Page 59 of No Way Home
Right now.
Deep breath. I tapped play. The camera cut to Griff sprinting past the oblivious race participants, tears streaking his dirt-dusted cheeks. He opened his mouth, and the cry of someone who’d been stabbed straight in the heart ripped free from his chest.
It hit me full force. Twice. Once in my memory. The other as I watched it happen again.
Bowen and I didn’t have time to react to Griffin’s scream of gut-wrenching betrayal before he came flying at us, feet off the ground.
Wham! He slammed into Bowen, knocking me backward.
I felt that twice too. The jolt—physical and mental—as I landed on my butt with a hard thud. It had vibrated all theway to my skull. But it didn’t hurt as much as the emotional blow of watching my boyfriend pummel his brother to the ground.
Because of me.
Before Bowen even connected with the earth, landing smack on his back, Griffin was on top of him, fists pounding his face. Watching it again was the last thing I wanted. But I made myself because I deserved to relive this pain. I was the one who’d caused it. Me and no one else.
On Camera Maggie sobbed, watching as Cash ran over and pried Griff off of Bowen. Bowen, more pissed than I’d ever seen him, kicked, his foot connecting with Griffin’s gut. Griff doubled over with a groan. Cash realized his mistake and let go of Griff, who dove back on top of Bowen.
And then Past Me was crying into my hands. “Stop,” I whimpered. “Please stop.” Charlie pulled me into a hug I didn’t deserve, her whole body wrapping around mine as I sobbed uncontrollably. All while Bowen and Griff tore into each other in the dirt, dust swirling around them like smoke.
“I’m gonna kill you!” Griffin screamed at Bowen.
“Get off me!” Bowen raged. “She kissed me first, jack weed! She doesn’t want you!”
Those words felt like a punch all their own.
“That’s not true.” I sobbed. “It’s not true.” It wasn’t that I didn’t want Griffin—he was one of my best friends—I just wanted Bowen more. And now Griffin knew—and he’d never get over it.
Every male Dupree sprinted over after that, breaking up the fight. Four of them held Griffin back as he fought like they were trying to steal the last breath he’d ever take. Any other girl might’ve let it go to her head. She might’ve been flattered, thinking of how much Griffin must’ve loved her to have such a reaction. But his rage wasn’t about me. Not at its core. I knew it then, and I know it now.
I don’t think I understood how much Griffin despised Bowen until that moment. I’dalways felt an underlying, one-way current between them. All on Griffin’s end. While Bowen bent over backward to make him happy, Griffin was determined to hate everything Bowen did, said, even the way he breathed. His next words only solidified that suspicion.
“You’re dead to me!” he seethed at Bowen twenty feet away. “Dead!”
The vitriol he’d buried deep finally clawed its way to the surface. I couldn’t bear that I’d been the catalyst, and it escaped my lungs in an ear-splitting wail.
The camera flashed to Lemon—one of the best moms I’d ever met—who loved all four of her kids with a tender fierceness I could only hope to emulate one day. She gave Bowen a heartbroken glance. Then she stepped in front of Griffin, trying to quiet the storm that was raging inside of him. She held his face in her hands, forcing eye contact. “No. Don’t say things you’ll regret,” she said in a soothing voice. “Hey, now. Calm down, Griff. Calm down.”
She was the right person for the job because he finally stopped fighting and broke the rest of the way—collapsing against her, crying so hard I thought he might pass out.
I was still crying like a lunatic, and hardly noticed when Cash’s mom, Peyton, took Charlie’s place, pulling me into her lap.
Cash and Charlie jogged off, glancing back at us with a heavy sadness in their eyes. I realized later, as I watched the documentary, that Ford had ordered them to go on ahead. They hadn’t wanted to leave, but they desperately needed the prize money.
The camera zoomed in on Bowen, and I forced myself to look at him. The devastation, the regret. If our history were an old-fashioned scale, my side had always strained under the weight of pain. But the moment Bowen kissed me back, the chains on his side of the balance snapped, and his scale plate crashed to the ground.
Bowen, who’d disappeared at Sole Mates because he loved his brother so much he’d give up the girl he wanted just to make him happy. Bowen, who stayed away from me at UVA purposely to avoid a situation just like this. Bowen, who, if he’d had a choice, would’ve chosen anyone else to be his race partner other than me.
Bowen, who only ever wanted Griffin to love him.
And I’d just made sure that would never happen.
With eyes full of tears, he watched Griff helplessly. He pounded a fist against his forehead, hard and punishing. I could see that he wanted to make it better, but he knew he was the last person who should try.
Then, for the first time since Griff had ripped us apart, Bowen’s gaze skittered to me. Our eyes hooked and the hardness I knew from our UVA days was back. Only this time it tripled in intensity. In that moment, what I’d always known hit me with a force that stole my air.
There was no way Bowen could ever love me now. I’d put the nail in my own coffin. I looked at the Duprees, all of them heartbroken. I never wanted another Dupree to shed a tear because of me ever again.
So I got my feet under me, pushed to a stand, and sprinted harder than I should’ve had energy for—and I didn’t stop for a single obstacle. Not the Bender, the Helix, or the Rolling Mud. I tried to outrun the cameramen, but the minute I lost one, another was waiting around the corner.
