Page 100 of Wildflowers & Whiskey

This arrangement we have, to give into each other until I leave, is stupid. I don’t know how we thought we’d come out of this unscathed. I am sitting in a goddamn treehouse, crying over a relationship with an expiry date and feelings I was naive to think wouldn’t come.

I used to think people who followed their heart over their head were idiots. And now, look at me. Sat in a tree house in the dark, legs dangling, trying to work out when exactly I became one of those people.

As much as my heart is in the driving seat, my head is fighting for the steering wheel, especially after last night's events. Telling me all the reasons why none of this is viable long-term. There is absolutely no version where this doesn't blow up if I stay. And the person who’d get hurt isn’t me or Wade. It would be Colt. It would be breaking everything they have only just begun to rebuild between them. A family home I would destroy all over again just as they are patching it back together.

All when the whole point of me confronting Wade in the first place, weeks ago, was for Colt. I went there trying to get answers for Colt, only to leave with another secret being kept from him. And now, I am sat with my guilt, my heart longing for a man I can’t have, and a friendship I have to say bye to. All while knowing I got to go back to London and never return to the only place I have ever felt like I belong.

The tears come quietly. I can feel them tracking down my cheeks, and I don't bother wiping them. I deserve to feel shit, feel the pain, so I dig my thumb harder into the red mark.

The coffee goes cold in my hands, and the tears keep coming. I am totally zoned out, so much so that I don’t hear Colt pull himself up from the ladder beside me. It is only when his hand lands on my back, and he takes a look at me that I come back to reality.

Dissociation. My old friend. It’s been a while.

Colt settles himself beside me, feet dangling over the edge next to mine, close enough that our shoulders touch.

“You okay?” his voice is a whisper, like someone trying not to startle a scared creature.

“No,” I say. Because he has sat in front of me and fallen apart before, and he deserves the same honesty back. “Not really.”

He pulls me in for a hug without a second thought, and it breaks me more.

“I’m a shitty person, Colt.” It’s a raw statement, one that he needs to hear. I am not the person he has put on a pedestal.

He squeezes me in that friendly way that aims to act as a comfort, but for me, it’s not.

“I don’t believe that for one moment. You are the nicest person I know,” he responds so matter-of-factly.

I pull away, needing the space. Not deserving any of his kindness. “No, Colt, I’ve made some crappy decisions, ones that will hurt others, all because I didn’t want to deny myself something. All because I couldn’t say no despite knowing it would have been the right thing to do.”

“Did the decision make you happy?”

I blink, taken aback by the question, and just nod.

“Then, to me it sounds like you put yourself first, which you deserve to do, Maeve. If someone got hurt in the process, then yes, that’s shitty, but all you can do is apologise, and hope that they understand your reasons.”

He has absolutely no idea that it’s him who will get hurt; he’s sitting in the dark, unknowingly absolving me of the one crime I could never confess to him.

“I don’t deserve you as a friend, Colt.” I say so quiet that I am surprised it even reaches his ears. “You are a good person.”

He gives me a squeeze, “So are you. I never had much to look forward to till’ you came here. Just catching your smile has been enough to carry me through the day.” He unwraps me from his arms, looking me dead in the face. “You’ve become important to me, Maeve. My best friend during a time where I felt like I had no one.”

And there goes the guilt again. Sitting in my stomach, knotting itself and making me feel sick.

“Maeve, I mean it. You came here for your own reasons, meanwhile you’ve made my home actually feel like home again. You managed to get me and Dad to talk again, for crying out loud, that’s a feat in itself.”

“You both did that yourselves; I just nudged you both because you are stubborn asses”

“Well, it wouldn’t have happened without you.”

I smile. Fear that if I were to speak, I would spill everything. But he fills the space for me, his voice now shifted into something raw and careful.

“I’m sorry. For last night.” He keeps his eyes forward, out over the back garden. “The way I spoke to you, that was fucked. I was just hurt, I suppose.”

My body twists to him, grabbing onto his shoulder. He’s sorry, yet I am the one who should be; I just can’t tell him why.

“Colt—”

“Please Maeve, let me get this out.”