over her.
She didn’t notice anything until he dropped to his knees in front of her and gently tugged her hands away from her face. Emory tried to fight against it, pressing the palms of her handsinto her eyes and doing her best to lock her elbows in place, but Byron’s persistent yet soft force coaxed them down.
“Please don’t cry,” he said, dropping his head down to rest their foreheads together. “This will be so much harder if you’re crying.”
Emory sobbed. If her eyes had been a little drier, she might have noticed the tears beginning to well in the corner of Byron’s, but her vision was a blur. “It already is hard. Please don’t make it worse.”
“Fuck, Em, I’m trying to make it better.”
“I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry I got carried away, and what was meant to be a little fun became so much more. It sucks, I know, I’m feeling it. But itwasfun, Byron, and I’ll never be sorry for that. I’m only sorry that it can’t be anything more.”
“What if it could be?” Byron let go of her hands then, wiping her tears with his thumbs. Emory opened her mouth to explain for what felt like the hundredth time why shehadto leave, but Byron held his thumbs over her lips. “And I don’t mean you staying in Gardner Creek. But if there was a way for us to be together, would you want it?”
Of course she wanted that, but there was no use dreaming and imagining. She had to face reality. Emory’s nod was feeble, barely there before she decided against it and turned her head to the side. “But we can’t.”
“Emory, listen to me. If we could, would you want that?”
“How!?”
He wasn’t listening to her, and it was only making the hurt worse, even though he said he wanted to do the opposite. Emory flinched free from his tender hold and stood. She slammed the boot of the car closed and dragged the second suitcase to the back seat. If she turned it on its side, propped it up against Clayton’s car seat, maybe she could make it fit. Okay, she’d haveto push her seat forward, but that didn’t matter. She needed to leave before she fell back into Byron’s arms again.
She was still wrestling the suitcase into the too-small gap between the seats when Byron’s hand covered hers. He spun her around, out of the way, so he could close the car door. Moving back, Emory pressed herself against the cool metal as he caged her in.
“You need to move to Sydney,” he said. His voice was low, and he leant close to her. So close she could feel the warmth of his breath on her ear, but even so, he kept his body off hers. “And I need to be with you, Em. There’s only one path here that doesn’t lead to either of us with our hearts broken or our dreams crushed.”
Emory’s brow furrowed. This whole messy fling was going to end in heartbreak no matter what. She’d known it long before she was even close to falling, and she knew it innately now. Byron was talking nonsense.
“Please stop,” she pleaded. “Please.”
Byron groaned in her ear before pushing back. The golden amber of his eyes was dark yet glistening with moisture. “No, let me explain. Fuck, I’m no good at this Em and maybe I should let you go off to the city and live your life and find someone who knows all the right things to say, but I can’t. I can’t let you do that without me. I’ve been lonely for a long fucking time. Longer than I ever really knew. But you brought life back into me. You melt away the cold façade I’ve kept up for so many years, and you make me feel like myself again. You make me feel like everything is right, and I can’t let that go. Without you, this town means nothing to me. This farm means nothing to me.”
Emory watched his Adam’s apple bob as he gulped back the sobs that threatened to take over his speech. She closed her eyes, waiting for him to finish and trying, really trying, not to get carried away on the hope that was starting to bloom in her heart.She said nothing, instead letting her head fall back against the window of the car. Byron followed her, staying close but still not pressing his body against hers in the way she always seemed to crave.
“If you go,” he whispered, “there’s nothing left for me in this town. So let me come with you.”
He moved a little closer, standing with his feet on either side of Emory’s, so close she could feel her chest brushing against his with every rise and fall of her bated breaths. Leaning in, Byron kissed her salty cheeks.
“Please,” he added. “Let me come with you.”
“What about the farm?”
Byron cupped her cheeks with his hands and dropped his forehead against hers. She could smell the woodsy body wash he always used and the subtle smell of petrol that seemed to linger on his clothes after he came in from riding the quad bike around the farm.
“This old place? I was getting sick of mending fences anyway.”
A slight, almost laugh escaped between Emory’s sobs. “But you love it here.”
“Only because I had nothing else to love. Then you came and looked at me the way that you did. God, I thought how fucking inappropriate of me to want all the things I want with you. How selfish of me to hope you’d want someone as worn down as me. But then we both started to fall—don’t look at me like that, I know you did.”
She’d raised an eyebrow, but he was right. She fell right alongside him, and it was the best kind of freefall she’d ever experienced. “Okay,” she admitted, tilting her head towards him so their noses pressed together. She could feel the ghost of his breath along her lips. “I fell too.”
“And then we were falling, and I don’t feel like I have to love it here anymore, Em. I love you instead. I don’t want to be here on the farm, lonely again. I want to be with you, living life, chasing dreams.”
Emory let her lips press against Byron’s. The air between them was hot and heavy, and her chest pounded. “But moving to the city ismydream, not yours.”
“Right, but you are my dream.”
He spoke the words directly into her mouth, then sealed them with a kiss unlike any they had shared before. The lust and passion was still there, it always would be, but this kiss was softer, slower. It was laced with the love that poured between them. Byron ran his tongue along Emory’s lips, and she opened her mouth for him, tilting her head to deepen the connection. She swirled her tongue around his and nibbled gently on his lower lip.
