Page 125 of The Storm

Of course it was.

As much as I’ve tried to convince myself I wouldn’t give a fuck if I ever ran into him, I’d recognize him anywhere. I recognized him even before he turned around in that train car. I’d barely rounded the corner when my eyes landed straight on him, still with his back to me. I got a second to come to terms with what was happening before he turned.

He looked…

He’s definitely not nineteen anymore.

For a moment, I’m transported back to the dock all these years ago. The first time I laid my eyes on Indigo Von Ehren. That gut punch of a moment.

The impossibly bright smile.

Those emerald green eyes.

I step off the train and make my way out of the station, my mind hundreds of miles away in a whole different life. The one I’ve been trying to pretend never happened. Unsuccessfully. For years.

I just need to get home and get some sleep. It feels like I’ve been constantly on the move for years now, specifically so I won’t have too much time to think, and for tonight, that routine is fucked.

I need to go home and sleep it off. I’ll think more clearly tomorrow.

But before I can do that, I turn the corner. My eyes land on the lone figure in front of the door to my building.

My feet carry me forward.

He turns his head and pushes himself off the wall, head tilted to the side as he watches me approach.

“Blue.”

Almost immediately, I wish I hadn’t called him that. And now I’m pissed off. First at myself for slipping up like this, then my anger turns to him.

Why is hehere?

Once upon a time I would’ve known exactly how he would react to me. What he would say. What he was feeling.

Those days are long gone.

When he looks at me now, I have no idea what’s going through his head.

His eyes move up and down me. He doesn’t show whatever he’s feeling.

“It really is you,” he says.

In the time it takes him to utter those four words, I get hit by phantom feelings so intense I almost stagger. There’s a vivid sensation that a missing part is still present, even if it was ruthlessly cut off years ago.

Without a train door between us I get a better look at him.

His black hair falls around his face in damp, messy strands. He’s still tall and wiry. There’s still a birthmark in the hollow of his throat.

But the eyes that always used to be so open and trusting? The look in them now is cautious and careful. Uneasy.

He rakes his fingernails over his collarbone quickly before he lets hand fall to his side.

My eyes track every move he makes. I take it all in. I drink him in. Greedily.

And then I’m even more pissed off because what the hell gives him the right to make me feel this way?

It’s been six years, but the memories of those last few days are still as vivid as if they only happened yesterday. I cling to them. I’ll cling to the stab of anger that shoots through me until my fingers are bloody if I have to.

I cross my arms over my chest.