After the Climb (River Rain 0.50)

But it wasn’t like I didn’t have forewarning.

He’d scraped me off in high school too.

It had started his glorious senior year, when I was a sophomore, and he’d come clean after all our years of friendship that he was into me.

And I had told him what had been burning in my heart what seemed like forever.

That I felt the same.

And then it was us.

Us. Us. Us.

My every thought. Both of our every moments. Even apart. It was us.

And that summer after he graduated, I knew he was the man I’d marry. I didn’t mind one bit I found him so early. I was all the way down with him being my one and only until the day I died.

As such, I’d given him my virginity and he’d treated accepting it like it was the greatest gift God had ever created.

That was a memory, even with all that had come in between, that I still treasured. Every girl should have that experience. And in all that had happened between Duncan and me, there was no taking away that he’d given it to me.

Then he’d dumped me the day before school started my junior year.

He’d gone then too, but just to move to the city in order to continue his promising career of being a mover.

And right then, as I watched him commandeer a letter opener, raring to get this done, I remembered other things too.

That he wasn’t as confident and cocksure as everyone thought he was. Those good looks. That body. His prowess on the gridiron. Everyone knew Bowie Holloway was the guy. Popular. He could get any girl he wanted (and this was true). He could best any challenge (this was not true).

They all bought into the ideal.

Except Bowie.

I remembered, too, that there was a reason he and Corey got along so well.

Because under that hot guy exterior was a nature nerd, but the relationship Bowie had with his father meant he had to keep that buried way down deep.

I also remembered that the first time his father made him kill a deer, and gut it, earning the nickname “Bowie,” he’d come to my house that night. He’d climbed through my window and cried in my ten-year-old arms his twelve-year-old tears, declaring he was never going to do that again, “Even if Dad hates me.”

He didn’t do it again.

And his father grew to hate him.

I had wondered, and as I ended up being his girl, twice, but I was his friend what seemed like forever, so I did not hesitate to ask why he’d kept the name Bowie.

“To remember…never again,” was his answer.

It was implacable.

He could be an intensely stubborn kid.

And I’d lived the nightmare of him being that same kind of man.

But there was more to him that I had not allowed myself to remember, until now, as I watched him standing behind his large, handsome, masculine desk, slitting open that box that he’d set smack in the center.

This was what sent me to stand opposite it, and say, “You look well.”

His head came up. His hazel eyes locked on me.

And his mouth moved.

“Let’s not.”

Well then.

“Of course,” I murmured.

“I don’t know what Corey was thinking,” Duncan stated. “And as usual, I have no goddamned clue what’s goin’ on in your fuckin’ head,” he continued. “But for the kid I knew who was my brother, I’m doing this. With you.”

He would obviously not know what was going on in my head because he didn’t ask, and if I spoke anyway, he wouldn’t listen.

I did not get into that.

I was right then just as keen to get this done. See what was in that box. And get the hell out of there.

I nodded.

Duncan slit open the box.

I took a step closer to the desk.

He folded open the flaps.

I leaned, peering in.

And I did not understand what I was seeing.

It looked to be filled with reams of paper, computer printed, and there was one lone #10 envelope on top, sealed, with something handwritten on the front.

Though as my eyes processed what I was seeing, I could make out what the papers said.

And my blood ran cold.

Over and over…

And over and over…

I’m sorry.

Three tall stacks, side by side, the box filled, the top pages all covered in the same thing.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

Duncan’s large, veined hand reached in, nabbed the envelope and then shifted some papers aside, exposing the same underneath.