Sixteen.

 

I wait, my heart beating with an anxious staccato pace. This is wrong, all wrong. I can see it just in Finn’s expression – so tense, and all alone.

I hold him tighter, waiting. What has he been hiding all these years? How did I not notice what was breaking him in two?

“Fuck,” Finn curses under his breath. “I’m sorry. It’s just… I’ve been running from all this for so long now, trying to put it behind me and move on.”

“And how’s that working out for you?” I ask, trying to make him smile.

Finn chuckles. It’s still a hollow sound, but I’ll take it. I’ll take anything that lifts the terrible pain in his eyes and gives me back a glimpse of the man I thought I knew.

“It was graduation day,” he starts, moving to sit on the bench. I go with him, still holding his hand tightly, listening to each word weighed down with guilt and remorse. “And I was happy. I felt like I’d finally made it through, proven everyone wrong. I could see the finish line, a life with you. I remember, I even showed up at the ceremony, sat through all the bullshit speeches just to see your face in the crowd.”

I squeeze him. “I remember. I was really proud of you.”

Finn sighs. “I thought maybe he would show, too. I left the invite out for him, even got his suit laundered in case he was sober long enough to pull it together. But he didn’t.” He shrugs. “I told myself I was relieved, that he didn’t embarrass me in front of everyone, but still. I wanted him there. I wanted to show him I wasn’t the loser he said I was.”

“I had no idea,” I whisper, feeling so guilty I can barely stand it. “I had no idea it was so bad. You never said.”

Finn shrugs again, a pained, jerky motion. “It’s not your fault. I should have spoken up a hundred times. Gone to Bill, or a teacher, or your parents. They could have helped, maybe, but I was too damn proud and ashamed to reach out. It felt like it was my burden, my wretched cross to bear.” He takes another breath, and pushes on before I can say anything. It’s like the words have been bottled up inside him too long, and he just wants to get them out now. “After the celebration, we made plans to meet that night at the pier,” he continues. “And I went home. I was going to pack a bag. Take you away for the weekend, to that bed and breakfast up the coast. Remember, we had it all figured out.”

I smile, remembering. A girl from my class was having a birthday trip to their beach house up the coast, so my cover was all set up. All I had to do was meet Finn that night, and we’d have the whole weekend to ourselves. I was giddy with it, so in love I couldn’t see straight. Until six o clock turned into seven, and eight, and I was all alone in the dark crying for the boy who never showed.

“I remember,” I say sadly, and Finn places his hand over mine.

“When I got back to the house, my dad was there.” His words are slower and deliberate now, full of something ominous. “He was wasted again, but this was something worse. The way he talked, it was like a goodbye. Like he was getting it all off his chest before the end.”

I freeze. What does he mean? I don’t dare take my eyes from Finn’s face as he slowly tells me the rest of the story.

“He said the usual, about how I was fucking up your life too. That I’d get you pregnant, and ruin everything the way he ruined my mom’s life. That you’d leave me the way she left us, and I’d be left with nothing but a disappointment for a kid.”

I have to bite my tongue to keep from interrupting. How could Hank have done this to him? How could he have made the strongest, most loving man I’ve ever known feel like he was worthless and a waste of space?

“I told him to go to hell, and went to pack my things,” Finn continues, still so tense and cold beneath my hands. “I had my bag, I was on my way out, when.” he stops, like he’s watching the scene play out in front of him all over again. “He was in his chair, that fucking chair in front of the TV. But he had the shotgun in his hands, and… and…”

Finn takes a ragged breath. I hold him tight. God, what did he go through?

“He said this was my fault. That I’d never learn. And then he pulled the trigger.” Finn lifts his eyes, so full of pain. “He put the gun in his mouth and he pulled the trigger, right in front of me. And for a split-second, I was relieved. Do you hear me, Eva? I was glad, because it would all be over. I’d finally be free.”

There are tears in his eyes now, but he clenches his jaw, holding them at bay. It’s all I can do to just hold him, hold him as he relives the nightmare all over again.

“I guess the bastard didn’t even keep his own gun clean, because the damn firing mechanism jammed. I didn’t give him another chance. I got it away from him. I was yelling, and he, he was past caring.” Finn’s voice is raw. “I knocked him out, took the gun with me, and I bailed. I just got in my car and drove. I was shaking so hard, I didn’t even see where I was going. I pulled over, miles out of town. I couldn’t even keep hold of the wheel.” He gulps in another breath of air. “I was sitting there on the side of the road when I realized he was right.”

“No, Finn—”

“He was right about me,” he insists, looking at me now. “If I’d stayed, if I’d tried to build that life with you, I would have been no better than him. Holding you back, dragging you down. Don’t try to tell me otherwise. We both know the truth. I had nothing to offer, no future, no ambition. So I just kept driving—”

“You had everything to offer me!” I interrupt, suddenly spitting mad. I’ve listened to his tragedy, all the things I couldn’t fix, but I won’t have him believing this. I can’t. “You loved me, and that was all I ever wanted.”

“Love wouldn’t have paid the bills,” Finn counters. “It doesn’t put a roof over your head, or get you to drama school, or give you the thousand things you should have to make a start in life. Come on, Eva. We were a couple of teenagers. How were we ever supposed to make it work?”

“So maybe we would have failed,” I shoot back fiercely. “Maybe it would have all fallen apart. But that was my choice to make. Mine. It was my life, and my heart, and you took that choice away. You didn’t let me choose you!”

My voice echoes into the dark. Finn looks at me, with such sadness in his gaze I could turn the clock back and wipe all this pain away. Make it so he never had to doubt himself or suffer. Make it so the last words he ever heard from his father weren’t cruel and twisted blame.

Because I see it now, the impossible choice he thought he had to make. I’ve been blaming him all this time for leaving me, searching for his reasons and coming up empty handed. I thought it was selfishness, or cowardice. I thought it was my fault, or that he just didn’t love me enough to stay.

But in the end, it was because he loved me more than enough, and too much to believe he deserved happiness. Everything in his life had told him that he was no good, so was it any wonder that when it came to that razor’s edge of indecision, he picked the darkness? The fear.

The road alone.

He wasn’t to know the burden he left behind. I ache to think of him out there on his own. I had my parents, Lottie, even Gracie, trying to blot out my broken heart in all the wrong ways. But Finn? He had nobody, and nothing but the life he built for himself from scratch, piece by piece, with only his own determination and talent to light the way. I wasted my chances, but he conjured his own out of thin air, and look what he’s made of them now. Success, admiration, the whole world at his feet.

He made it all happen, because that’s just the kind of man he is.

I hold him close. “Thank you for telling me,” I whisper. “I’m just so sorry I didn’t know. I wish I could have been there for you, helped you somehow--”

“Hey.” Finn pulls back. “Don’t you ever say that,” he orders me, his eyes blazing in the dark. “You were the first person to believe in me. You kept me going, even through my darkest days. You’re the whole reason I’m here, why I made anything of myself. I never stopped loving you, Eva,” he swears. “It’s all because of you.”

I stare at him in disbelief, but his words haven’t even landed before his lips crash down on mine; a fevered kiss that’s edged with desperate emotion. He pushes me back against the wall, and I take him in, taste every last moment. He wraps my legs around his waist, hands wild in my hair and on my skin. I kiss him hungrily, nothing holding us back now.

The years melt away and for the first time in what feels like forever, the ache lifts from my chest.

I never stopped loving you…

Finn carries me back inside the bedroom as my head spins and my heart pounds with giddy relief. He tumbles me back onto the bed, and then I feel the weight of him, God, that glorious weight – his body pressing me into the mattress, his muscular limbs wrapping around me, holding me tightly. Safe and sound in his arms again.

He peels off my robe, and exhales a slow breath. “You’re a masterpiece, you know that?” he whispers, dropping a dozen kisses on my naked skin, light as feathers. “I could never put in words what you do to me. I’ve tried a hundred times, but those songs, they don’t even come close.” Emotion rushes through me, and suddenly, I’m on the edge of tears. “Hey,” he murmurs, brushing my cheeks. “Don’t cry, baby. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

“No,” I shake my head, trying to blink back the tears. “I’m sorry. I let you down, I’ve spent all this time hating you.”

“I deserved it.” He rests his forehead against mine, so I feel every breath on my own lips. “You’re right. It wasn’t my choice to make. And all this could have been avoided if I’d just talked to you. Trusted you enough to let you in.” Finn pauses, his voice breaking with intensity. “Do you think you can you ever forgive me?”

I cradle his face in my hands. That face that’s haunted my dreams, so gorgeous it almost hurts to look.

“I already do,” I breathe, and watch his eyes flash with raw emotion. “I forgive you, Finn. But can you do the same for me?”

He frowns. “You don’t need it, Eva. You never did.”

I open my mouth, but Finn swallows up my confession with another burning kiss. This one is deeper, more powerful than ever, and the strength of it takes my breath away. Dazzling and free, I sink into the kiss, his mouth on mine, his body moving over me, touching me, opening me up to the heat and slow burn brilliance that builds, coiling tight through every inch of my body.

This time, it’s slow. Deep. So tender, I can’t hold back the tears. Finn touches me over and over, sliding those miraculous hands across my aching skin until I’m panting and dizzy for him, wordlessly begging until at last, he sinks inside me and everything in the world is set to rights again.

He fills me, fuck, every last inch, until I lose track of where I end and he begins. He starts to move, but I hold him back, needing to just feel him. This moment, right here. I inhale in a shuddering rush, flexing around him and feeling his body tense and groan in response. It’s incredible. I’m surrounded, overwhelmed, possessed by him, the scent of him, the crush of his body, and the raw desire burning in those blue eyes. It’s all too much, and not enough at once. I could lose myself in him for a hundred years, and still be hungry for more.

This is all I ever wanted, and now, holding him again, all I can think is how I never want to let him go.

“My girl,” he murmurs, biting down softly on my lower lip. I moan, and it’s all the invitation he needs to surge deeper inside me, and take my breath away all over again. I arch up, moving with him, and God, it’s beautiful. He drives me higher with every thick stroke, the whisper of his mouth and hands on my skin, and how his cock feels, so deep, so incredibly right. I’m twisting higher now, burning out of control. I buck against him, but Finn doesn’t waver, he doesn’t let up one second. He keeps on fucking me slowly, relentless, until my body feels inside out and every nerve ending is raw and electric; totally exposed.

I’m whimpering, mindless, and his voice is right there in my ear, urging me on. “Take it deeper, baby. Take every inch of my cock.” He’s hoarse, growling now with labored control, but it still makes me wet to hear him whisper all those filthy, secret words. “That’s right,” he murmurs, thrusting into me again so deep I have to gasp. “You need it all, my dirty girl. Nobody can do you like this, baby. Nobody knows exactly what you need.”

“You do,” I whimper.

“That’s right. Only me.”

Finn shifts his weight, grinding up now with every stroke to hit my clit too, the sweet, maddening friction. “Only me,” he says again. “Say it.”

I moan as pleasure fuses through me. Building. Circling. “Only you,” I vow, clinging on for dear life. “It’s always been you.”

Finn stills, and I gasp, needing more. But he just clasps my check in his hand, forcing my gaze up to him, so I can see the look in his eyes as he slowly, slowly drives into me again.

Oh God.

“Let go,” he orders me. “You’re there, baby. You just need to fall.”

I want to. I’m so fucking close, but part of me is holding back. We’ve stripped away all the games and distractions, and my heart open like never before – but I’m scared to take that leap. And then Finn drives into me suddenly, hard and fast, and the universe contracts to just the sweet friction of our bodies. The spark ignites, exploding through me in a wild rush of pleasure so strong it rips a fevered cry from my lips. I come hard, clutching to him, and it’s only when I surface to his shuddering body that I hear him muttering my name, over and over, a sweet lullaby that takes us both into the black.