Page 85 of Damaged Desires

Open up again, I believe in second chances.”

Performed by Imagine Dragons

Written by Mckee / Reynolds / Platzman / Sermon

I was shaking. Shaking through everylimbin my body as I climbed the stairs. I felt like my skin was being pulled from me inch by inch. Torture worse than anything we’d experienced at Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape training. When I got to my room, I shed my clothes, entered the shower, and stood under the steady stream of water, trying to wash away the fear and pain I felt in every part of my body.

My vision filled with Dani. Finding her in almost the same exact spot at the side of the pond was like a dam breaking inside me. Heartache and loss filled my soul. I slammed my hand against the tile, the pain there doing nothing to dull the pain raging inside me.

Dark hair and grass in the moonlight instead of the sunshine.

Dark hair and limbs in the dirt on the side of a road.

Dark blood. Darkness.

Fucking darkness.

I got out of the shower and dressed in my jeans and a T-shirt.

Darren. Dani. My past. They were all rolling together, forcing me to feel things I’d locked away. Before I thought it all the way through, I hit dial on my phone.

“Hello.” Tristan’s voice, sweet and light, tore at me. Family. She felt more like family to me than Carson or Maribelle had in a long time. That family had died on a moonlit night by the pond.

When I didn’t respond, Tristan sighed, full of tiredness. She said my name with a small question at the end. “Nash?”

“I just needed to hear your voice,” I said, trying to pull myself together so I didn’t make things worse for her. “How’s Hannah?”

She paused a beat before saying, “My grandma is spoiling her. She’s never going to eat a vegetable again.”

Since she’d kicked me out, we’d only had a couple of conversations. The first stilted, the next easing us back to safe ground: Hannah and the dog.

“And Molly?” I asked.

“Molly loves everyone better than me, so Grandma has become her new favorite. I think she might love her more than she loves you.”

“Impossible,” I said.

“Grams gives her gobs of extra treats.”

A small smile crept onto my lips.

“When are you coming back?” I asked.

She hesitated. “Honestly…I don’t know.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means life here is agreeing with me.”

I couldn’t keep it from stabbing at me that a town was agreeing with her more than I had. I grumbled, “Because I’m not there?”

A frustrated sigh echoed over the phone. “Believe it or not, Nash, not everything centers around you. This. Being here. Working with my grandma at her store…I feel useful. I feel like I have another reason besides Hannah to get up every day. Isn’t that what you said I needed?”

The taunt hurt.

When I didn’t respond, she continued, softer, “I like visiting with Gram’s friends, and how they ask about her. I like that Hannah is getting a chance to know her. It feels like something that is just mine and not his.”

God that hurt.