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I find the opening in the woods easily and race through the path, between the trees, and over the large roots that try and fail to stop me.
Then I brake.
Hard.
The bike tips forward, and I stop myself from flying over it. Instead, I swerve, losing control of it, and next thing I know I’m on my side, on the dirt ground, the bike on top of me, and I’m laughing.
“Jesus, Harlow,” Jace huffs, rushing toward me. He picks up the bike as if it weighs nothing and throws it aside, glaring at it as if it didhimdirty. “Are you hurt? Why are you laughing?”
I quiet my laughter and sit up, brushing the dirt off me. “Remember that time—on the first day of school—when I was riding on the driveway and you honked your horn?”
His lips tick at the memory. “You fell into the ditch.”
“I was expecting you to offer me a ride, you know?”
“I didn’t know that at the time, but I do now.”
He doesn’t offer his hand to help me up, and so I get up on my own and make my way to my bike. “I’m sorry,” I tell him, standing the bike upright and grasping the handlebars. “I didn’t know you’d be here. I’ll go.”
“You don’t have to,” he’s quick to say, and I face him. He’s standing by the front of his van, his hands loose at his sides, and he’s looking atme, but not in the eyes, and I slowly release the handlebars, letting the bike fall to the ground again.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” He motions toward the creek. “I’m just doing some upgrades.”
“Upgrades?” I follow him to the creek edge, and smile when I see what he’s done to the space. The log we used to sit on is still there, but there are others added now and even more string lights hanging above. “This is nice.”
“Yeah?” he asks, moving toward a tree where he’d clearly been hanging some lights. “I was thinking about inviting a few of the guys from the team over.”
I smile full force, grateful he’s too busy hammering a nail into the tree trunk to notice. “Look at you, all social.”
He chuckles, and it’s strange and beautiful all at once. Kind of like Jace, in general. “I figured I should do something with them, considering they’ve helped me out the past four years. Some of them are so bad they made me look exceptional.”
I laugh under my breath, because he doesn’t say it to be cruel or cocky. He says it because it’s true. He turns to me now, his eyes lighter beneath the sun’s rays making their way through the leaves above. “You can sit,” he says. “If you want to…”
“Okay.” I sit on the log, my usual spot, while he continues with the lights. I’m silent as I watch him, lost in my thoughts. There’s a lot I’ve wanted to tell him in the weeks we’ve been apart. A lot that Ishouldtell him. But it’s hard to bring up the past. Hard to dig up that pain again. I clear my throat, and he stops hammering a moment, then starts again. “So, um… I’ve been seeing a therapist.”
He stops now, his hands lowering at his sides as he turns to me slowly. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.” My gaze drops, as if on its own, because I can’t look at him when I say what I say next. “I just now got comfortable enough to tell her about what happened—with my mom, I mean. Anyway… I was going through the timeline of events with her, and uh, she mentioned that maybe… maybe you might think that you’re responsible for what yousaw in my bathroom that time… with the… the, um…” I trail off, unable to speak through the knot in my throat. Silence fills the space around us, and he doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. I collect what courage I have and finally lift my gaze. He hasn’t moved. But his chest rises and falls now, his breaths harsh against the stillness. His eyes are on mine, but his stare is hollow, empty, void of emotion. I’m almost too afraid to ask. “Do you think that?”
He blinks once, switching his gaze from hollow to sadness, and my heart aches at the sight of it and the way he nods. Just once.
“Jace…” I wish I could hug him, but that wouldn’t change the past. Only the truth will. “I started…self-harminga few years ago. It had nothing to do with you.”
“But that time it did, right?” He moves around the log opposite and sits down, his elbows on his knees. “Because I gave you the money for the car, and then the next day you were… doing that, and the day after, you broke up with me.”
“No.” God, I hate myself for not realizing he might feel this way, for not saying something earlier, because he looks so broken as he speaks. So destroyed by the thought. “I started doing it the day after what happened with my mom. You… you weren’t the cause of that. I promise.”
“Then how did I not notice it before then? You would have scars, right? If you started earlier…”
“I do have scars,” I admit. “But you can’t really feel them unless you know that they’re there, and, um… I always made sure we were mainly in the dark, so youcouldn’tsee. I’m not exactly proud of them.”
He remains still as he takes in my words, and eventually he nods, looks away. “You do it because it replaces your emotional pain with a physical one.”
It’s not a question, so I don’t agree or disagree. Instead, I ask, “Let me guess, youresearchedit?”
Another nod, and his eyes are on mine again. “I do it too. Not the cutting, but with basketball. Before you moved in, I’d play on the half-court, sometimes for five, six hours at a time, or however long it took until I couldn’t feel the pain anymore.”