Page 16 of Misguided
He drops to the bed beside me and stares down at his hands as he fidgets between his knees. “There’s no bullshit, you know? Like, it’s just you and nature around you. You, pitted against your desire to survive.”
“You hunt?”
He nods, turning his head to catch my eye. “Yeah. A bit.”
“Why have you never told me this before?” It dawns on me that I haven’t thought about the crippling grief that had me doubled over in the hall since we walked in here.
He’s distracting me by being so open, and I think he knows it.
“You never asked,” he explains. “And not in a bad way. You never pushed me to say anythin’ I didn’t want to, and I appreciated that.”
“I’ll take it as a compliment.”
He nudges my shoulder with his. “Got you thinkin’ about something else though, didn’t it?”
“Yeah.” For a while at least.
I drop a heavy breath and will myself to save it all for later, but reactions to things that cut this deep never wait. You can’t set a locomotive in action and expect to stop it with a few encouraging words.
“I’m sorry,” I manage to blurt before my ability to speak turns to shit again.
He sets a hand on my knee, and I lose it—completely fucking lose it. I can’t even breathe, let alone speak to say how ridiculous I feel being so out of control of my own body.
Time passes, and as it does, he gently coaxes me closer until I end up tucked against him, my arms threaded around his waist as he strokes my hair with one hand, the other bunched in the back of my still-damp tank as he keeps me close. I leave a wet patch on his cut, the leather refusing to soak up my tears.
My lungs fill easier, the time between each hiccup of my diaphragm longer. My chest rises, slow and measured. The familiarity of what I cry about so … unexpected.
The more I think about it, the more normal it seems. The easier it is to process and dissect, to ponder on without letting my emotions take over.
“I wonder where they’re buried,” I whisper into Dog’s shoulder, my hands refusing to uncurl from the back of his cut even though in my mind I know it’s time.
He stiffens beneath my touch, easing me back gently so he can look me square in the eye. “They have grave markers, but that’s all.”
My breathing picks up pace once more, the restriction in my chest a trespasser as I remind myself I’ve worked through this already; there’s no need to repeat the last however long—ten, fifteen minutes? Hour?
“I bet you wish you were still in the woods, now, huh?” He graces me with a lopsided smirk.
I smile, grateful for once for his blatant honesty. “A little, yeah.”
“Had to face this one day or another, though.”
“I guess.”
“And it’s better dealt with here, with others, than out there on your own, right?”
I don’t even answer him; just stare into his eyes as he smiles encouragingly. “You better be careful, Dog,” I warn. “Otherwise I’ll have to tell everyone what a big softie you are.”
He chuckles, patting me on the knee before he stands and crosses to his bureau. “You tell ’em what you want, sweetheart. I’ll prove it wrong one noisy, heartless fuck at a time.”
And there he is; the Dog everyone knows and loves in a contractual kind of way.
“Thanks for this.” I gesture around his room. “It’s appreciated.”
He smirks, choosing to stare at the top of his furniture as he shoves a few coins around with his fingertip. “Pays not to judge a book by its cover, Mel.”
“I know that.” After all, the Dog I remember is exactly this: kind, thoughtful, and a shoulder to lean on.
He steps back abruptly, patting himself down as though checking for something. “Anyway. If you’d like a few more moments alone, feel free to make yourself at home.” He wiggles a finger at the bed. “I gotta shoot out, so the room’s yours.”
“Thank you.” It doesn’t feel right; we haven’t seen each other in so long and the time and distance only served to prove with greater clarity how different we always were. But I’ll take it if only to give my puffy eyes time to shake the redness before I show my face downstairs.
He drops his jaw as though to speak, and then shakes his head. “Never mind.”
I sit on the edge of his bed and watch him go, wondering how in the hell my life got so turned upside down in the span of a day.
Where are you, Hooch?