Chapter Fifteen. Reid
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
REID
NOW
ONE DAY UNTIL LEGACY BANQUET
@haikuforyou
The sky over the
mountain is still not enough
to hold what we lost
WE DON’T GO TO the secret springs. I wouldn’t make it with my knee like this anyway. I nearly ruined everything when it gave out at the finish line. It was almost a relief until my dad came rushing over to me. The panic on his face was enough to make me play it cool.
I just tripped on a rock. No big deal.
“I’ll be right back,” Clara says as she heads to the one-stall bathroom at the nearby trailhead to change.
Being up here together has my traitorous brain flashing back to last winter. Muddy crushed leaves on the ground, Clara’s limbs around me in the hot water just before the storm broke. Just us. Heat shoots up the back of my neck at the memory.
Still, as soon as she mentioned the springs when she rescued me from West, my body ached to be here.
The ice in the car helped, and I’m able to walk without limping to the hot springs closest to the turnout. A family I recognize is there. The mom works at the Haven bookstore, and she helped me find books from time to time. They all send me excited, knowing waves.
I have my part to play—the Golden Boy—and wave back.
There are a few logs to the side of the springs, smoothed over from time and touch. I kick off my shoes and set the towel down on the one with initials and curse words etched into the bark. I can feel the family’s attention at my back, and I linger, checking my phone.
There’s nothing new from Legacy Lore, but panic flares when I see the follower count on the profile rapidly climbing. Like walls closing in. Made more intense by Delaney showing up at Clara’s earlier, making it clear my time is running out.
A combination of guilt and dread churn my stomach knowing I have to tell her.
Clara’s approaching footsteps snap me to attention. I quickly tuck my phone into the rest of my stuff, covering it with my shirt.
When I look up, her hair is in a messy bun on top of her head, a navy-colored towel wrapped around her.
The strings of a black bikini tied behind her neck peeking out of it.
It’s been hard enough to see her fully clothed.
But glimpsing her smooth skin again, every moment between us floods my system, and my body doesn’t know the difference between then and now.
I don’t know why I let this happen—we shouldn’t be here together. Especially not if she brought me here out of guilt. Not when I’m the guilty one now.
The towel slips a little as she kicks off her shoes at the edge of the spring. That’s when I see it. A flash of black ink on the side of her rib cage.
A tattoo.
I know Clara planned to get one after her eighteenth birthday from her Aunt Lisette, who’s a tattoo artist. But last we spoke about it, she hadn’t decided what she wanted.
I’m burning to know what she chose to permanently etch onto her body. I can tell it’s a small plant of some kind wrapped around words, but I can’t make them out from this distance.
Clara catches me staring. Her cheekbones bloom pink, and I have to blink away from her gaze.
At least we’re not alone here, I remind myself.
Of course, in the next moment, the family gets out of the water and starts toweling off to leave.
“I just have to say, we are so thrilled for you,” the mom says to me. “Is Stanford as amazing as it seems?”
My chest gets tight. “Yeah. It’s—incredible.”
I don’t miss the way Clara’s eyes narrow.
A slight late-morning chill still clings to the air, along with the heavy pine scent of the surrounding trees.
I wait for the family to drive off before I strip down.
I don’t have a suit, but my running shorts under my joggers are fine.
I’m more embarrassed taking off the knee brace.
Fully aware that Clara is watching my every move as I do.
I used to love the way she watched me. Especially here. But now, she’s eyeing my knee with concern, and I fucking hate it.
Clara yelps as she quickly tiptoes across the cold ground. I keep my gaze off her, but at the edge of the hot springs, she drops the towel, and I catch a glimpse of her strong legs as she eases herself in.
I quickly follow. The second I slip into the springs, a sound escapes me from low in my chest. Holy shit it feels good. My sore muscles release one by one, and the jumping pain in my knee downshifts to a slow, tolerable throb. This is exactly what I needed.
And she knew it.
I appraise her across the water and am struck all over again by all the exposed skin. The flush high on her cheeks from the heat. So damn pretty.
“A tattoo?” I ask.
The silence stretches so taut it just may snap.
“A tattoo,” she finally says.
I wait, but she doesn’t elaborate and keeps her torso submerged so I can’t see it.
“I guess that means you regret it?” There’s no way I’m going to drop it like I know she wants me to.
She wades around, looking everywhere but at me. “Of course not … it’s just … personal.”
“Got it.” My voice is hard even to my own ears.
I decide to ask her what I’ve been wondering since I saw her with that camera in her hand last night. She’s doing this video for the banquet, to clear the past. But what about her future?
“What’s going on with CAFA?” I ask.
She smiles a little. “Like, as an institution? They’re still up and running as far as I know.”
“Funny,” I deadpan.
“I was planning to reapply, but I don’t know.” She shrugs as if to dismiss it. “There are a lot of film festivals I could enter instead. I could upload my videos online and try to gain traction that way. Why do I even need film school?”
“Because it’s your dream,” I say plainly.
She pauses, surprised. But no matter the strain between us, it feels wrong to act like we don’t still know each other as well as we do.
“I’ve been working on a new doc all summer, but I don’t think it’s any good. Mitchell couldn’t even follow it.”
I scoff. “Mitch can’t follow a straight line without getting confused.”
A laugh bubbles out of her. I feel it everywhere.
“It’s probably better than you think.”
She shoots me one of her small smiles that I covet. “Maybe.”
The longer we sit here, the more relaxed I get. But it’s not only the healing quality of the springs. I realize it’s … nice. Being here. Being with her. Which is exactly what I was afraid of.
I open my eyes, unsure when I closed them, and she’s looking at me, her jaw set in that determined way before she starts asking questions.
“Why does it seem like no one else knows how much pain you’re in?” she asks.
I blink, and the lie comes out automatically. “I’m not in pain.”
She shoots me a leveling gaze. “Remember when Josh tripped you before state?”
The unpleasant memory forces me to frown.
He was lucky all I did was rip my arm open.
Hell, I was lucky that’s all that happened before the biggest race of the year.
Not that it made a difference, since I came in first over his forty-seventh-place finish.
By pissing me off, he all but ensured my championship win.
“There was gravel in your hand, your whole arm covered in blood, and I don’t think you even winced.
” She shakes her head in exasperation before she keeps going.
“You get … eerily calm when you’re hurt.
Like you’re unwilling to acknowledge the pain.
You had the same look on your face when you crossed the finish line today. ”
I’m used to people watching me—but I’m not used to them seeing me. But she always did. It ignites a longing I’ve fought to subdue all year.
“Shit. This is why—” I stop myself, my voice coming out too loud. A breeze jolts through the trees again, ruffling my hair and raising goose bumps across my arms.
“Why, what?” she prods.
Injuries have a way of teaching us something we need to learn.
If that’s really true, then this injury between me and Clara proved to me that I wouldn’t survive losing her again. I’m barely making it through as it is.
I have to cut this all the way off.
My chest puffs with my inhale. “This is why I didn’t want to do this with you. You bring me here—here—and act like that wouldn’t hurt worse than my fucking knee.”
“I was just trying to help—”
“I don’t need your help, Clara. I can take care of myself.”
“But you don’t.”
We become locked in a mutual glare.
“How long have you been injured?” she challenges.
I squeeze my hands into tight fists under the water. “Why does it matter to you? I’m recovering. It’s no big deal.”
“It’s a huge fucking deal!” she snaps. “You’re an elite runner, it’s who you are—”
“No, it’s not.” My voice comes out like a thunderclap, and she goes still.
I push a hand through my hair. It’s too much.
The posts online, Olympic rumors—a tattoo.
The heat in my chest with nowhere to go.
I jump out of the water, toweling off quickly before I wrench my shirt back on.
The water sloshes behind as she follows slowly.
But I can’t look at her. Not while she dresses.
Not until she says, “I didn’t mean it like that.” There’s a catch in her voice.
“I know,” I manage.
But everyone else does, and the frustration at all the limits it puts on me is getting harder and harder to push away. Worse that she gets that. Gets me. And I forgot how fucking good that feels.
After the way things ended, I expected her to be nothing but cold to me this weekend. But she’s been the opposite. Warm and funny and … open.
I don’t deserve it.
She steps closer, and all at once her arms are around me. Clara always preferred touching to talking. It was the way she softened to me. But the shock of her body against mine after all this time shuts my brain off for a second.
She nestles her face into the crook of my neck, where she always fit best. Confusing me more. Muddling everything. It feels so familiar, so right—so deeply unfair.