Chapter 21 – Raw Race Day Footage
Chapter Twenty-One
MAGNOLIA
RAW RACE DAY FOOTAGE
The camera zoomed in on Bowen, who’d just finished the obstacle, watching me intensely—as if willing me to hang on.
It cut to Charlie. Her hand shot out, gripping Cash’s forearm, her mouth open in shock.
I squeezed my eyes shut, the shame too much to bear.
I knew exactly what Charlie was looking at.
My stupid tank top had slipped up, only showing an inch or so of my stomach.
The perfect amount to frame and highlight my new navel piercing.
The one I’d gotten as a silent expression of the love—yes, love—I felt for Bowen.
He was never supposed to find out. No one was.
But I was so lost in what I was doing that I was completely oblivious.
Not that I could’ve done anything about it.
My hands were occupied, swinging from rung to rung like Tarzan.
The camera snapped back to Bowen, who was even more riveted by my belly bling than Charlie. The closer I got to him, the bigger his eyes grew.
I hooted as I slapped the red cowbell and flung myself off the last bar. Frozen, Bowen hadn’t moved an inch and had no choice but to catch me. But I didn’t know that at the time. I’d thought he’d wanted to catch me. Of his own free will. Because he was as euphoric as I was.
Like an idiot, I clung to him—arms looped over his shoulders, legs cinched tight around his waist. Heart overflowing at what a kick butt day I was having with my favorite person. Yeah. I was finally being honest with myself. Bowen had become my very favorite person.
There in Bowen’s arms, jubilant that I’d triumphed over the Beater, I couldn’t stop grinning. My smile tried to burst out of my cheeks. I threw my head back and laughed, deciding at that very moment that I was a Spartan Race girlie for life. Maybe we could do this again next summer!
But then I realized that Bowen wasn’t celebrating. He was staring at me, in a way I’d only seen once before—back on our very first date, at Sole Mates. Right before our almost kiss. It was full of awe, wonder, and intense adoration.
My laughter died and my chest tightened so fiercely it was a miracle my ribs didn’t crack open, spilling every ounce of love I’d tried to bury, drowning him in it.
It was true.
I was in love with the wrong Dupree.
And I didn’t care anymore.
I loved Bowen. Not just the noun of love, but the verb too. And I wanted to show him. Didn’t know how I could hold back another second.
So when his head tilted, and he said, “You pierced your belly button? I thought you said you weren’t going to—” every rational cell in my body disintegrated.
I nodded and smiled, so he’d know I wasn’t ashamed.
But he was watching me so intensely that I couldn’t meet his eye.
“For the race,” I said, heat filling my cheeks as I nibbled my bottom lip.
“For you.” Then, I bravely lifted my gaze to his.
“Wah-hoo-wah, Bowen,” I whispered as I finally stopped fighting and smashed my lips to his.
Naively, I thought he’d kiss me back. Obviously. I wouldn’t have done it otherwise. Instead, he dropped me. My feet hit the ground with a thunk, the shock of his rejection making my heart twist so violently it felt like it tore straight down the middle.
He rocked back a step, then another, every muscle going rigid, like his body hadn’t caught up to what just happened. Leaving me fully exposed.
The camera bounced back and forth, catching our expressions like a game of ping-pong.
Holy crap, I remember thinking. What have I done? Of course, he wasn’t going to kiss me back.
The camera caught Cash and Charlie, speechless, eyes wide.
Back to me and Bowen. Panic and shame covered me head to toe as he stared at me, his chest heaving in and out.
My hands pressed against my cheeks, wishing I could turn myself invisible.
There’s nothing in the entire universe as heartbreaking as admitting you love someone only to have them not love you back.
I wanted to run. To pretend I’d never met him or Griff.
But then—and this is the worst part—the camera cut to Griff, with the majority of the Duprees in the background. I hadn’t realized they’d arrived at the Beater yet. The hurt on his face was something I’d never forget. Like he’d just been hollowed out in one clean blow.
Then it was back on Bowen, looking at me like he knew I’d be his undoing, and he was in the process of making peace with being undone.
“Bowen,” Cash warned, off camera.
Bowen didn’t move, didn’t flinch. Maybe he wasn’t going to.
Or maybe it was all in my head, my feelings were one hundred percent unrequited, and I’d just made the biggest mistake of my life.
I leaned to the left, tempted to get myself the heck out of there and forget the last name Dupree altogether. I lifted my foot to do just that when…
Bowen took a large step toward me, eyes burning with intensity. His hands shot out, cupping my jaw, and he crashed his mouth over mine. The relief was a tidal wave of joy like I’d never felt before, and I melted into him, arms winding around his neck.
I paused the video, staring at the frozen frame—our lips locked, eyes squeezed shut, desperation etched into both of our faces.
If you stripped away the sweat, the trail dust, the race headbands, and the workout gear, someone who didn’t know our backstory would’ve thought it was the kind of kiss that comes right on the cusp of happily ever after.
Maybe we were best friends, he was heading off to war, and he’d finally confessed his love for me.
Or maybe I was welcoming him home. Maybe he’d just proposed and I’d said yes.
Whatever they might’ve imagined, there was no mistaking it was a kiss we’d been starving for, and this was the moment we both surrendered.
But there was no happily ever after for us. No way for Bowen and me to walk arm in arm, the sun setting in the distance. It was heaven for a heartbeat—but the next? Hell struck like a fist.
Right now.
Deep breath. I tapped play. The camera cut to Griff sprinting past the oblivious race participants, tears streaking his dirt-dusted cheeks. He opened his mouth, and the cry of someone who’d been stabbed straight in the heart ripped free from his chest.
It hit me full force. Twice. Once in my memory. The other as I watched it happen again.
Bowen and I didn’t have time to react to Griffin’s scream of gut-wrenching betrayal before he came flying at us, feet off the ground.
Wham! He slammed into Bowen, knocking me backward.
I felt that twice too. The jolt—physical and mental—as I landed on my butt with a hard thud. It had vibrated all the way to my skull. But it didn’t hurt as much as the emotional blow of watching my boyfriend pummel his brother to the ground.
Because of me.
Before Bowen even connected with the earth, landing smack on his back, Griffin was on top of him, fists pounding his face. Watching it again was the last thing I wanted. But I made myself because I deserved to relive this pain. I was the one who’d caused it. Me and no one else.
On Camera Maggie sobbed, watching as Cash ran over and pried Griff off of Bowen. Bowen, more pissed than I’d ever seen him, kicked, his foot connecting with Griffin’s gut. Griff doubled over with a groan. Cash realized his mistake and let go of Griff, who dove back on top of Bowen.
And then Past Me was crying into my hands. “Stop,” I whimpered. “Please stop.” Charlie pulled me into a hug I didn’t deserve, her whole body wrapping around mine as I sobbed uncontrollably. All while Bowen and Griff tore into each other in the dirt, dust swirling around them like smoke.
“I’m gonna kill you!” Griffin screamed at Bowen.
“Get off me!” Bowen raged. “She kissed me first, jack weed! She doesn’t want you!”
Those words felt like a punch all their own.
“That’s not true.” I sobbed. “It’s not true.” It wasn’t that I didn’t want Griffin—he was one of my best friends—I just wanted Bowen more. And now Griffin knew—and he’d never get over it.
Every male Dupree sprinted over after that, breaking up the fight.
Four of them held Griffin back as he fought like they were trying to steal the last breath he’d ever take.
Any other girl might’ve let it go to her head.
She might’ve been flattered, thinking of how much Griffin must’ve loved her to have such a reaction.
But his rage wasn’t about me. Not at its core. I knew it then, and I know it now.
I don’t think I understood how much Griffin despised Bowen until that moment.
I’d always felt an underlying, one-way current between them.
All on Griffin’s end. While Bowen bent over backward to make him happy, Griffin was determined to hate everything Bowen did, said, even the way he breathed.
His next words only solidified that suspicion.
“You’re dead to me!” he seethed at Bowen twenty feet away. “Dead!”
The vitriol he’d buried deep finally clawed its way to the surface. I couldn’t bear that I’d been the catalyst, and it escaped my lungs in an ear-splitting wail.
The camera flashed to Lemon—one of the best moms I’d ever met—who loved all four of her kids with a tender fierceness I could only hope to emulate one day.
She gave Bowen a heartbroken glance. Then she stepped in front of Griffin, trying to quiet the storm that was raging inside of him.
She held his face in her hands, forcing eye contact.
“No. Don’t say things you’ll regret,” she said in a soothing voice.
“Hey, now. Calm down, Griff. Calm down.”
She was the right person for the job because he finally stopped fighting and broke the rest of the way—collapsing against her, crying so hard I thought he might pass out.
I was still crying like a lunatic, and hardly noticed when Cash’s mom, Peyton, took Charlie’s place, pulling me into her lap.
Cash and Charlie jogged off, glancing back at us with a heavy sadness in their eyes. I realized later, as I watched the documentary, that Ford had ordered them to go on ahead. They hadn’t wanted to leave, but they desperately needed the prize money.
The camera zoomed in on Bowen, and I forced myself to look at him.
The devastation, the regret. If our history were an old-fashioned scale, my side had always strained under the weight of pain.
But the moment Bowen kissed me back, the chains on his side of the balance snapped, and his scale plate crashed to the ground.
Bowen, who’d disappeared at Sole Mates because he loved his brother so much he’d give up the girl he wanted just to make him happy.
Bowen, who stayed away from me at UVA purposely to avoid a situation just like this.
Bowen, who, if he’d had a choice, would’ve chosen anyone else to be his race partner other than me.
Bowen, who only ever wanted Griffin to love him.
And I’d just made sure that would never happen.
With eyes full of tears, he watched Griff helplessly. He pounded a fist against his forehead, hard and punishing. I could see that he wanted to make it better, but he knew he was the last person who should try.
Then, for the first time since Griff had ripped us apart, Bowen’s gaze skittered to me. Our eyes hooked and the hardness I knew from our UVA days was back. Only this time it tripled in intensity. In that moment, what I’d always known hit me with a force that stole my air.
There was no way Bowen could ever love me now. I’d put the nail in my own coffin. I looked at the Duprees, all of them heartbroken. I never wanted another Dupree to shed a tear because of me ever again.
So I got my feet under me, pushed to a stand, and sprinted harder than I should’ve had energy for—and I didn’t stop for a single obstacle. Not the Bender, the Helix, or the Rolling Mud. I tried to outrun the cameramen, but the minute I lost one, another was waiting around the corner.
A quarter mile later, I glanced over my shoulder when I heard footsteps behind me.
Bowen. He kept my pace, staying a steady thirty feet in my wake.
His eye was swollen and puffy, but he didn't say anything and didn’t try to pass me.
With the way his gaze kept shifting to me, then back behind him on the trail, then back to me, it felt like he’d made himself a buffer—to protect me in case Griffin caught up.
Sure enough, by the time we reached the second-to-last obstacle, the Hercules Hoist, Griffin was closing in, a look of all-out fury on his face.
He screamed Bowen’s name, along with the name Selene.
I didn’t know who that was or what she had to do with this.
But her name made Bowen wince, wipe his eyes, and speed up.
Half of me wanted to sprint as fast as I could, but the other half was worried that I might need to be a buffer for Bowen. But then, Silas and Lemon came into view, eyes trained on Griff.
Knowing they were behind their boys, I took one more look at Bowen. It was the last time I’d see him for two years. Then I tore off down the trail, running even faster, not caring that my lungs were about to burst.
I slowed for no one and nothing, and I didn’t take a victory jump over the wall of fire that was the finish line.
I didn’t deserve it. I just jogged over it, only lifting my feet enough to keep from getting burned.
Someone slapped a medal in my hand and encouraged me to take a picture in front of a Spartan Race backdrop.
I forced a teary-eyed smile and kindly declined.
As I walked out of the race, using my Finisher tee as a handkerchief, I remember muttering to myself, “Way to ruin everything.”
And I mean ruin.
Mayhem. Heartbreak. Regret. It was exactly the kind of fallout you’d expect when a girl kisses her boyfriend’s brother.
What I hadn’t seen coming? Was what Bowen did next.