Into the Tomorrows (Bleeding Hearts Book 1) (23 page)

“I’ve stunned you to silence.”

“I just … love the comparison. I’ve never thought tattoos could tell a story. Never thought about scars that way either, though I don’t have many.”

He pulled up one of his pant legs again, showing me a scar that curled around his kneecap in an angry crescent moon shape. “I fell off my bike—down a hill of rocks. Landed on my knee—impaled by a rock. This scar tells the story of the time I was an idiot and a show off. And I’m still an idiot, but I don’t show it off nearly as spectacularly as I did back then.” His lips curved, the dusting of facial hair making him look darker, rogue-like.

“I don’t have any as gnarly as that one.” I rolled up the cuff of one of my jeans to my shin. “I tried riding my best friend’s skateboard once.” My finger slid down the straight white scar that dropped from my knee to halfway down my leg. “And I had so much confidence in myself that I thought I’d try to pop it up a ledge.” The painful reminder made me wince. “The only thing that slid across the ledge was my leg.”

“Are we trading battle scars?” Jude asked. “Because I’ve got a handful.”

“Show me another.”

He leaned forward. “It’s hard to see in the dark, but I’ve got a line on my head.”

I leaned toward him, tilting my head until I could see it—just a divot near his hairline on the right side of his head. “Right here?” I asked, touching my fingertip to it. He stilled under my finger and I kept the tip there a moment longer, holding the hollow.

“Yes,” he said softly, and I felt his breath against my arm. “I was running through the house with Mila chasing me. I’d probably cut off all her Barbie’s hair or committed some other atrocity. And when we looped through the living room, she pushed me hard enough that I hit, face-first, into the coffee table.”

“Wow, you played really rough growing up.” I let go of the scar and leaned back, my arm sufficiently warm and tingly. “I always wondered what it’d be like, to have a sibling to tease and torment. To talk to.”

“Mila and I shared a womb for eight months. We’ve shared parents and experiences and friends and I cannot imagine not having her beside me through … everything we’ve shared.”

“I don’t know her very well, but I do like her.”

“She likes you. And that’s no small feat for Mila.”

“Why not?”

“She’s protective of the people she loves. She yelled at Colin for nearly an hour after she found out about my shoulder.” We both looked at his shoulder, which seemed to be okay—as I hadn’t witnessed him babying it or complaining about it.

“She did?” I asked. “I didn’t hear it.”

“She did when you took me to the hospital. Colin told me about it.”

“Oh.” I thought it was weird that Colin hadn’t said anything to me, but then again Colin hadn’t done a whole lot of talking when it came to me recently.

“When she didn’t see me, she asked Colin if he’d left me on the mountain, finally.” Jude laughed ruefully, ran a hand over his head. “She always jokes that she’s going to leave me one of these days, on a mountain, so I can live out my Tarzan ideal life. And then when Colin told her, well, she blamed him.”

“But it was my fault—I fell off the mountain.”

“The hill,” Jude teased, correcting me. “And it wasn’t your fault that I reached for you.”

I was quiet then, remembering how Jude had said he’d save anyone, if he could.

“And it wasn’t Colin’s fault that I did. But she blames him, regardless.”

I didn’t know what to say, because I felt so awkward knowing that I’d caused it in the first place. “Well, at least your shoulder seems to be doing okay?”

He moved it slowly up and down. “It’s fine. I’ll need physical therapy soon.”

“And surgery?”

He looked away then, toward the fire that crackled and popped bits of light into the air. “I don’t think I should be considering surgery right now.”

“Why not?”

“Because.” He smiled slow, placed his hands close to the fire to warm them. “It’s not time yet.”

It sounded ominous in a way, but I knew that Jude didn’t desire to explain himself anymore when he said, “Are you looking forward to tomorrow?”

“You said something about the Yellowstone Grand Canyon?”

He sat back from the fire again. “Yes. We’re close to it now. It’s stunning—a work of art carved into the earth. And then we’ll take the trail down to the base of the lower falls.”

“I can’t believe I’m doing all of this. Spending the next few days with you, out in the wilderness.”

Jude stood, grabbed our plates and bottles. I watched as he placed the bottles in a paper bag, rolled it up and then stuck it in our car. He folded the plates and stuck them into a small bag along with the yogurt tubes before bagging them up tight and placing them in the trunk of the car. He took the rest of our food and secured it all in the car before closing the door.

“Don’t want to leave the cooler out,” he explained, brushing his hands. He held out hand sanitizer. “Here, to get the smell off your hands.”

I squirted a small glob onto my palm and then rubbed them. “We’re in bear country, you know. The mountain we’ll climb in two days is frequented by bears.” He pointed over his shoulder. “There are bear boxes for food, but I’ll keep it in our car so we don’t have to repack it in the morning when we set out.”

“Okay,” I agreed. It was times like then that I felt like an amateur all over again. I wasn’t experienced, like Jude was. I probably would’ve left my food out like an idiot, an invite for bears all over to come and have a picnic inches from our tents. The thought had me wrapping my arms around myself as I looked around in the dark. The light murmur of conversation from a nearby campsite settled me a little. Unlike when I’d camped in the mountains with Colin, I was in my own tent. But there was comfort in knowing that there were other people around us; we weren’t alone.

“I’m ready for bed.” Jude said, and I tried not to let the way he said it affect me as I stood, stretching my arms above my head. My sweater lifted a few inches from my belly and I reached to tug it down just as Jude’s gaze landed there.

“Me too.”

He grabbed our chairs, put out the fire and locked the car. When we were at our respective tents, he gave me a small smile. “See you in the morning, Trista.”

I nodded curtly and slid inside my tent before I could say something embarrassing or too revealing.

And as I lay in my sleeping bag, my hands pressed over my chest, trying to contain it all.

For a long time, the love was waning with Colin. I wasn’t sure how to replenish it and I didn’t know if I even wanted to. There was something delicious about the way the love slid from me slowly after rushing in so quickly. I embraced the cold like I’d embraced him, trading one comfort for another. Because there was comfort in the void, a safety that love never gave you.

But there I was, my chest split open and my heart flopping around like a fish out of water. I was learning a new language, my body was trying to translate a foreign feeling, and I knew for certain it was something I’d never known before.

I’d known for a long time that Colin and I were done. I’d known that we couldn’t recover from the neglect and the death and the distance. I’d gone so long not needing him that I wasn’t sure if I even remembered what that feeling was. Had we been desperate for one another? It was like that time of my life was in shadow—squint and maybe you can see what it was, but chances were good that you were just convincing yourself of what you thought was there because you didn’t know for sure.

But with Jude, everything was different. The feelings were deeper; the desperation was as real as anything I’d ever known. The vacancy in my heart had been a secret for years. But Jude had snuck in, under the collapse of my life, burrowing into the cracks of what was left behind.

There was nothing and then there was everything.

* * *

I
awoke overly
warm with my hair stuck to my face. The yellow top of my tent was glowing from the sun and the sounds outside my tent made me think I’d slept in very late.

Whipping the sleeping bag away from my body gave me instant relief from the oppressive heat. I smelled food and my stomach immediately growled its need in response. After grabbing my shoes and unzipping the sweater, I exited the tent and nearly stumbled over the root that was in my path.

“Good morning,” Jude said. He’d said it to me so many times, in the apartment and in the Colorado mountains and now here, in Yellowstone. And each time, I was reminded of how strange it was to hear.

I blinked a few times, adjusting to the sun that pierced through the trees around us.

I hadn’t gotten a good look at our surroundings when we’d arrived the night before because it had been so dark. But we were surrounded by tall trees, our campsite at the end of a driveway off of the road. There seemed to be a decent amount of distance between us and the nearest campers, which gave a sense of being in the woods without being completely alone.

Around my feet were scattered tree roots, all belonging to the tree that Jude had tied my tent to. I stared at the white string around the tree’s base and then looked to Jude for the first time that morning.

“You tied my tent to a tree?”

“You never know,” he said easily, pushing a spatula across the cast iron pan he had heating over the grate on the fire pit.

“You never know what?”

“If the wind will pick up, blow you away.”

I laughed as I approached the fire. Despite the warmth I’d felt in my tent, it was still a touch chilly. The fire was a welcome heat and I rubbed my hands over it as I eyed the eggs Jude was cooking.

“I’m serious,” he said with a raised brow. “When my parents took us camping as kids once, Mila and I were in a tent with the dog. All of a sudden, the wind came on strong and blew us down a hill, the tent rolling over and over. I think the dog’s ass was in my face most of the trip. I couldn’t even remember to be scared though, because I’d just woken up to dog ass.”

I laughed again, couldn’t help it. “Oh, Jude.”

“Oh, Trista.”

My cheeks warmed and I turned away, wrapping my arms around myself. “As beautiful as this is, I could go for some Starbucks right about now.”

“Would you settle for a pot of campground coffee?” He angled his head to the car, with its back door open. Sure enough, there was a kettle sitting on a little wood cutting board.

“I wouldn’t call it settling,” I said as I poured my first cup. Jude had set out a tiny bottle of creamer he’d purchased so I poured it in and inhaled the nutty caramel flavor as I made my way to one of the camp chairs Jude had set up beside the fire. “Eggs and coffee,” I said with gratefulness melting my voice. “Yum.”

“I don’t have bacon, but I do have some pita bread. Open one of these up and I’ll put some eggs in it so we don’t have to even bother with plates.” He handed me the package of pitas and I ripped one in half, then split both halves open. He handed me the package of sliced cheddar and I stuck a piece in each half. Wordlessly, we filled both pita halves with warm eggs. Immediately, the cheese began to melt and by the time I took my first bite, I was so grateful for food that my stomach made an audible sound.

Jude laughed at the noise and I looked him over for a few silent moments. His hair was growing in, but his facial hair was still a little longer. He looked so … rugged. Like a man who belonged in the mountains, cohabitating with the trees. He was wearing a black t-shirt with a flannel button-up over it, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His jeans looked worn and his boots were broken in. Beside his chair was a backpack, already packed up for our trip.

“Are we coming back here tonight?”

“Yes. We’ll leave our tents, but we can take everything else. I made some more sandwiches for us and I’ve got two thermoses of coffee up front.”

“You
are
a boy scout.”

“I’m just prepared.” He winked, which gave my stomach a little twist. “I’ll just need to clean the pan and put out the fire and we can get on the road.”

True to his word, twenty minutes later we were on the road, driving slowly out of the campground. All around us, campers were climbing from their tents with a mess of bed head. The thought had me flipping the visor down and examining my own bed head. I hadn’t once thought to be self-conscious of how I looked—but my hair was quite a mess.

“You should’ve told me I looked like
Night of the Living Dead
,” I admonished Jude as I scrambled for my brush in the bottom of my purse.

“Eh,” he said with a casual lift of his shoulder. “I thought it was kind of cute.”

I brushed the “cute” aside as I ran the brush through my hair. The purple strands had faded considerably, but they still stood out against the blonde. I touched one of the strands and thought of Ellie. Would she have liked Jude? I wondered. And why was I even wondering that?

Colin still hadn’t texted or called me. Not a single word. From what I knew of his plans, he was probably in the mountains himself already. But the fact that he hadn’t reached out to me once since we last spoke was louder than any of the words he could have said.

Pushing him from my mind, I grabbed a baby wipe from the travel pack in my purse and rubbed my whole face with it. I hadn’t thought to wash my face when I’d brushed my teeth beside the car with a bottle of water—but I probably should have. I could smell the thin layer of smoke that coated my face and while it was a welcome smell, I imagined that it didn’t need to live on my face.