Follow the River

The night before everything crumbled around us, leaving us in shambles, trying in vain to pick up the pieces.

“One more,” a voice breaks through my thinking, finally pulling me from the haze that has clouded my mind.

My triceps and deltoids are on fire as well as my pecs when I press the bar for the final rep, loading it back onto the rack. I shake out my arms, shooting up on the bench into a sitting position and glance over at Garrett. As quarterback, I’m not supposed to bench press, which Garrett knows full and well. Thankfully he keeps his trap shut though, since right now, I need the burn it brings.

Pain cancels out pain, you can only feel one form of it at a time, and if I can make my body ache enough, maybe it will ease the one in my heart after all the bullshit with Rain.

That’s exactly what it is too. A bunch of fucking bullshit.

Every single word out of his goddamn mouth was a goddamn lie, I’m almost positive. I’d be willing to bet my life on it.

The real question is...why?

Why did he lie? Why is he trying to push me away? Why is he hiding things from me? Why didn’t he tell me Senator Anders was his stepfather?

Why? Why? Why?

All these damn questions have been searing in the back of my mind since I woke up this morning, with a headache to last the ages, and I had a chance to comprehend everything he said. No matter how many times I replay the conversation in my brain, I come up with the same conclusion.

It doesn’t make sense.

Which, in all honesty, isn’t much of a conclusion at all. But, because it doesn’t make sense, I might be able to get some answers, so long as Rain will actually speak to me once I manage to track his ass down.

I tried calling him this morning, when I was sober, thank fuck, but he didn’t answer. To be expected, since we were screaming at each other not even twelve hours prior. I could keep calling, hoping he will eventually pick up. Except he would probably end up blocking my number, if he hasn’t already.

Maybe go to the registrar's office and get a copy of his schedule and switch into one of his classes, so he has to see me every day? No, that’s a little much.

There’s always the option of staking out his apartment like a damn stalker and waiting to ambush him into a conversation.

Fuck me. I’m not proud of the fact that I’m seriously debating the last one, but clearly I’m getting desperate. It hasn’t even been a full twenty-four hours since our…fight? Break up? Falling out?

Whatthefuckever.

The point is, I’m already going half insane and probably took ten years off the life of my liver last night alone. There’s no way I can go through the rest of my damn life feeling the loss of him, knowing there were all these unanswered questions that might give me some form of closure.

I love him enough to let him go, if that’s what has to happen. But I at least deserve a conversation not involving jabs and insults shot out like bullets aimed to kill.

“Ain’t that Grady? I thought he lifted at a different time during the off season?” Garrett asks randomly, effectively pulling me from my newly formed stalkerish tendencies. I glance up at him to find him pointing out the large glass window separating the weight room from the hallway to Coach’s office, the locker rooms, and other parts of the team’s facilities.

Rolling my eyes, I attempt to refocus my thoughts when his words finally register.

Grady.

My head whips around, and my heart practically leaps out of my chest because holy shit God really does exist and performs miracles because Garrett is right. That’s most definitely Rain walking down the hall, heading toward the exit. I’d recognize that ass anywhere.

Not wanting to waste a moment, I jump to my feet and bolt for the door, grabbing my duffle along the way. I glance at Garrett over my shoulder, calling out to him. “I need to talk to Grady for a minute, let’s pick this up tomorrow!”

I don’t even bother waiting for a response from the freshman, jogging down the corridor in the direction the man—who I’m positive is the love of my life—just disappeared down.

I run after him, surely looking like a lunatic, but when I burst through the doors leading to the quad, I don’t see him right away.

Fuck, did I lose him?

I almost laugh at the irony of that thought, for more than one reason. Because, yeah, I did fucking lose him. I lost his overwhelming presence, his intoxicating laughter, his dirty smirk and flirtatious smiles. I lost all of him. Every fucking piece.

But in reality, I know that isn’t right, because you can’t lose something that was never truly yours to begin with.

Spi

My palm slams against my driver’s side door as I dig with my other in my duffle frantically looking for my keys. A flash of orange flies through my peripheral and I instantly recognize it as Rain’s Jeep Wrangler.

Thank God for his ostentatious colored vehicle.

I watch as he peels out of the parking lot and down the street away from campus. Clutching my keys in my fist, I scramble into the driver’s seat, closing myself inside the car, starting the engine and throwing the Range Rover into reverse.

It doesn’t take long to catch up to Rain’s vehicle as he weaves his way through the busy traffic of Boulder on a weekday afternoon. I follow a few car lengths behind him, making sure I stay close enough to always beat a light if needed, but far enough away he wouldn’t be able to recognize me through his rearview mirror.

It could be any Rover on the streets of Boulder, I tell myself, seeing as they aren’t all that uncommon in the area. He doesn’t know you’re tailing him like a fucking creep.

Huh. Well, I guess I’m really not above stalking after all.

My fingers blanche against the wheel, my grip is that tight, as I continue to trail behind Rain, “in the dark” by Bring Me The Horizon filling the silence of the car. Even as he branches off onto less busy streets, heading in the direction of the Boulder Municipal Airport, I still feel my body on edge.

Why is he going to the airport?

Sweat breaks out on my forehead, or maybe it was already there from chasing after him, as we pass through a gate with ease leading to the tarmac.

He had to have noticed my car by now and realized I’m following him. Ours are the only two vehicles entering the airport, from the same place, at the same time.

He has to know, right?

I slow to a crawl, watching as Rain continues down the tarmac, passing multiple hangers before pulling to a stop a few yards from with what looks to be a private jet sitting idle just past the parking spots.

As discreetly as possible, I slip my car into a parking spot at the hanger directly next to the one Rain is at, about a hundred yards away.

A football field. That’s what is separating me from the love of my life, the man I want to fucking fight for, right now.