6. Boone
Boone
S he draws the covers up to her chest, her eyes wide as they remain pinned to me. I have no idea why she’s looking at me with such abject shock on her face, but if she needs my help to get to the bottom of this, I’ll do what I can.
"This girl...have you ever met her?" she asks softly. I don’t know why she’s suddenly taking such an interest in Elias’ wife, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let her drag up all of that shit again. I grunt and shake my head.
"No. Elias doesn’t much care for visitors."
"So how do you know about his wife, then?” she presses. "You met her a long time ago, or-"
"No."
I cut her off bluntly. Touching on the subject of Elias stings, no matter how much time has passed since we last spoke.
Better part of two years now, actually, and he’s made no effort to get in touch with me again.
Just because we happen to share the same forest doesn’t mean that we like each other, and that’s not going to change anytime soon.
"So how do you know about her?”
"Some people from the town," I reply gruffly. "Said she came down with him a few times. They’d never seen her before and she wouldn’t tell them where she was from. Seemed like she just dropped out of the clear blue sky, that’s what they said."
Her face pales, and I scan her gaze for some kind of explanation. Why is she reacting like all of this is familiar to her?
"Can we meet them?” she pushes, and I close up, shaking my head.
"No."
"Why not?”
"Because he doesn’t want to see me."
"But why?"
I grit my teeth. This girl really doesn’t take no for an answer, huh?
"Because he’s got my property and I’ve got mine. Neither of us have any business getting in each other’s way."
She sinks down before me, reaching out to take one of my hands between hers.
"Listen, Boone," she murmurs. "I – I don’t know what’s happened between you and this guy. But if there’s a woman here who might have been through the same thing as me, then I need to meet her, you understand?”
I eye her for a long moment, considering.
"They don’t want visitors."
"Trust me, if she’s been through what I have, she’s going to want to talk to someone about it," she replies, her teeth resting on her bottom lip. "I know how it sounds-"
"You don’t want anything to do with Elias," I grunt. "No idea about his woman, but he’s not worth the trouble."
A frown flits across her face.
"Did something happen between the two of you...?”
I swallow back a sharp comment. She has no idea the depth of history that still exists between us, everything that we’ve been through. The stuff that binds us together, deeper than we’d care to admit to. I know he wants to forget it as much as I do, but we can’t just push it aside and pretend.
"Nothin’," I retort. "Nothin’ happened between us. Just ain’t nobody left on this land who’s worth trusting, that’s all. You don’t need to go wandering out into the woods to find answers."
"Look, I don’t care what kind of feud you’ve found yourself in, but-"
"I’ve said everything I have to say," I snap back. Feud? Like she even begins to understand what happened between us. The anger, the distrust. The pride punctured.
"Boone-"
I brush past her and out into the kitchen, where Woodrow is waiting for me next to his bowl - it’s full of bones that he’s long-since sucked clean, and I feel a little guilty for leaving him to go without for so long.
But that woman next door, she has a way of distracting me, of keeping me away from what I know I need to do.
Being with her last night, it’s the first time I’ve been with someone since Anna – she had always told me not to let myself get caught up on her memory and to move on, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t come with a degree of guilt I can’t brush off so easily.
Her hands in my hair, the weight of her in my bed, where my wife once lay. ..
And now, she’s asking questions about Elias, too. Damn, is there any part of my past that she isn’t going to find a way to wrap around her fingers? I don’t know.
But what I do know is that there’s more to her than she has revealed to me, and I can’t stem the curiosity that wants to get to the bottom of it.