Just Friends(36)

“Woah.” Declan grabs my wrist. “Don’t put it in your mouth. There could be splinters.” His voice is calm but insistent.

“Come here.” He beckons me to the section where drinks are prepared. He pats the countertop, and I hop onto it. He disappears, retreating to the back room briefly before returning with a first-aid kit under his bicep, brow furrowed in consternation.

I look at the ceiling to avoid the tears forming. The cut doesn’t even hurt beyond the initial slight sting, but the grief I felt before is threatening its way up my throat again.

“Let me see it,” Declan demands.

I give him the hand that’s been cut. It looks worse than I originally thought. Not just a splinter. I must have grazed it over a nail or thin piece of wood sticking up. Declan touches my wrist so tenderly that I almost pull back. His touch is so light it tickles. I use the opportunity to stare at him, watching him assess my hand like it has the secret to his life’s problems written within it.

“It doesn’t look like it will need stitches. Do you have your updated tetanus shot?” He begins taking the antiseptic solution out of the first-aid kit with force.

“Um.” I bite down on my lip to stop my voice from quivering. “I think so?”

His brow furrows again, this time it looks more like frustration. Is he upset with me?

“This might sting,” he warns, before pouring the antiseptic onto my thumb.

“Agh!” I grab his shoulder with my free hand. My thumb digs in, and the new muscles I feel hold up beneath my grip. He feels familiar and entirely new. When did he get shoulders like… like that?

Declan’s mouth pulls up on one side, gathering into a grimace.

“Sorry,” I whisper, and retract my claw from his shoulder.

“Don’t be sorry,” he says. His voice dips so low it comes out raspy. He looks up at my face. Our eyes latch onto each other like a familiar, forgotten thing being recognized again. Like all the history we’ve been pretending to forget comes racing back to us, too ingrained in the fabric of who we are to ignore. My heart judders in my chest. After lingering for a moment too long, Declan averts his gaze back to my hand and finishes wrapping it in a bandage.

A tear falls onto my hand. Declan sees it and looks back up at me, confused.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

The tear is just as shocking to me. I made no conscious decision to cry, but it was undeniably the truth: a single tear was sliding down my hand. More tears begin to fall.

The grief I’ve been trying to outrun has finally caught up to me, and it’s mixing with the grief of Declan and me. Looking at me with recognition in his eyes ripped the safety pin out of my carefully contained emotional grenades. I hate this, I think with sudden force. I hate how much time I’ve dedicated to trying to get over him, as if it were my life’s work, only to stand next to him and feel a similar rush of emotions coming back after a few conversations and tender looks.

“I’m fine!” I say finally, wiping the tears off my face in a hurry. “It just stung a bit more than I was expecting.” I force out a laugh, but it comes out damp and unconvincing.

I jump off the countertop, ready to return to the wood and get busy again, entirely shocked by my own reaction. Crying in front of him was as unexpected and impossible as Lottie walking through the doors right now. I’m almost past Declan when he grabs my wrist, my back still facing him.

“Blair,” he breathes, sounding disappointed.

“I’m fine, really.” I yank my hand back like his touch stung, causing me to stumble a step. I straighten and stalk off, trying to move past this embarrassing moment. It’s the worst, trying to move past your awkward behavior with more awkward behavior. I feel his gaze on my back, unmoving from where he stands.

“Blair, hold on a sec—” he tries again.

“No, I’m fine. I just—” I wave my hand as I walk out the front door. “I just need a moment.”

Had Declan been less persistent, perhaps I could’ve gone back to helping in silence, but now, the stream of tears returns, and I break out into a run without thinking. Well, there was some thinking. The only motivation being to get away from the possibility of Declan seeing me like this. I rarely see myself like this.

The cool ocean breeze hits my face as I race through the back alley. The sun is setting, and most of the town’s tourists are tucked away into dimly lit restaurants or cozy inns. Luckily, not many people witness me fleeing the coffee shop in my half-crazed panic. I cannot cry in front of him. Not in front of anyone, but especially not him.

So, I keep running, not sure where I’m headed. At the bottom of a hill, the street becomes sand, spitting me onto the beach. This is perfect, I think. I just need a moment to cry here, and then I can go back inside, chalk it up to the cut on my hand.

I’ve run as close to the shoreline as possible without getting splashed. The roar of waves crashing onto sand sounds like the earth’s mutual lament. I sit down, wrapping my arms around my knees, and continue sobbing.

The waves continue to crash over themselves, rolling right up to my toes before pulling away. I’m grateful to have grown up by the water. The waves have witnessed my tears countless times, coddled me as I envied doting fathers teaching their daughters how to swim, and now, as I shed my first tears for the woman who helped raise me, body taken by the unforgiving wrath of cancer.