Into the Tomorrows (Bleeding Hearts Book 1) (20 page)

I
’d written
the words early in the morning, after falling into a peaceful sleep on the couch, feet away from Jude.

I’d made a cup of coffee and drank it in solace on the deck as I watched the sun come from the east and make the first steps of its journey across the sky.

And then I waited for the sound I was expecting, the slider on the glass door signaling Colin’s approach.

“Trista,” he said, and I remembered that I’d loved him once—in a desperate way that had consumed me.

I turned to look over my shoulder, taking him in. His eyes were surrounded by dark circles, as if he’d been given matching black eyes. His hair stuck up in a hundred directions and the color of his skin was so pale that it looked nearly translucent.

“Good morning.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” he said, wincing at the light as he stepped out of the shade. “We need to talk.”

I inhaled, telling myself to end it with Colin, here and now. It was long past done, well overdue.

Staying with Colin out of indifference had been a mistake—this I knew, and had known, for a while. But we do things that aren’t good for us all the time, convincing ourselves otherwise.

I’d loved Colin once—deeply, though I was beginning to think a lot of my love was born from loneliness. Colin had seen me in a crowd of people and had picked me. And in my gratefulness, I’d clung to him longer than was right for either of us.

But what I’d realized over the last few weeks of living with him was that I’d never felt lonelier than when I was with him. In his arms, I felt an emptiness that was so profound that it took shape in the space between us, as if there was someone else holding us apart.

I loved him still, but not in the way that I should. And I knew, without a doubt, that he had lost feelings for me, too, somewhere along the way with the distance and Ellie’s life and death creating an ellipsis in between us—an unknown status of where we stood.

Truthfully, I felt Colin wanted an out. And he’d chosen a bar over me because he couldn’t say with words how he felt.

“Not only did you leave me behind last night, you drove drunk. And I can’t believe you’d do that—you’d risk the lives of others so carelessly.”

“I didn’t get into a wreck.” He was the picture of nonchalance, leaning against the railing of the deck, arms across his chest.

“Why did you leave me at the movies?”

He rubbed a hand over his face, made a noise like he was releasing all the air from his lungs. “Because I was mad at you.”

“Why?”

“Because you don’t stop talking about Ellie. Because you can’t move on. Because you’re a million miles from me and you’re not trying.”

He wasn’t wrong, with any of it. So I couldn’t be upset at the truth. “But why don’t you say that? Why can’t you open your mouth and tell me how you really feel?”

“Are you saying how
you
really feel? I don’t think you are. And your eyes,” he paused, waving a hand in front of my face. “I can see you, when you look at me. You’re finding faults with me and you’re unhappy, disappointed. Do you know what it’s like to be constantly looked at as a disappointment?”

I narrowed my eyes, because I knew all too well. “Maybe I do. And maybe I am looking at you like I’m unhappy because I am.” I inhaled a shuddering breath. “I don’t know who I am, Colin. I’ve been your girlfriend; I’ve been Ellie’s friend. I haven’t been me—I haven’t learned who I’m meant to be.”

“Ellie’s dead, Trista. What you need, more than anything, is to accept that. And it’s not my fault that you haven’t figured any of that out—I haven’t limited you.”

“You’ve kept me, though. You could’ve let me go.”

He shook his head. “No, I couldn’t. Not after watching how you fell apart. What kind of person would that make me?”

“So you stayed with me out of obligation. Let me relieve you of that right now.”

“Don’t go,” he said, as I tried to push around him.

“What, Colin?” I said, my voice several octaves higher than it’d been the whole conversation. “Make up your mind! What do you want? Tell me!”

He turned away from me, but still blocked me from leaving the deck. “I don’t know how to handle having you here, Trista.”

“Then I’ll leave,” I said quickly.

He turned around, his eyes hard. “No. But I can see it in your eyes—everything I’m doing to let you down. And last night, when we fought about Ellie’s death, I saw how you shut down. You stopped talking to me and—fuck—the silence with you, it’s suffocating.”

He was giving me whiplash. “You’re not talking to me, Colin. We’re not communicating. You’re with your friends or you’re playing your video games and I’m here.” I pointed my fingers to the floor underneath our feet. “I’m here—and you’re not here with me.”

“Because you’re so fucking unhappy.” He brought his hands to his head, tugged his hair like he was frustrated with me. And then his hands clasped my upper arms and he held me, shaking me for a second like I was a Magic 8 Ball, and all the answers to his questions were somewhere in my depths. “And I can’t make you happy. I can’t fix what happened between us.”

I shoved away from him, because he was telling me he didn’t want me to leave while he was telling me that we were essentially hopeless. Not that I disagreed with him, but the inconsistency was making my head spin.

“It’s not your job to make me happy. But you’re not trying to spend time with me. You’re forcing me to spend time with…” I nearly said
his
name. But the last thing I wanted right now was to tell Colin I’d kissed his roommate, his friend. Not when our relationship was dissolving in our hands, too quick for Colin to catch all the pieces. “With everyone else who isn’t you.”

I was feet from him, but he stepped closer to me, his face inches above mine. His hand grasped my chin and he made me look him in the eyes. “Where’d you go in there?”

I tried to pull from his grasp but he held me firm. I put my hands on his chest and struggled in vain to gain distance again.

“Trista, I can’t reach you—wherever you are inside of yourself. You’re not here—despite what you say.” His eyes were hard, searching, and his grip was tight and I couldn’t stand his hold on me in that moment. “You’re not here,” he repeated.

I wrenched my chin from his grasp, the anger now hitting me in waves. “You’re not trying, Colin!” I yelled, my voice projecting all my frustration. “How dare you accuse me of not being present!”

He took a step like he was going to touch me and I slapped his hand away.

“You don’t care! You’ve moved on. You left me alone to grieve. And that’s all I’ve done, for years! All I’ve done is fucking grieve.” The hurt from that realization pinched me hard and I rubbed a hand over my chest, as if I could alleviate the pain beneath my ribs. I sucked in a painful breath, fisted my hand over my chest. “You weren’t there—you haven’t been there in years.” Tears burned at the back of my eyes. But everything was pouring out of me without a levee to stop it.

“I came to Colorado, because I wanted the us from before. We were so happy.” My voice broke. “So happy. I moved to be with you hoping to find us again. But you haven’t tried. You don’t care. I’m all alone, whether I’m with you or not.”

As the first tear slid over the curve of my cheek, I shouted, “And all I’ve realized since coming to Colorado is that I’ve never been as lonely in my life as I am when I’m with you.”

Hell, my chest burned. The hurt and the anger was colliding, clogging my throat. I could hardly breathe through it.

My chest heaved with repressed sobs as I glared at him. When he reached for me again, my whole body shook and I backed away from him. “Don’t touch me. I don’t want you to touch me again.” And even though it hurt more than I expected, I said exactly what I needed to. “We’re done.”

I steeled myself from the hurt that overcame his face. I’d been hurting for years.

The door to the deck opened and Jude stepped out. “Are you okay?” he asked me. His eyes moved between us, to the distance I’d put between Colin and me. “Maybe you both need some space.”

I pushed past Jude, into the house and down the hall to Colin’s bedroom where I began to throw my clothes into the one suitcase I brought with me.

“What are you doing?” Colin asked from the doorway.

“Go away.” My anger, my hurt, was still crashing little waves over me as I tried to focus on the task at hand.

“Stop packing.”

“No.” I didn’t care if he saw me as a petulant child. I just wanted to be far away from him. The last twenty minutes had taken me on a roller coaster ride and I desperately wanted off. “Leave me alone, Colin.”

I felt rather than saw Jude’s presence beside Colin. “Let me take you somewhere,” he said softly.

I didn’t spare Colin a glance, just nodded as I slapped the cover of my suitcase closed and zipped it. Thankfully, Colin moved from the doorway as I exited, slinging my suitcase and bumping into the narrow hallway walls.

When I was down the stairs, Jude held up my keys and stopped me beside my car. “Trista.”

My lungs were burning from my quick pace down the stairs and the suppressed anger. “What?” I snapped, harsher than I meant. But I was too embarrassed to apologize, so I just stared at the ground, my fingers wrapped around the suitcase handle.

“Do you still want to go to Yellowstone tomorrow?”

I blinked quickly as I thought. I found myself nodding a second later. “My stuff’s already packed. I have nowhere to go. Why not?” I laughed sarcastically at my situation. “But I’m not staying in that apartment.” I pointed upstairs, where I knew Colin was waiting—expecting me to return when I realized I had nowhere to go.

“I can take you to a hotel, if you want. And then pick you up tomorrow, for the airport?”

I nodded. “Sure. Whatever.”

He unlocked my car but didn’t give me the keys. “Let’s go eat, and then I’ll drop you off at a hotel. I can come back with your car in the morning and we’ll head out.”

I slung my suitcase into the backseat and then plopped in the passenger seat, resigning myself to having Jude drive since I was unfamiliar. “Fine.” I seemed to not possess an extensive vocabulary at that moment.

Jude drove us to lunch, which he paid for after a lot of resistance from me. We ate cold sandwiches on the deli’s patio, under a bright red umbrella. Pickle juice slid from the bottom of the sandwich wrap and down my palm. As I licked it, I noticed Jude watching me.

“What?”

He chewed the bite he had in his mouth thoroughly, thoughtfully. “Do you want to talk?”

“No, I want to eat. I want to
not
talk.” I took a big bite as if to illustrate that fact, chewing as slowly as I possibly could.

A minute later, Jude walked back into the deli and returned with two drinks. I half-expected mine to be alcoholic. When I peered down into the glass and took in the milky brown color, I looked at him confused.

“Chocolate milk?”

“Sure. It’s my drink of choice. You can’t be mad and drink chocolate milk.”

I let his comment roll off me and set the drink aside, wanting to wallow a little bit in my nervous, angry energy that stayed with me. “When is our flight?” I asked, needing a distraction.

“Three in the afternoon.” He sipped his chocolate milk and raised an eyebrow at my own untouched glass. “It’s nonstop, only an hour and a half into Jackson, and then about two hours to Yellowstone itself, where we’re staying.”

“We’re camping, right?”

“We are. Tents and all.”

“And how do you earn money to do this?”

He set his sandwich down, brushed the crumbs from his hands. I found myself staring at his hands as he rubbed his fingers over his knuckles. I don’t know why it always surprised me, but the very masculine way he carried himself was so different than anything I knew. I wasn’t sure if it was the tattoos that wrapped along his arm or the stubble on his face, or the way his shirt hugged his chest and arms, molding to each muscle that spoke to his athleticism.

I squirmed a little in my seat, embarrassed to be staring at him so plainly, and stared at the sandwich in my hand.

“I earn an income from several sources. Sometimes I write travel-related content for websites other than my own. I earn a small commission via affiliate links I share in my posts on my site. I sell advertising on my site, but only with companies I believe in and use myself.” He seemed completely at ease talking about his business, and by the way his eyes warmed, I knew he was proud of the business he’d built. “I also license my photographs for use in advertising campaigns. I don’t make a fortune, but I also don’t live large either.” He nodded at my car parked on the side of the building. “I don’t own a car—so I don’t have any car-related expenses. I don’t splurge, and most of my gear was given to me in exchange for reviews. It took a long time to get here, though.” He picked up his sandwich. “Just a few years ago, I was eating rice and traveling to sketchy places just to earn a couple bucks.”

“I never imagined you could get paid to blog about traveling.”

“Neither did I. I recorded my Madagascar trip, along with a few other volunteering trips I was doing. And then I was approached by an organization that wanted to have me document my experience through their agency, and over time it became reliable income.”

“I’ve never been on a plane,” I blurted out.

He raised an eyebrow and leaned on the table. “Never?”

I shook my head vigorously. “I’ve only been to Wyoming and Colorado. I’ve never been anywhere else.” I tugged on the hem of my shirt, anything to keep my eyes from finding his. “My mom didn’t have money, you know. And there was never a reason to go anywhere.” I chanced a glimpse at his face, but he didn’t look like he pitied my inexperience.