“No!” I scream.
“Let me look, Leigh,” he tries again and I just shake my head, pulling myself up off the ground and brushing my palms on my shorts.
I take a deep breath and push down the hurt, ignore the pain, and look to where Maverick is standing. The moonlight helping me see him, but his Stetson makes seeing his expression impossible.
I’m so sick of this. Feeling like he’s completely unreachable. Untouchable. Closed off. He hasn’t always been like this and I think part of me is still hoping the old Maverick I used to want to run off in the sunset with is still somewhere inside this cold person in front of me.
I’ve got nothing else to lose right now, might as well just let it out.
“Shit,” I mumble to myself before clearing my throat and speaking up—directly at Maverick. “You were right, you know?” I tell him, looking to where Clay is still kneeling in the dirt before moving around him and stomping over to where Maverick is standing. “You’re right, I tried my hardest to get noticed tonight. I was so sick and tired of just being ‘stupid little Leighton.’ Stupid Leigh, who has to listen to all her friends talk about their boyfriends, their first kisses, all of it! Funny enough, it was you I wanted”—I yell and jam my finger into his hard chest—“to notice me. All I’ve wanted since I was some love-drunk kid was for you to see me and notice! I never in my life thought that when I finally got your attention, it was because I look like some . . . some . . . what did you call me? That’s right, a prepubescent boy playing dress up!” I scream the last words so fiercely I would be surprised if they didn’t hear me over the music echoing around the darkness. “I’ve thought you hung the moon and all the stars around it my whole life, Maverick Davis. I’ve imagined you to be some Prince Charming that would come sweep me off my feet when you finally saw me. Pity me for not realizing that all you are is the villain determined to knock me on my ass instead. You know what’s funny? In all those years that I foolishly crushed on you, I never once imagined in all of the time that I’ve known you that you would be capable of breaking my heart. That’s on me, though. All of this is on me.”
He doesn’t move. No words are spoken from his lips to stop me when I turn and start to walk back in the direction I was running, but I stop a few feet away and whirl back around to face him. “Maybe I was desperate for you to see me more than just the little tomboy next door, but you’re leaving and it was now or never. So, here you go, I’ve loved you for years, Maverick. There, now you know and now I know and at least I tried, so no sweat . . . this is on me, not you. You can leave like you planned and I can go on with my life knowing for sure where you stand.”
With a deep breath and more strength than I ever thought I had, I push down the hurt and turn back around. I started this night with a smile on my face and hope in my heart. I should have trusted my gut.
“Hey!” Clay calls as he falls in step with me, his arm coming around my shoulder as he keeps pace with me. “If you want to go, let’s head back and I’ll drive you? It’s too dark to head through the back gate, not when I know your dad has the bulls in the north pasture tonight.”
I nod, letting him turn me until we’re headed back to the bonfire. Clay’s light hits Maverick’s face and I hold his eyes, letting him see the hurt in mine when Clay and I pass through his flashlight’s path. When we pass Maverick, still standing in the same spot, Clay checks his shoulder hard enough that his arm falls from my shoulders, but Maverick doesn’t move an inch.
I keep walking as I leave my heart behind me.
If I would have known that was the last time I would talk to Maverick, I might have done things differently. I may have held my hurt and rationally told him how I felt. Who knows? But in that moment, I lost a little of myself in those woods. I should have known that when the love you have for someone is bigger than you can understand, it’s better to leave that to your dreams.
As we make our way out of the clearing I promise myself never to let another man hold this kind of power over me. What’s the point if this is the kind of pain that is waiting for you in the end?
4
LEIGHTON
“Step Off” by Kasey Musgraves
Present Day
I should tell Quinn and Clay that he’s here. But one look at him and it’s like the last ten years have never passed and I’m back at the bonfire, the awkward high schooler uncomfortable in her own skin. Marching away from him in the woods. It was the last time I saw him.
How is it possible that he can affect me this much after all this time?
He hasn’t noticed me, not with his head bowed, so I quickly turn around and focus on Pastor John as he finishes up his prayer. Him being here means nothing. I should be happy that I remember the pain from that night so well, it will make keeping my walls up around him so much easier.
“On behalf of the Davis family, I want to thank everyone for coming today. At this time, the family has asked for some time alone as they say their good-byes. They wanted me to remind everyone that the PieHole will be opening up for a few hours tonight starting at five for anyone that wishes to join them.”
I keep my arm around Quinn, not looking back to where I saw Maverick. I can hear the church slowly emptying and I feel a frown pull at my lips. I had hoped that when everyone started to leave that he would have come up front to be with his family, but so far, the pew we’re in is still empty save for the three of us.
We sit and wait for everyone to leave, something that Clay had asked Pastor John to make arrangements for in place of the customary recessional, knowing that no one in this town would really mean a word of it anyway. Plus, I know Quinn is having a hard time. Regardless of the fact that she wasn’t the closest with her father, she was really counting on this—Maverick home. She’s still shaking in my arms, but when I look over at Clay I realize his silence isn’t because of the heaviness of Buford’s death, but instead anger over his brother’s absence that has started to build to a boil. I fear that he’s seconds away from tipping over the edge.
I stand when Clay and Quinn do, but hang back at the edge of the row we had been sitting in as they meet Pastor John and gather their father’s ashes. I can’t wait to get out of these heels. If it would have been acceptable to wear my boots, I would have, but Quinn would have killed me. As it is, I feel like I can’t take a deep breath with how tight my dress is against my chest. I never wear tight shirts. I haven’t since my boobs became beasts of their own right.