20. Because He Loved You

EVANGELINE

The cold air makes my lungs burn, and I can actually see my breath, tiny puffs of air suspended in front of me for only a second until they disappear. It's not something I'm used to. Twigs and pine needles litter the trail, snapping and bending under my feet. Through the thick layer of pines up ahead, I can see pieces of the lake reflecting the clouds.

Today is the first day since we arrived at the lake house that it's been cloudy, and I'm enjoying it.

Yesterday, I said goodbye to Cleo and hugged her in the driveway before she got in the car that took her to the airport, all while Alistair complained about the long drive back to Georgetown.

You won't be back,she'd said.

I run harder, pushing my legs faster. The clouds darken, covering up the sun, and in the thick woods, it makes the forest gloomy.

That boy is in love with you.

I shake my head at the word boy. Maybe he was a boy when I met him – a boy who had lost his parents, drunk-quoting Emerson, and looking like a sad, tragic, beautiful boy that was nothing but trouble.

The problem was… I liked trouble.

Love.

I didn't believe in it.

With the house now coming into view, I push myself harder, wanting to finish the three-mile loop faster than I had the day before, because the more my lungs burn and the more my calves ache, the less I feel on the inside. As soon as I get to the clearing, I come to a stop and drop to my knees in the grass.

My heart pounds against my chest as if it were trying to burst through. The sky is full of tiny falling snowflakes that hit my cheeks and settle on my eyelashes until I blink them away. It's one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.

I stand, pressing my palms against my thighs to catch my breath before standing upright. The snow melts the minute it hits the ground, but it makes the clearing look like a shaken snow globe. I can't explain the pure delight that I feel in this moment, and when I look toward the house, I find Darren standing on the deck watching me.

The damn butterflies in my stomach refuse to listen to my head.

As Darren approaches, he shoves his hands into his pockets to save them from the chilly air, and the snow settles in his messy dark hair. He looks up at the sky and the falling snow. "Announced by all the trumpets in the sky/arrives the snow…" he leaves the rest of the Emerson poem unsaid, and it never ceases to amaze me how he can pull a quote or a full poem from his memory for just the right occasion.

He settles his eyes back on me. Noticing my scrutiny he asks with a bashful smile, "What?"

"I don't know," I shake my head. "You seemed worried about passing your exam, but with a memory like that, I don't see how you wouldn't."

"Alistair said something similar yesterday."

"Oh?" I laugh. "I'm not sure how I feel about having the same thoughts as Alistair," I tease.

"I'm afraid being able to quote Emerson on a whim isn't very useful in passing the Bar."

"Then why aren't you in there studying?" I scold him while rubbing my hands together for warmth.

He shrugs. "Do you not know how very distracting you are?"

"I think you find everything distracting when it's something you don't want to be doing." I raise an eyebrow.

"You look like you've never seen snow before."

"I lived in the desert my whole life." Even though my breathing is back to normal, I find that I still sound breathless. Perhaps it's the way Darren is looking at me.

"Never?"

"Once, when I was a kid," I mention, the memory taking me back. "But it was nothing like this." I hold my hands out, and snowflakes hit my palm and disappear.

"What was it like?" he surprises me by asking.

"Slush and snow piled everywhere. Plus, I was too cold to really enjoy it because I didn't have a proper winter jacket," I laugh. "Kinda turned me off to snow for a while," I admit while looking up at the sky and sticking out my tongue to try and capture one.

"If you need pointers, stay away from the yellow snow."

I shake my head and laugh at him.

"I've lived on the East coast my whole life," Darren mentions. "Snow is like taxes – inevitable and abundant."

"That's very cynical."

"I never liked the snow," he shrugs, "but you make it feel kinda magical."

"Maybe that's because it is." I step closer, running my hands around his waist and looking up at him. "You're going to catch a cold out here without a jacket." Looping my arm through his I lead him back to the house.

We walk up the steps and enter the door to the library. I shake the snow from my hair.

"How long do you think it will last?" I stare out the door and watch as the snowfall picks up speed.

"First snow of the year is always unpredictable," I hear him say behind me, his voice sounding weary.

The library is warm, heat pouring from the vents in the floor. Unzipping my jacket, I pull it off and lay it over the back of one of the chairs before making my way across the room to the desk where Darren sits. There are a few boxes laying around that weren't here before.

"I can see it wasn't just me that was distracting you." I run my finger along the edge of the cardboard before leaning against the desk.

"Just wanted to bring a few things back to Georgetown with us," he explains.

"When is that?" I inquire, not sure that I'm ready to leave just yet.

Darren looks out the door, the snow starting to stick.

"Soon, before winter hits. I don't want to be on the roads in a storm."

I follow his gaze out the door. "Seems like winter is already here," I sigh, turning back to Darren.

He reaches into one of the boxes and grabs a stack of cards, holding them out for me.

"What's this?" I hold the cards in my hand, noticing the top one is a crayon drawing of a family.

I look over at Darren not wanting to flip through them, because even though he handed them to me, it still feels like an invasion of privacy.

"I found them in the drawer of my father's desk." He points to them, deep lines furrowed on his forehead. "I never knew him to be sentimental, and I'm not sure what to make of it that he kept all the cards I'd made him as a kid."

I turn the cards over in my hand and flip through them, but I can see clear as day what Darren can't. I hand them back to him. "Because he loved you."

"How do you know that?"

"I used to get in trouble at school to try and get my mother's attention."

Darren raises an eyebrow.

"She'd show up at school, more annoyed that she was missing her favorite show than angry at whatever I did." I shake my head, and then pierce Darren with a stare. "Even if those cards don't convince you, then trust that every time he wanted to know what you were going to do with your life, it was because he cared to know."

Darren takes a deep breath. "I don't like your mother very much," he says plainly, a little darkness in his eyes that causes me to shiver.

"I don't tell you these things for you to hate her."

He pierces me with angry green eyes. "In no universe where someone treated you the way she did would I not wish harmful things upon them."

Only Darren can threaten someone and make it sound like a nineteenth century poem.

"She was right about one thing – I did marry a rich client." I shrug and laugh at the irony, even though deep down it still stings. "Which is what she said when I told her what I did for a living." Admitting it isn't as hard as I imagined, but I can see the flames of anger in his eyes.

"Do you still talk to her?" he probes.

"Not if I can help it," I admit truthfully. "She didn't choose me, and I made peace with it a long time ago."

He slides me off the desk and onto his lap where I wrap my arms around his shoulders. "I'm sorry, I must be all sweaty and gross." Even though it was cold out, I'm still sweaty underneath my clothes.

Darren just holds me closer and smiles up at me. "As if that would ever stop me from wanting to be near you."

I run my fingers through his hair, pushing stray pieces off his forehead and look at him thoughtfully. I realize how hard it's been for him to be here, to sit in this library and go through his parents" belongings.

The police report that Rausch gave him is sitting on the edge of his desk. Tracking my gaze, he reaches over me and grabs it.

"What are you going to do with it?" I ask.

"Do I really want to be involved in all of this?"

"It's from thirty years ago. A lot can change in that amount of time."

"And yet, my father still didn't have a relationship with him or any of his family."

The fact that it was sitting on the desk and especially after going through his father's things, I can only come to one conclusion.

"You want to go there," I say, pointing to the address.

He looks up at me, and I can feel his hand grip my waist tighter. "Lynchburg is less than two hours from here."

"You don't have to do this, Darren."

"I was supposed to go with them," he admits quietly.

"And you feel guilty."

"I feel guilty for a lot of things," he admits. "Guilt I never knew until I entered this house, saw that open book and pair of glasses, as if he were coming right back to pick up where he left off. They asked me to come with them, and I said no because I went to Vegas instead." He glances at me with a knowing expression. "If I had gone, I'd have been in the helicopter with them, but maybe, just maybe, I could have…"

"You couldn‘t have changed anything."

"I know there was nothing I could have done. I'm not a fixer, I am someone to be fixed," he fumes.

I take hold of his face, forcing him to look at me. I can see all the guilt inside of him.

"Then let me fix you," I whisper, pressing my lips to his. He closes his eyes, grabbing hold of me tighter, and kisses me back.

"And you think you're not a distraction," he murmurs.

"I can leave if you want," I say while pulling away.

He pulls me back to him. "Don't you dare."