Page 8 of Born to Run Back

Chapter Six

Between Miles and Minutes

Wendy

Four months of Tuesday nights had built this monument to madness, made of stones and flowers and little trinkets that could only ever mean something to the two of us. It should have been terrifying, and I guess it kind of was.

But tonight felt different. Electric. Like the air before lightning finally strikes.

I cut the engine and sat in the darkness, my pulse thrumming wildly against my exposed throat. Something was wrong—or maybe, finally, something was right.

The memorial looked different in my headlights. Disturbed. As if someone had knelt there recently, rearranging stones with the same obsessive care I’d been bringing to this ritual for months.

It was him. It could only be him.

Fresh tracks gleamed in the wet asphalt. Still warm, probably. Still—

Another engine. Behind me.

I froze. My heart stopped completely, then started again with such violence that it was a wonder I was still sitting upright in the driver’s seat. In my rearview mirror, headlights approached slowly, deliberately, like someone who knew exactly where they were going.

Like someone who’d been here before, countless times.

The car pulled up beside mine, a dark Subaru, maybe green or black in the darkness, and for a moment, we just sat there, two strangers who weren’t really strangers, separated only by metal and glass and four months of impossible longing.

My hands were shaking so goddamn hard I could barely open the door.

He was already out of his car, a tall figure silhouetted against the canyon’s darkness, and even though I couldn’t make out his face clearly, my body recognized him instantly.

The way he moved in the world, the broad set of his shoulders, the careful way he approached our memorial like he was entering a church.

“I—” My voice came out broken, barely a whisper. I tried again. “I didn’t think you’d—”

“I know.” The same voice that had anchored me that night, deeper now, raw with months of sleepless nights and whatever else this had cost him. “I know.”

We stood on opposite sides of our stone garden, this elaborate love letter we’d been writing without words, and I could feel the heavy weight of every Tuesday night, every painted rock, every flower placed with ritualistic devotion.

“I’m Wendy,” I said, and my name tasted foreign on my tongue, like I was introducing a stranger.

“Theo.”

Theo.

He stepped closer, close enough that I could see his face in the moonlight. Hollow-eyed, haunted, beautiful in the way that broken things could be beautiful. “Wendy.”

The way he said my name—like prayer, like worship, like something he’d been holding in his chest for months—made my knees weak.

“You’ve been—” I gestured helplessly at the memorial, at the evidence of our shared and parallel madness. “All this time.”

“Every week.” His voice was barely audible. “Sometimes more.”

And then we were moving toward each other like magnets, like gravity, like two people who’d been drowning separately and had finally found something solid to cling to.

His hands found my face, cupping my cheeks with such tenderness that it made me want to sob.

Months of careful distance dissolved between us with that one single touch.

“I dreamed about you,” he whispered, his thumb tracing the curve of my cheekbone. “Every night.”

“I know.” I pressed my palms against his chest, feeling his heart beating strongly beneath the wool of his jacket. “I dreamed about you, too.”

Theo

She felt exactly as I remembered—small and solid and perfect in a way that made everything else in the world disappear. Her dark hair was longer now, falling midway down her back, and her warm brown eyes reflected the moonlight like deep water.

Beautiful. Devastating. Real.

“Wendy,” I said again, because her name tasted like salvation on my lips.

Her hands fisted in my jacket, pulling me closer, and I could smell that same vanilla scent that had haunted my dreams for months. But underneath it was something new; it was desperation, need, the kind of hunger that came from starving for far too long.

“I tried to forget,” she whispered against my neck. “I tried to move on.”

“So did I.” My hands found her hair, threading through the silky strands the way I’d imagined a thousand times. “Couldn’t.”

“I touch myself thinking about you.” The words spilled out of her like a confession, fragmented and raw. “I’ve dreamt of your hands. The way they held me. The way those same hands…”

The admission hit me like a physical blow, desire slamming through me with such force that I had to grip her tighter to keep from falling over. “Wendy—”

“I’m broken,” she continued, her voice cracking dangerously. “I’m so fucking broken, Theo. I visit Beck’s grave. I research the accident obsessively. I’ve been losing my mind for months.”

“I know.” I pulled back to look at her face, seeing my own madness reflected in her eyes. “So have I. Panic attacks. Insomnia. I can barely do my job anymore.”

“We’re both crazy.”

“Completely.”

And then she was kissing me, or I was kissing her—I couldn’t tell who moved first, only that suddenly her mouth was on mine and months of desperate longing exploded between us like a dam breaking open.

Her lips were soft and urgent, tasting of tears and need and something else indefinably sweet.

I kissed her back with four months of starvation, of lying awake imagining this exact moment, this exact shade of desire fulfilled.

She made a sound against my mouth, a half sob, half moan, and pressed closer, her body molding against mine like she was trying to disappear inside me. I could feel her trembling, or maybe I was the one trembling. Maybe we both were.

“Need you,” she gasped between wet, burning kisses. “Need you so much it’s killing me.”

I backed her against her Honda, my hands roaming her body with desperate hunger.

She was wearing jeans and a thick sweater.

Too many layers between us, but I couldn’t wait a second longer.

Couldn’t think beyond the need to be inside her, to finally claim what had been mine since that first terrible night in the pouring rain.

Her small hands were already working at my belt, fumbling with the buckle in the darkness. “Here,” she whispered hoarsely. “Right here.”

“Are you sure?” Even as I asked, I was pulling at her jeans, desperate to touch bare skin, to feel the wet heat of her.

“Four months sure.” She laughed, wild and pained. “Four months of going insane sure.”

I got her jeans open, pushed them down her hips, along with the cotton panties underneath. She was already wet, ready, her body as hungry as mine. When I slid my fingers between her legs, she cried out into the night, her head falling back against the car window.

“Theo, please—”

I lifted her lithe body easily, positioning her on the hood of the Honda, her legs wrapping instinctively around my waist as I freed myself from my jeans. The metal buckle was cold against her thigh, but she didn’t seem to care. Nothing mattered except this.

Finally, finally touching her the way I’d only ever dreamt about.

When I pushed inside her, we both went still for a moment, overwhelmed by the reality of genuine physical connection after months of fantasy. She was impossibly tight, and warm, and perfect, her body accepting mine like we’d been born for this exact moment.

Born to chase this.

Born to run .

“Oh god,” she breathed, her nails digging into my shoulders through my jacket. “Oh god, yes.”

I attempted moving slowly at first to allow her to get used to my size, savoring the feel of her slick, liquid heat, but she urged me faster, her hips rising to meet mine with a violent sense of urgency I somehow understood all too well.

Because I felt it, too.

Hunger. Wild, desperate, insatiable hunger.

“I love you,” I said against her throat, the words torn from somewhere deep in my chest. “I don’t even know you, but I love you.”

“I love you, too.” She was crying now, tears streaming down her cheeks as I thrust harder, slamming her hips against the hood of that Honda over and over again. “I love you so much it scares me.”

The rhythm built between us, frantic and urgent, months of need finding release in this sacred place we’d built together.

She came first, her body arching beneath mine, my name a broken prayer on her lips.

The fluttering of her tight heat, the vise-like grip of that explosive orgasm she was experiencing—God, it undid me.

I followed seconds later, pouring months of longing into her willing body.

I stared down at her, at her flushed cheeks, the flutter of her thick eyelashes, chest heaving, her small, delicate hands fisting my jacket.

Her hair was splayed out over the hood of the car, and in that moment, I swear, she looked…

angelic. Like an ethereal being that had drifted down from the heavens to save me.

God, I wanted to be saved.

And I couldn’t sit still and let life keep happening to me. Because what did Springsteen say? It was echoing in my fucking head, over and over.

Something about running, about being born for it.

Only this time, I’d run back. I’d come back for her in the same way she’d come back for me.

I chose her.

She chose me.

And that was enough.

Wendy

The silence that followed was deafening.

We stayed wrapped around each other for maybe thirty seconds, both breathing hard, both shaking like nervous little chihuahuas—but then reality crashed in like cold, rushing water.

The February night air bit at my exposed skin where my sweater had ridden up.

The metal of the Honda’s hood was freezing against my thighs.

I could feel his eyes on me, refusing to retreat, refusing to surrender, and suddenly the whole thing felt… surreal.

What the fuck had we just done?

I started laughing first, a nervous, slightly hysterical giggle that bubbled up from somewhere deep in my chest. “Oh god,” I gasped, covering my stupid face with my hands. “Oh my god, we just—”

“Had sex on your car,” Theo supplied, his voice strained with what might have been his own nervous laughter. “At a roadside memorial. At nearly three in the morning.”

“While barely knowing each other’s names,” I added, the absurdity hitting me in waves. We’d been obsessing about each other for four months now, building elaborate shrines, losing sleep—hell, losing our minds —and we’d just fucked like animals within minutes of finally meeting.

He gently pulled out of me, both of us hissing at the loss of contact, and I scrambled to pull my jeans back up, suddenly mortified by just how exposed I was. My hands were shaking so badly I could barely manage the button.

Theo reached between us, bumping my shaking hands aside, and buttoned my jeans for me as I stared at him, hopelessly obsessed with every little thing he did.

“This is—” I started, then stopped, because I didn’t know what this was. Insane? Beautiful? The worst decision I’d ever made? The only thing that had felt real since that horrific accident? Or perhaps even longer than that?

“Intense,” Theo offered, zipping his own jeans with hands that trembled almost as badly as mine. “This is really fucking intense.”

We stood there awkwardly, me leaning against the car, him a foot or two away, both of us looking anywhere but at each other.

The memorial seemed to loom larger in the darkness, all those carefully placed stones bearing witness to what we’d just done.

Had we desecrated something sacred, or finally given it the meaning it was supposed to have?

“We should…” I cleared my throat and tried again. “We should probably get coffee sometime. Like normal people.”

The words had come out stiff, formal, and downright ridiculous after what we’d just done. Like normal people? What did normal even look like?

“Normal people,” he repeated, and I could hear the same bewildered tone in his deep voice. “Right. Coffee. Normal.”

“I mean, if you want to,” I added quickly, panic suddenly creeping in. What if this and just been about the fantasy? What if now that we’d finally touched each other, the spell was somehow broken? “We, uh, don’t have to. I-I understand if this was just—”

“Wendy, I want to,” he said just as quickly, stepping closer. “God, yes, I want to. I just… I don’t know how to do this. Any of this.”

“Me neither.” I fumbled for my phone, my hands still shaking. “Numbers? We should probably exchange numbers. That’s what normal people do, right?”

“Right, yeah.” He pulled out his own phone, the screen’s glow illuminating his handsome face in the darkness. He looked about as rattled as I felt, his blonde hair messed up from my fingers, his eyes wide and uncertain.

We typed our information into each other’s cellphones, this mundane act feeling somehow more terrifying than the sex had been. This was real now. Concrete. No more fantasy or ghosts or projections—just two people who’d probably made a terrible mistake and were trying to figure out what came next.

“So,” I said, sliding my phone back into my pocket. “Coffee.”

“Coffee,” he agreed with a nod. “Tomorrow? Or… later today, I guess.”

“Later today.” I opened my car door, suddenly desperate to escape, to process what had just happened in the safety of my apartment, where I couldn’t be distracted by Theo and just how disgustingly attractive he was.

Fuck.

“I’ll text you,” was all I could manage as desire coursed through my veins. I wanted him again, desperately. Come all over his thick, raging hard—

No. No. No.

Go home, Wendy.

“Okay.” He was backing toward his own car now, his movements jerky and uncertain. “Drive safe.”

“You too.”

I climbed into my Honda, my whole body still humming with sensation, with the memory of him thickening inside me as he fucked my goddamn brains out. But as I started the engine and pulled away from our memory, doubt crept in like a fog.

What had we just done? Was this the beginning of something real, or the end of a beautiful delusion we’d been cooking up for four torturous months?

In the harsh light of approaching dawn, would we look at each other like strangers?

Would the coffee shop conversation be all awkward silences and the growing realization that a shared trauma wasn’t the same thing as compatibility?

I caught sight of his headlights in my rearview mirror as he followed me out of the canyon; my chest tightened with something between terror and… hope.

Four months of obsession had led to this: desperate sex against my car and shaking hands exchanging phone numbers like teenagers after an unexpected hookup at a house party.

Normal people, I’d said. As if either of us had any fucking clue what that meant.