Heart So Hollow (Dire Wolves Book 1), page 68
An hour later, as promised, I’m sitting in the passenger seat of Hannah’s Escape, watching for the familiar lights of the Circle K. As soon as I see the red and yellow sign, I raise my arm and point to the sidewalk, “Hey, can you just let me out right here.”
“Where?” Hannah furrows her brow, “Here?” Hannah veers over to the curb and slows down.
“Yeah, I told Bo I’d meet him on this side of the park.”
“For what?” she shoots me a sideways glance.
“I told him I wanted to talk to him. I can’t take it anymore—I have to get all this off my chest. And he seems to be in a good mood tonight…” I clip with a roll my eyes.
Hannah snickers and unlocks the doors, “Do you need me to wait?”
I shake my head and tuck my phone into the back pocket of my shorts, “No, it’s fine. I can get a ride with him.”
“OK,” Hannah shrugs, “text me tomorrow.”
As soon as I see Hannah’s tail lights disappear around the corner, I head back the way we came, walking a block to the east entrance of Palomino Park.
Eventually, the path dips down into the parking lot, where the park is deserted compared to the west side. It also butts up against the Wyandot Nature Preserve, a vast span of state land with miles of winding trails. I’ve been here so many times in the past couple months with Bo. He knows these woods inside and out and he’s the only reason I’ve been as far in as I have.
The parking lot is empty and the only light comes from a single lamppost casting oval beams across the painted lines on the asphalt. I scan the other side of the lot, running my eyes over the grass, the playground, and the shelter until I see a figure sitting motionless on top of a picnic table.
A flutter runs through my stomach and I pick up my pace, heading straight for him. Bo stands up on the bench as I approach and hops down to the ground. I jog across the grass, smiling as his face becomes clearer. He’s wearing different clothes; black Nike joggers with a black t-shirt and his ancient pair of red and grey New Balances. His hair is tied back like it usually is for soccer games, in a small messy bun at the crown of his head. He doesn’t look like a skater anymore; he looks like a soccer player again. When he drops his hands to his sides, I notice he still has the beige hair bands looped around his wrist. He never took them off.
His mouth stretches into a smile so wide that his dimples show and his eyes look like they’re closed. As soon as I touch his shoulders, he bends down, grabs me behind my legs, and lifts me up to his waist. Wrapping my arms and legs around him, I collapse into the familiar warmth of his body and press my nose into his neck.
Why is it so easy to ignore the past few weeks and be happy to see him now?
Whatever, I’ll have time to regret it later.
I pull back, running my hand up the side of Bo’s neck, and kiss him. He tastes so good that I never want to stop. And when I finally pull away, he gazes up at me like he hasn’t seen me in weeks.
“There you are,” he drawls in a voice thick as honey.
“Here I am?” I scoff, “I’ve been here, Bo.”
He lowers me back to the ground and wraps his arm around my shoulders, pulling me toward the gravel path that leads to the Cotton Ridge trail. I know where we’re going, I’ve walked this path with him too many times to count. Without a word, he steps off the gravel onto the dirt trail, guiding us into the darkness of the forest. I glance up at him, looking for any reaction. But he’s calm, looking straight ahead, holding me against his side.
“Where are we going?” I mutter, squeezing his fingers hanging in front of my neck.
Bo glances down at me with a smile, “Like you don’t know.”
Of course, I know. It’s the place he always takes me, the one I don’t know how to get to without him.
“I do know. I just want you to talk to me…” I gaze up at the black tree trunks climbing into the sky, “act like I exist…” I feel the spark of anger ignite in my gut again, “not treat me like fucking garbage like you do everyone else.”
Bo veers off to the side where the path finally splits off to the Cotton Ridge. He stops at a maple next to the trailhead and grabs my waist, spinning me around and backing me into the massive trunk. I feel his hands at the side of my face, tilting my head back to look at him.
“Stop,” he murmurs, “just stop.”
I grab his wrists, squeezing them in defiance, “Stop what?” I ask, searching his face, “What the hell’s going on with you?”
I barely get the words out before Bo brings his lips to mine with a kiss so deep, it steals the breath from my lungs. He presses me against the tree, wrapping one arm around my back so tight, I don’t think he’ll ever let go.
When he finally does, he lingers for a few moments, just gazing at me, “A lot,” he brushes his thumb back and forth across my cheek, “but I’m here now, aren’t I?”
I let Bo lead me down the Cotton Ridge trail to the downed oak where we always veer off to the right, continuing down a path that’s not actually part of the trails. It’s a game trail, carved out of the woods by the herds of deer that pack the Wyandot. At least that’s what I think it is, based on the little I’ve picked up from going camping with Col and my dad every summer. From there, it takes about 20 minutes to reach a break in the trees where they give way to a limestone boulder that juts out of the earth above a dried creek bed.
For some reason, I don’t bother speaking until we get there, content in pretending this is just another night I’m wandering through the woods with Bo to a secret place where problems don’t exist. But once we’re here, I can’t pretend anymore, and there’s nothing to talk about except pointed questions and unspoken resentment.
“Are you ignoring me because I got into UCLA?” I finally break the silence.
Bo walks to the edge of the rock and stares out into the trees that fade into a black abyss, “Why would you think I’m ignoring you?” he asks after a few moments.
Are you fucking serious?
“Because,” I scoff in disbelief, “you don’t speak to me, you stopped texting me, we don’t do anything together anymore, you walk past me like I don’t even exist.”
“I’ve been busy,” he shrugs with indifference, “I’ve been working a lot. And what do you mean I don’t speak to you? I still talk to you.”
“Yeah, when you feel like it,” I look away with a huff, “why are you making this so difficult?”
Bo steps away from the rock’s edge and strolls toward me with a smirk, “E, I think you’re being difficult enough for the both of us.”
I crack a brief smile, but it quickly disappears, “No, Bo,” I shake my head, “you don’t get to do that—brush me off like I’m imagining things. For a while, I saw you more than my own family, but after I found out about UCLA, you disappeared. You wouldn’t even acknowledge me. That’s not what you do because you’re working a lot.”
Bo exhales in exasperation and meanders in a circle, “I didn’t bring you out here to argue,” he says dismissively.
“Then why did you bring me out here?” I snap, growing tired of his ambiguity.
“Why?” he turns back to me with intrigue, “Because I want you to tell me about your abortion, E.”
All the air leaves my lungs like a balloon deflating. Suddenly, the woods don’t seem so vast anymore. The longer Bo looks at me, waiting for a response, the more the trees feel like they’ve uprooted and are inching closer and closer to the limestone plateau.
“What?” I reply, my chest heavy with dread.
Bo turns on his heel and slowly strolls toward me. His expression remains the same, eerily calm with a hint of amusement. He stops square in front of me, just a couple of feet from my sneakers, then tilts his head.
“What’s wrong?” his tone changes, taking on a sardonic edge.
My heart feels like it’s beating out of my chest, “Who—” I stop short, my mind racing, still unsure how to respond.
Hannah…
One defective condom later and I didn’t realize I would have to not only question my entire future, but also question the loyalty of one of my best friends who couldn’t manage to keep her goddamn mouth shut about my personal life.
Hannah was the only person I told when I missed my period and took a pregnancy test four weeks ago. I was terrified and I spent hours crying to her about what I should do and then, later, what I wanted to do. And she didn’t judge me. She listened to me and told me it was going to be OK. She went to every single appointment with me and made sure I was OK.
After all that, why would she go and tell Bo about it? Why in God’s name would she tell the one person who I didn’t ever want to know this? And who else did she tell?
What kind of woman…
Bo’s voice snaps me back to the present, “You’re coming at me for not texting you enough and you’ve been keeping this?” his voice begins to rise, “What the hell are you doing, Evie?”
“Well, you haven’t exactly been the easiest person to talk to lately.” My face twists in disgust, “Fucking Hannah…” I murmur, “fine, I should’ve told you.”
“Look,” Bo rubs the bridge of his nose, “Hannah’s a bitch, OK? She’s salty and she knows she’ll never measure up to you. That’s why she’s trying to stir shit up. She only told me any of this because she’s pissed I’m taking you to prom.”
I blink and just stare at him, “Prom?”
All of this is happening because of a prom date? Why would Hannah care who Bo takes to prom?
“You know what? Forget Hannah,” Bo throws his head to the side, “because it doesn’t matter. You’re walking around this whole time, acting like everything’s great, strutting your ass out on the field, picking out your prom dress, and meanwhile, you’re getting a goddamn abortion!”
“Why do you even care about prom?” I shout back, “Aren’t you taking Asher Avery now, anyway?”
He takes a step forward, towering over me, “What the fuck are you talking about? When the hell did I tell you that?”
“You didn’t! I had to hear about it in the middle of class,” my voice gets louder and louder as I recall the awful memory, until I’m basically screaming at him, “while Asher told everyone about you saying how hot she looked in her dress! And then she said she was going to see you at Leland’s…” my voice cracks while I try to bite back the tears, “I’m not an idiot, Bo. I know you, and I know what that means. So why the fuck do you even care that I got an abortion?”
“You’re falling to pieces because some bitch was running her mouth in class?” His voice softens and he furrows his brow, studying my face as I rub my cheeks and try to maintain my composure. “Did you ever stop to think that maybe I want that with you?”
“Want what?” I stare up at him in confusion.
His dark eyes seem to go on forever, and then, suddenly, I realize what he’s implying. “No,” I shake my head fervently, “you do not.” Now he’s just being ridiculous. “You know what would happen to your life if I decided to have a baby right now? Nothing!” I snap, “You’d be doing the exact same thing you’re doing right now—working for your dad, racing cars, hunting with Jay, doing whatever you want, and your only inconvenience would be me yelling at you for coming home too late. But my life would change. I couldn’t do any of the things I planned to do and I would resent you and probably end up hating you. What kind of life is that for anyone?”
He looks me up and down, “You already have it all figured out, huh?”
“What do you think this is, Bo?” I take a haggard breath, “Some Hallmark movie where I go off to school, come home for Christmas break, see you at the Well, and decide that school and softball aren’t for me and I’d rather come back here and have 10 babies with you?”
“Ten’s a little ambitious with your track record,” Bo deadpans.
My eyes blaze as I glare up at him, seething with rage, “I did it because this is my body and my life!”
Suddenly, Bo grabs my bicep and violently jerks me toward him, “Let me tell you something, Evie, the minute you decided to crawl into my bed every other night and beg me to fuck you seven ways to Sunday is when your body stopped being yours and every single part of you became my property!”
I reel back and shove him in the shoulder, wrenching my arm out of his grip, “Are you kidding me right now, Bowen?”
“If anyone’s playing head games right now, Evie, it’s you,” he snarls. “Do you remember what you told me? Or did you conveniently forget, just like you neglected to tell me you killed my baby?”
“Why don’t you tell me, Bo?” I hiss back, my entire body shaking with rage, “Since you seem to know everything!”
Bo stills, his shoulders rising and falling steadily as he glares down at me. If I weren’t so angry, I probably would’ve shut my mouth by now. Even though he has the most gorgeous smile I’ve ever seen, when his eyes turn darker than pitch, he can be spiteful and downright scary when he wants to be.
He runs his tongue along the back of his teeth, “I’ll never leave you,” he murmurs in a mocking tone, “I just want you, Bo. You, and nobody else...”
I let out a long, slow breath as my words drip from his lips like acid. And when he’s finished, there’s nothing left but the shrieks of tree frogs and a chorus of insects ringing in my ears. How can silence be so loud?
“Do you want me to tell you I’m a liar?” I look up at him with resolve, “Is that what you want to hear?” After a few moments, I shake my head in exasperation, “I love you, Bo, but—”
“The fuck did you say to me?” he cuts me off, narrowing his eyes with suspicion.
Shit…I just said that out loud.
I blink hard and avert my eyes, staring at some random clump of moss on the limestone.
“Speak!” he barks, making me flinch.
“I said—” I pause and take a deep breath, “I love you.”
It’s not a lie. You can still love someone even if you know you can’t be with them. You can still love someone even if you know it’ll never work out. You can still love someone even if you’re still trying to figure out what love is. You can still love someone even if you shouldn’t. It’s the kind of love you feel when you finally know both sides of someone; when they finally show you the secret parts that they don’t want anyone else to see.
But, still, maybe I shouldn’t have said it out loud.
There’s something chaotic going on behind Bo’s eyes and the muscles in his face twitch with alternating expressions of both intrigue and skepticism. He studies me, his brow furrowed like he’s trying to decide whether I’m telling the truth.
He tilts his head with curiosity, “How much do you love me?”
Now that I’ve said it, I can’t just clam up now. Batter up, Maguire...I clench my teeth and take a deep breath; no more games, no more drama, all that’s left is the truth. Even if it’s inconvenient. Even if it hurts.
“Enough to ask myself if I really want to leave.”
His expression doesn’t change, “And?”
When I look at Bo, my face tells him all he needs to know. I can feel it in my eyes, and I know he sees it, too. It’s the silent resolve that comes with the acceptance that I’ve made my choice, it’s not him, and there’s no going back.
“And you’re going anyway,” he answers for me. Then his eyes darken again and he leans in close, “Then what the fuck do you care what I think about you, anyway?” he rasps with nothing but pure malice.
He’s just angry. But he’ll move on, probably faster than I will.
“I thought it might work, that I could come back and we could still do this together,” I chew the inside of my cheek, “but I can’t. I can’t come back here, wonder what you’ve been doing while I’ve been gone, and deal with the days when you decide I don’t exist. I won’t,” I shake my head. “The highs are so high, but the lows are…” I trail off, fighting the rising lump in my throat. “Bo, I’ve never felt with anyone the way I feel when I’m with you…and I hope I never do again.”
Bo looks away, “Well,” he gazes off into the trees, “I guess we’ll see if you still love me after tonight.” If he didn’t ice me out for what Col did, he sure as hell will for this. Bo is all or nothing, and if anyone is going to do the leaving, it’s him. “You like playing games, right?” He looks at the ground with a sniff, “You can hit hard, and you can run pretty fast…”
“What?” I don’t know what he’s getting at.
Bo reaches behind his back, pulls his shirt up, and lifts something out of the waistband of his pants. When he brings his hand back around, my breath catches. Even in the darkness cut with moonlight, I realize he’s gripping a black handgun.
“Superstar Maguire with the thick thighs and RBIs…” he taunts.
“Bo,” my heart is beating so hard, I can barely breathe, “what are you doing?”
Bo aims the gun at the ground and peers down the barrel, “It’s illegal to hunt deer right now…” after a few moments, he lifts his head again, “but not you.”
“Bo…"
He’s not listening. “I’ll give you a 20 second head start.”
“Bo…”
He cocks the gun, “Which is more than you deserve.”
“Bowen!”
“One…two…three…”
CHAPTER SEVENTY
Evie
High School
Sprinting through a forest is impossible. Even if the ground looks flat, it’s not, and thin branches reach out like invisible fingers, dragging through my flesh like razors. They slow me down, but I don’t feel them ripping at my flesh. I don’t care where I’m going, I just have to get out. I just have to concentrate on what’s ahead, keep moving, and get out.
But focusing on the path in front of me is useless if I don’t see the black figure shoot down the side of the hill in my periphery. I let out a scream when he flies out from between the trees and sweeps his arms around me, knocking my phone out of my hand. He slams into my side and grabs me around the waist, my legs still pumping, mid-run, when he lifts me off the ground.
