6. Amanda
CHAPTER SIX
AMANDA
Ishould never have gone back. I knew it the moment I got to this winter break gathering with my parents’ friends’ group. I wasn’t able to ignore Eric’s last voice note.
I thought it’d be along the same lines of the ones he’d sent every Sunday for the past eighteen months.
Only, this time it wasn’t a string of “I miss you” and “Please, talk to me.” His mom wanted all her important people—my parents, her son, me—together for the holiday.
And that would only happen if my parents didn’t fly to Italy to be with me.
So I went. For his mom. For him.
I should have stayed gone. It was easy to disappear for all those months, to bury what could have been under foreign cities and new routines. But back in those same woods, in these same damn cottages, every step dragged open a wound I thought had scarred over.
In the freezing cold, by the bonfire, Eric was the flame, and I was the moth.
Fire and shadows highlighted his profile.
To anybody, he’d have been fine. But I was not anybody.
Never mind the weight he’d lost. Eric carried relentless defiance, carved into his posture.
Especially around Keith, his half brother from hell.
This time, Keith was spewing bullshit, and Eric was just standing there. Taking it. Whiskey in hand, flames lighting his amber gaze, hazier with every sip. Not caring about anything Keith was dissing at him.
Hell no.
I wanted to step in. I had a comment about Keith passing out with his pants down the night before. Then I met Daray. Keith’s arm draped around my shoulders as he introduced me to his bulky friend in a sweater a size too small.
I let Daray pull me toward a log, away from Eric’s gaze and gulps of whiskey, which had doubled in speed.
Conversation with Daray was easy. He was funny, not smart, but I didn’t need a distraction to be witty.
It wasn’t long before his breath ghosted against my cheek, his nose skimming the edge of my jaw, whispering something smooth in my ear.
It was easier than meeting the weight of Eric’s stare across the fire.
I would have let him kiss me. Instead, the absence of Eric’s gaze on me was suffocating.
I almost let it be. Eric had made his choice, and so had I.
But, from the corner of my eye, there was a burst of flames as he tossed his now-empty bottle into the fire.
He tripped twice before leaving the clearing, a brand-new bottle already uncapped in his grip.
The unease settled deep in my ribs morphed into a need to follow him.
Because I knew all of Eric’s tells—tipping the bottle just a little too long, clenching fists against his thighs, blank, empty gaze.
I didn’t bother excusing myself beyond, “I’ll see you later,” and follow the path I knew by heart.
The trees closed in around me, the cold biting sharper the deeper I went. My boots crunched against the snow as the distant rush of water told me exactly where he’d gone.
The waterfall. The same one from our childhood. Where once, I had his back. And he had mine. But now… There were no dares, no laughter, no reckless leaps into the water below.
Only Eric. Sitting at the edge, a bottle of tequila dangling from his fingers, gaze locked on the rushing water. I wouldn’t have thought twice about the sight on a good day. Today wasn’t a good day. A lump rose in my throat.
“Eric.”
He turned his head sluggishly, as if the small movement took effort. There was hurt written all over his features. And also anger. So much anger.
“You’re drunk.”
“No shit,” he muttered, taking another swig.
“Get up and let’s go.”
He took another chug, liquid sloshing inside the bottle. “Why are you even here?”
“You asked me here.”
He scoffed. “I’ve been asking for long as you’ve been gone.”
I took a few tentative steps toward him.
“You had to right disappear like that.” The anger in his irises shone brighter than the hurt.
“I had every right.”
His gaze dropped, the water below rippling with movement.
His fingers twitched around the bottle, gripping it tighter.
“For seventeen months you didn’t even bother to text back.
” His breath sped up, visible in the vapor leaving his body.
Short, rushed breaths. “You abandoned me. I didn’t think you ever would. ”
It was a whisper. I shouldn’t have been able to hear it over the whistling wind.
“You abandoned us, Eric. What did you expect?”
I didn’t say it to hurt him. He probably hadn’t meant to hurt me. Yet, we hurt each other anyway. In seconds, he was up, facing me. The frigid air made his every breath visible. Large steps until he towered over a foot over me. His face was red, the veins in his neck bulging. Livid.
“Not this!” He screamed at me, waving his bottle of tequila wildly. First at me, then at himself. “You just left. If only you’d talked to me. I could have—”
“Absolutely not, Eric.” I made a dismissive gesture with my hand, slicing the conversation before it began. No good could come out of that topic. “We’re not talking about that. Ever.”
“You don’t get to decide that for me.”
“You made your bed. You lie in it, Eric. Face the consequences of your actions.”
By then, I was raising my voice, frustration boiling over. He staggered forward a few steps, not backing down, his arms swinging, tequila sloshing over the rim.
His voice is as loud as I have ever heard it. “You think I don’t know this is my own fucking fault? Me, rotting in regret, and you going about your life and posting make out—”
“Don’t you fucking dare!” I was in his face, screaming back.
My hands clenched at my sides, shaking, everything I’d held dancing at the tip of my tongue.
I refused to let this conversation happen.
There was no point in ever opening that can of worms. “You have no place shaming me for anything I decide to do with anybody.”
I braced myself for another insult, another round of screaming, but instead, he deflated. Completely. His head dipped, his grip slackened around the bottle, and when he spoke again, his voice was barely there.
“You’re right.” He took another swig, then let out a shuddering breath. “Of course you’re right. What I did—” His breath hitched, a strangled sound somewhere between a sob and a gasp. “I hurt you. I saw it in your eyes.”
“Stop it, Eric.” My voice was quieter now, but just as firm. I had no strength to hash out anything that rushed my decision to leave back then. I had no strength left to unpack it, not when I had thrown all my strength at shoving it down.
Eric’s head tilted toward the waterfall, his gaze lost in the rush of the water, the edges of the rocks, the dip of the slope. The temperature shifted, and the cold didn’t just bite; it sucked the anger out of me.
I took a step forward, gently placing my hand between his shoulder blades. Being in another continent, it was easy to sweep everything under the rug and compartmentalize. Having Eric in front of me, it was impossible not to be consumed by this man who was once my person.
“I just want to—” He choked on his own words. “I want to let go.”
“Eric—” I pressed my palm into his coat. His spine protruding against my touch was new and wrong.
“No!” He took a step back, putting space between us. His foot slipped slightly, but he caught himself, swaying. “You’ve taken no shit from me since being back, and I respect that. Don’t change that because I’m pathetic.”
My pulse thundered in my ears. He has to know I wouldn’t coddle him. However, I was also a therapist, and I wouldn’t ignore a person in crisis. This wasn’t yet a crisis, and I wouldn’t let it become one.
“Just let me be—or not be…”
As he spoke, the jittery urge to glance at the waterfall morphed, settling on a quiet ache. A flicker of yearning, or maybe regret, crossed his face. When he turned, his foot slipped on the wet rock. And he fell.
The moment stretched—his body pitching backward as if in slow motion, arms flailing for balance that wouldn’t come. His eyes met mine, widening with something that wasn’t quite fear. Then—
He was gone.
The impact was immediate. A violent splash, water surging up determined on swallowing him whole. For a second, nothing. No movement, no resurfacing, just the gaping silence after the crash.
His head broke through the surface farther down, toward the river’s pull. Before he could fight his way up, though, the current yanked him back under. When he resurfaced again, he wasn’t trying to swim back.
My heart hammered against my ribs as I moved quickly, yet calculating. Not where I’d just seen him, closer to the second line of rocks, closer to where he should be coming up next, closer to where I could reach him.
The moon cast a white glint over the water and rock.
Every splash, every flicker of movement, made my pulse stumble over rocks.
A vague outline, a heavier shadow dragged by the rushing water downstream.
My pulse slammed in my throat. I pushed forward, boots skidding, icy spray biting my face.
Get to him. Get to him. I dropped to my knees.
“Eric, grab me!”
He tried. His hand slipped. A sharp “No” tore from me. I lunged, down to my shoulders into the water, catching his coat, locking on this time. The fabric was soaked and becoming rigid as the river water crystallized into ice beneath my grip, slippery, making it even harder to hold onto.
I wrapped my arms under his shoulders, heaving with everything I had as I pulled him toward me.
Frigid water dripped onto me and seeped through my clothes to my skin.
He didn’t help me—he couldn’t. The fight had drained from his limbs, all of his strength burned up just trying to breathe.
I lost my balance and almost dropped us both forward, back into the river, but I grabbed onto his belt and pulled—one last pull.