Of all Lake’s interests that she indulged, I thought this one was a contender for the stupidest. It felt to me like she was romanticizing Lake’s tantrums and I was sure Lake didn’t need any more encouragement to pitch those. They drove me insane. I couldn’t understand how she could skip into her room singing and come out a walking path of destruction within five minutes.
Only a decade later did I have the context to understand it. The moods stemmed from contact with her mother. Trish was what withered Lake. She was where Lake went and whatever secret she harbored. At least the start of it. I was sure that woman wasn’t alone in whatever pain Lake still carried. It was too deep, too layered and heavy to have been caused by one person. There had to be others and the madman in my head slowed to a stop when I considered I could soon enough be one of them.
And I couldn’t fucking bear that.
“Ana.” I stopped her hands in place. She looked up with big eyes. I knew the look in my face had changed because she was already starting.
“Don’t. Callum, just don’t. You made the right decision to let go, you did, so don’t you dare – ”
“Stop talking,” I murmured, letting go of her hands. I changed the shirt I’d been wearing all day. She watched me the entire time, protesting like a woman unhinged. She was still going by the time I was out the door.
*
The car ride to the closest field of bluebells was an hour away. I found nothing in the first one.
Nothing again in the next. I’d tracked down, driven to and searched through a field for every year she was gone by the time the day had passed and I was back in literal and figurative darkness.
I knew she could be anywhere at this point. I’d given Lake a head start to disappear for a second time in fucking Europe, for God’s sake. I quietly admired the patience of my taxi driver who willingly sat with me on the sides of roads for minutes to an hour at a time, wondering what the hell to do next.
“I’m sorry,” he finally asked. He had no idea what I was looking for but he said it anyway. “Back to the hotel?”
Yes. I thought it but my body overruled my brain. “No. One more.”
The last field was between a wooded area and a brick cottage. Maybe a restaurant or bed and breakfast. It was almost pitch bl
ack, too dark for me to see. The moon cast a silver light over everything but I didn’t need it to know that my final attempt at finding Lake was also fruitless. The taxi stalled on the side of the empty road, the only light for miles. It beamed ahead at endless nothing.
So I got in after a few minutes and had the driver go on. He went a couple yards before the headlights shone on a silhouette I’d recognize anywhere.
“Stop.”
I stared. My hand smacked flat on the window for a second before I had the door flying open and my feet pacing faster with every step toward the shadow of thick waves tumbling over two perfect knees. They hugged up to her chest the way they always did. I got closer and saw her hair drifting in the breeze like rolling water. The moonlight highlighted the flyaway strands as I stood before her, still as a statue of an angel in some mystical woodland. Something about it reminded me of the first night we’d had together – as a couple or at least something like it. It was the night in her dorm room, before I had taken her virginity. She decorated every inch of it with Christmas lights and looked like a goddess from some other world. I remembered how fucking beautiful she was that night. In every way.
“Lake.”
I knelt as she lifted her head. Her eyes settled on mine but didn’t register me, still somewhere far away. I caught her chin, repeated her name. She didn’t say anything but when I brushed my thumb over her bottom lip, she closed her mouth gently over it, kissing me softly in her daze. Slowly, she came to as I sat in the field of dark with her, our patch of flowers lit by the headlights of the taxi.
“I thought you left me again.”
She shook her head.
“Where did you go?” I knew only the physical answer. She wet her lips, gave no reply. “Lake. I can’t tell you how little she means to me. Ana. I didn’t tell her about you. She was there when I heard you were coming back. I was in shock. I was fucking scared, to be honest. I said things in the heat of the moment and she heard. It could’ve easily been anyone else.”
She nodded, let out a breath that told me she was awake again, back on Earth with me.
“She asked if I’d ever call you my girlfriend, I said no.” I breathed hard, my heart pounding. “I said no because that label would never in a million years do justice to whatever we are and whatever we have. We’ve never been anything but us, Lake. They can’t describe us – they never could and you know that.”
Her eyes flickered with life as she gazed with the bluebells at the floor. I reached for whatever I could say to bring her back to me.
“Lake, I love you.” I fought off the knot in my throat. “I always have, I’ve never stopped and I never will.” I held her cheeks. Her eyes tried to meet mine but they struggled, downcast as fresh tears poured in silence and ripped my heart out my chest. “Listen to me.” My voice was hoarse as I wrestled out every ounce of conviction in my soul to bring her back to me. “This is it. You need to know that I’ll never leave you, Lake. No matter what. So tell me everything now. Tell me so we can end this and you can be fucking free, Lake, please.”
She gasped for breath, every sound she swallowed crying out at once. She finally lifted her wet eyes to me, hanging desperate hands on my wrists as I held her face tight. The tearful words she breathed out came in a whisper just as I rest my forehead to hers. “I made sure they stayed there.”
“Who? What do you mean?”
“Hunt. My mom.” A different air escaped her lungs as she said it. “I made sure they would die. I killed them.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine