Page 14 of Rhett & Moses
My blood ran cold. “Photos? How..."
“Remember Brad Collins? The photography nerd who was always lurking around with that long-range lens. Apparently, we weren’t as alone as we thought that night.”
I felt sick, imagining our most private moments captured without our knowledge, and then used as leverage. “So, you took the fall for the statue to protect us. To protect me.”
Moses looked away, his profile sharp against the mist. “No,” he said quietly. “I took the fall to protect myself.”
The admission hung in the air between us, painful in its honesty.
“I was scared, Rhett. Terrified. This was twenty years ago in small-town South Carolina. My dad was on the town council.The business was just getting transferred over to me. If word got out...” He trailed off, swallowing hard. “I couldn’t face it. Couldn’t face you. So, I did what Soren asked. I confessed to vandalizing the statue, the fine, and the public shame. Then I left as soon as I could.”
I absorbed his words, feeling a tangle of emotions, I couldn’t quite sort through; relief at finally knowing the truth, anger at Soren Hayes, hurt that Moses hadn’t trusted me enough to confide in me, and beneath it all, a profound sadness for the young man who had felt so trapped.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked the question that had haunted me for two decades, finally spoken aloud. “We could have faced it together. I would have stood by you.”
Moses turned to me then, his eyes bright with unshed tears. “Would you? Really? Your family was even more conservative than mine, Rhett. Your father was the pastor at First Baptist. Your mother headed the Ladies’ Auxiliary. Would you really have been ready to come out at eighteen, to face the entire town, to risk your future, your family, everything?”
The question hit me like a physical blow because I knew the answer, and it wasn’t the one I wanted to give. At eighteen, I had been just as afraid as Moses, just as unready to face the consequences of our relationship becoming public knowledge. I’d been devastated when he’d confessed to the vandalism, that he’d pulled away from me and left, but had I fought for him? Had I demanded answers? No. I’d let him go, had accepted the convenient narrative that he’d simply had a rebellious breakdown.
“No,” I admitted quietly. “I wouldn’t have been ready. But I would have understood, Moses. I would have kept your secret. We could have figured something out.”
“Maybe,” he conceded. “But I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was terrified and ashamed, not of us,” he clarified quickly, seeing myexpression, “but of my own cowardice. It was easier to run than to face you knowing what I’d done.”
We fell silent again, the weight of two decades of pain between us. The sun had risen higher, the mist beginning to burn off in the growing warmth of the day. In the distance, a bird called to its mate, the sound echoing across the water.
“So now you know,” Moses finally said. “I’m not the villain of the story, but I’m not the hero either. Just a scared young guy who made a choice he’s regretted ever since.”
I turned the pin over in my hand, studying the milliped emblem and the Blue Mountains behind it. “Does Soren know you kept this? That you’ve displayed it at the bar?”
A ghost of a smile touched Moses’s lips. “That’s a recent development. Bronwyn put it out when she heard he’d be at the reunion. Small act of rebellion.”
“Bold,” I commented, impressed despite myself. “Though I imagine the statute of limitations on vandalism has long since expired.”
“True, but small towns have long memories,” Moses replied. “And Hayes is still a powerful name in Gomillion.”
I handed the pin back to him, our fingers brushing in the exchange. The brief contact sent a jolt of awareness through me, and from the way Moses’s breath caught, I knew he felt it too.
“So, what now?” I asked, letting my hand linger near his for a moment longer than necessary.
Moses pocketed the pin, his eyes meeting mine with a question in their depths. “That depends on what you want, Rhett.”
The directness of his response surprised me. “What I want?”
“Yes,” he said simply. “Now that you know the truth, what do you want to happen next?”
It was a loaded question, one with no simple answer. What did I want? Closure? Forgiveness? A second chance? The latterseemed impossible given our circumstances. I was based in Boston; he was in Atlanta. We had separate lives, separate careers, two decades of divergent paths between us.
And yet, sitting here beside him, with the falls providing their constant soundtrack and the memory of what we’d shared in this very spot so vivid in my mind, I couldn’t deny the pull I still felt toward him. Time and distance had done nothing to diminish it.
“I want..." I began, but whatever I might have said was interrupted by the sound of voices on the trail.
Moses tensed beside me, his posture suddenly alert. “Someone’s coming.”
We both stood, instinctively creating more space between us, old habits die hard. Around the bend in the trail came a woman I recognized from town, Lisa something, who worked at the local diner, hand in hand with a man I didn’t know. They seemed as surprised to see us as we were to see them.
“Oh! Moses, Rhett,” Lisa greeted us with a curious smile. “Early morning hike?”
“Something like that,” I replied smoothly. “Just revisiting old haunts. The falls were always a favorite spot back in high school.”
