“Oh, yeah?” she mumbles, her eyes glistening with interest when she looks at me. “Camp outside?”
“Yep. He loved the outdoors. The cold of the night. The smell of burning wood.” I take a whiff. “Same as me.”
“So you’re a lot like your dad then,” she says. She still can’t take her eyes off me. I wonder if it’s the clothes or something else. Something we’re both ignoring.
“Oh, yeah. I didn’t realize it when I was younger, but I do now,” I say, gazing wistfully into the fire. “Sometimes, I wish he was still here.”
She nods, glancing away too. “I feel the same about my brothers. Even though they acted like assholes all the time, I still loved them.”
Her chest rises with each breath she takes and her lips pout. The thought of kissing her crosses my mind. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the sooty air or lack of sleep messing with my head.
“What do you want me to say? Sorry won’t bring them back,” I say.
“No, but it’s a start,” she says, crawling away.
“Hey.” I grab her hand. “Where are you going?”
“To take a piss,” she says as she jerks free and gets up. “What else?”
“Don’t walk off,” I say while she swiftly turns on her heels.
“Where the fuck am I supposed to walk off to, Brandon?” she asks, her hips swaying with sass as she walks. “We’re in the middle of fucking nowhere because of you.”
“Hey, I’m protecting you, and you know that,” I reply with a fistful of dirt.
“I never asked you to protect me,” she says, sticking her finger up at me before walking off to somewhere behind the car. “Don’t follow me. I don’t want you sneaking around, being a pervert and shit.”
“That’s the last thing I wanna see from you, trust me,” I yell back.
It’s a lie.
I want to follow her.
Desperately.
But I don’t.
I don’t want her to think that I’m obsessed with her because I’m not. I just don’t want her to run. That’s all.
At least, that’s what I tell myself while I stare at the fire, still thinking about how beautifully her tits bounced up and down while she walked. Was she always this beautiful? Or has my mind just marred the image of her so I could deal with it better?
Thankfully, she doesn’t say anything else. I don’t want to have another shouting match with her. Enough is enough. We’ll never see eye to eye. It doesn’t matter what I tell her, she’ll never forgive me for what I did, and I don’t want her to.
We both did something we regret.
I chuck the dirt into the fire and grumble along with it.
Women.
Why the hell are they so difficult?
Suddenly, something attacks me from behind.
I roar out loud when teeth sink into my neck. Believing it’s an animal, I drag it over my head and throw it on the ground in front of me.
Only, it’s not animal, it’s Dixie.
She immediately lunges for my throat again, trying to choke me. I grasp her wrists and push her off, but she bites my hand next. I yelp, and she attempts to steal my gun, so I shove her away.
She growls and tries to hit me, but I’ve grabbed her hands just in time and pin her down to the ground, lying on top of her to keep her there.
“What the fuck’s wrong with you?” I yell at her face.
“You!” she yells back, struggling badly. “You’re what’s wrong with me. Why won’t you fucking let me kill you?”
“Because I don’t wanna die,” I spit. “And I figure you want the same thing.”
“You don’t know what I want,” she hisses. “Now get off me.”
“No. Not until you listen to me,” I say.
“Nothing you say will make this okay. Nothing!”
“I don’t care.”
She fights me again, trying to kick and scratch me, but it won’t work. I’m much stronger than she is. She’ll never win this fight, and she knows it. The longer she goes on, the more worn down she gets. The lack of food and sleep are getting to her now, and her eyes fill with tears.
“Why won’t you just pay for your crimes?” she mumbles. “Why won’t you just die?”
“Do you really want me to die so badly?” I respond, sighing.
“Yes,” she says with such conviction that it feels like a stab wound. I don’t know why it gets to me the way it does. Why everything she says to me hurts like a fucking brick to the face.
I look deep in her eyes, searching for something … anything … that can make me stop feeling this way. This haunted by the pain in her soul.
Despite hating her so badly, I want to fix her too. I want to break her and then build her up again. I want to ruin her and then make her mine.
Fuck.
“Look into my eyes, Dixie,” I murmur, forcing her to stay still by sitting on top of her and pinning her firmly to the ground. “Look at me and tell me what you see.”