Page 21 of Brushed and Buried
“You don’t know that,” I say, tone sharper than intended, and I immediately taste its truth.
Finally, he turns, and I see it. It’s not anger or disgust, but devastation layered thick, worn like a coat over years I can’t touch.
“You kissed me,” he says, voice raw. “Backstage.”
“I didn’t forget,” I say, my eyes starting to hurt.
“No,” he breathes, frustration tightening every line of his face. “You moved on. You became this…version of yourself.” His hand gestures vaguely, as if the air could somehow hold the heaviness of what he refuses to name, seeing me as untouchable and free.
I clamp my jaw, forcing the words out without shattering completely. “And you did great on your own! You’re a superstar. A fast-rising football player. Huge, successful, living the dream. What more could anyone ask for?” My voice falters as I look inward, at the parts I never let anyone see. “Me? I try to make do. I’m okay, sometimes. And sometimes I’m not. But I’ve never been whole, not since the last day I saw you.”
His laugh slices the air, like glass cracking under pressure. “What was I supposed to do besides football? That’s the only thing someone like me can do right. And no, Adrian, not all of my fucking dreams came true.” The last words hang heavier than anything else, settling deep in my chest.
“But you still got to be someone you wanted to be,” I counter, stepping a fraction closer.
His throat works, tension bleeding through his frame. “It’s not like I had it easy the same way you did.”
“I didn’t have it easy.” I nearly shout. “You think I walked away untouched? I had to deal with my own hell, Vince. You don’t know what happened to me. But sure, tell yourself I had it easy.”
He huffs, dry and bitter. “I’ve seen enough. I’ve known enough,” he mutters, voice hollow.
I freeze. Grief sits between us, heavier than memory, heavier than the kiss itself. He carries it differently, and somehow it has eaten him alive.
“You think I didn’t replay it a thousand times, wondering what it could have been?” I whisper.
His breath catches. “I got stuck there for a long time, Adrian.”
He doesn’t look at me, and I realize I don’t know what he’s been carrying all these years. Yet I wonder, sharply and bitterly, why he thinks I moved on so quickly, that I left it behind like it never mattered.
“I wanted it to be a beginning,” I admit, voice low, fragile. “But you were the one who shut it all down before it even started.”
“I had to,” he says softly, voice breaking, nearly disappearing beneath the burden he’s carried for too long. “There was no space for what I felt that day.”
I study him in the starlight. His fingers tremble at his sides, lips parted as if holding back words too dangerous to release. This isn’t weakness or shame. It’s mourning.
“I still would have chosen you,” I whisper, letting the truth of it hang between us. “Even if it had cost me, and only me, everything.”
His eyes darken, flash, then dull. “You just say things like that. But you moved on.”
“No,” I say, steadying myself. “I moved forward. That’s not the same.” I wonder quietly if he believes my life was easier because I survived differently.
Every nerve in my body hums as we stand inches apart, the sea crashing behind us, the memory of that first and last kiss burning through me. He moves suddenly, hands gripping my shirt, pulling me close, and shoving me just enough to jar the air between us. My chest aches, my pulse spikes, and his eyes are wide, unreadable, full of everything he cannot name or will not say.
He leans in, breath brushing my cheek, lips just shy of mine. “You always say the right things, Adrian, right until you don’t.”
I can’t move or respond. My hands hang useless at my sides. My chest feels cracked wide open, but nothing spills except the tension and electricity of every year we’ve spent apart. My hands start to rise, itching to grip his hair and neck, finally letting the reality sink in that Vince is close enough for me to do just that.
Then he steps back, forcibly steadying himself, like moving too fast would shatter us both. There is no storming off this time, no slammed doors. He retreats in measured steps, leaving me standing in the darkness with a heart too heavy to describe, caught between longing, grief, and something more that has never left us.
Later that night, I lie half-awake in the quiet of my room, the darkness pressing in around me like it knows all the things Icannot say. Holly is staying in her friend Dinah’s room again with the other bridesmaids after I insisted I’d rather have her enjoy the night and do whatever pleases her. I know she’s probably got some activities planned with them, likely the same sort of mischief, messy and electric fun that Trevor and I have had with the boys. She won’t tell me the details, of course, but the teasing hints in her texts, making it clear they’re enjoying themselves safely and responsibly, and with that kind of reckless abandon only youth and trust can give. I can’t help but reflect on how this arrangement between Trevor and Becca works, how they’ve carved out a space for freedom and indulgence without crossing lines that matter, and I wonder if Holly and the others are finding that same balance tonight.
A sharp knock at the door cuts through the quiet. My pulse jumps before my mind can register who it might be. I sit up, heart hammering, and open the door. Vince stands there, the hallway light catching the hard angles of his face, the weight in his shoulders, the way his eyes search mine like he’s hunting something he lost years ago.
After everything that passed between us on the beach tonight, with all the raw confrontation and the tearing at old wounds left bleeding in the salt air, I didn’t expect this.
His eyes hold something fierce and unspoken, tangled with anger, frustration with longing, and beneath it all a familiarity so raw it hurts. I step aside and let him in, the air between us hums with everything we have left unsaid.
He sits heavily on the edge of my bed, then lies back with a sigh that sounds like defeat. I join him, lying down beside him, and the silence stretches.
