Page 4 of The Intimacy of Finding You

Most of the tables were still empty, aside from just a couple. I glanced over to the far right, about to turn my attention back behind the bar where a TV was streaming a hockey game. My gaze never made it there, though, because one specific head of hair and a side profile I swore I’d never be able to forget caught my attention. I stopped dead in my tracks, my eyes boring into his skin.

No, it couldn’t be. Could it? There was no way. Not after so long. Not after I’d spent so many nights worried fucking sick, blowing his phone up like a desperate ex—which, I guess, I was. I guess I was a desperate ex, though in the beginning, I hadn’t even known I was an ex.

But that jawline. The subtle shape of his ears and the unfamiliar beard I’d never seen him with… Either that was Tobias Weaver, or it was his identical fucking twin who didn’t exist.

Instead of racing, my heart started to slow. Each beat grew heavier with each second that passed, physically weighing my lungs down in my chest. It was like my ribs were going to crack under the pressure, impatiently waiting for the moment when it all got to be too much.

Chaos in my mind and body, silent and calm on the outside. A full-on silent disco was unfolding.

A decade’s worth of cold air spread through my bones, forcing my fingertips to turn numb and tingly. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I couldn’t stay sitting on the barstool, but I couldn’t make myself move. The part of my brain that sent signals from it to my body wasn’t working. It wasn’t making sense. Nothing was making sense except the fact that who I was staring at was one hundred percent Tobi, and I didn’t know what the fuck to do about that.

He looked the same, yet so different, even from the side. He looked older. He’d grown into his tall, lanky frame I’d grown to love when we were younger. His hair was shorter. He’d grown out his beard. There were lines on the sides of his eyes, indentations of a life lived without me seeping deep into his skin. He looked cold. He looked jaded. He looked… Fuck, he still looked like mine. My Tobi. My heart. The love of my life I never got to grow old with.

I didn’t get to earn my smile lines with him. I didn’t get to watch as we both started to grow gray hairs on our heads and in our beards. I didn’t get to watch him grow into the man he looked like today, and he didn’t get to watch me grow into mine.

Through the chaotic disco running rampant in my mind, I calmly stood from the barstool and started to walk toward his table. I made each step with intention, hoping and willing that whatever guardian angel was assigned to me was watching my back as I got closer and closer and closer. Closer to the past I’d lost and the future I’d never gotten to see.

I slid into the seat in front of him. “So,” my fucking voice cracked as tears threatened to fall. I cleared my throat and tried again, refusing to look into his eyes as I spoke to him for the first time in what felt like an eternity. “You come here often?”

chapter three

I looked up from the never-ending shot of vodka in my palm, its bottled home sitting right beside me. I knew that voice. Though it sounded deeper and raspier than I remembered, I fucking knew it without a doubt.

Callum Stanton, the boy whose heart I’d shattered to pieces when I’d run from everything and everyone I knew and loved. He’d asked me a question, but the alcohol was doing its job for once, and the wave of panic from seeing him had overridden every other instinct in me. All but one, and the one remaining, was telling me to run.

He looked good. He looked older. I was sure we both did, though I couldn’t remember how I looked when I was younger. I’d refused to acknowledge my body as mine so long ago, I hardly knew anything about it anymore.

The hazel beauty in his eyes had turned glossy—probably years’ worth of tears struggling with the idea of not letting go. Why wasn’t he letting them go? Just let them go, Callum. Let them fall. Let me see the fucking pain I’ve put you through for all this time.

I looked back down at the glass on the table. “No. I don’t come to this side of town.”

He hummed and shuffled in his seat. Was he uncomfortable, or was he scared about facing his monster? “Where have you been, then?”

“Here. There. Everywhere. I’ve been on the west side for, like, two years, I think.”

“What about the other eight?”

My eyes shot up, staring directly into his. I could feel it. I could feel everything. His anger, his resentment, his hatred for me. “Here. There. Everywhere, like I just told you.”

“Hm. I hate how vague you’re being.”

“What, do you want my three last known street addresses? I don’t understand why you’re so desperate to know.”

His eyebrows pulled down as he stared at me, his lips set in a tight line. “Why I’m so desperate to know? Gee, I don’t know, Tobi. Maybe it’s because it’s been ten fucking years since you ghosted me and everyone else? I thought we were good. I thought we had a good thing going.”

“I’m here now, aren’t I? Isn’t that all that matters?”

“No. That isn’t all that matters. What matters is that I can feel my heart fucking breaking while I’m sitting here staring at a stranger who I used to love. Who I still love. You aren’t supposed to be a stranger, Tobes. You were supposed to be my forever.”

“Oh.”

“Oh? Fucking oh?” His breath caught in his throat. His eyes glazed over, tears washing the gorgeous green and brown away from his irises. I missed them already. “That’s all you have to say?”

No, it’s not all I have to say, but I can’t say everything I want to say. I can’t because I am your boogeyman. I am your monster. I am your demon and destroyer. I am nothing but bad luck on a good day and the path of devastation they talk about in the Bible.

I’d missed him. God, how I had missed him. I missed the solitary nights we’d spent together, lying in his bed with a full five inches of space in between us because if we were any closer, I would’ve gone into a panic. I missed the gentle kisses and the swift brushes of his fingertips atop my skin when I could handle it. I missed the way he was never angry with me when I couldn’t. I missed his laugh. I missed how loud and melodic it sounded in the air, a never-swift, never-shy cackle against the birds that chirped outside the windows. We never did more than kiss. We’d never cuddled more than ten minutes at a time. But we were working up to it—working up to the idea that I could differentiate his touch from all the ones who’d ruined me.

Of course, that wasn’t all I wanted to say. It was just all I thought I deserved to say. All I brought was the cycle of grief and devastation that followed me, and Callum was too precious, too important, and too valuable to ruin with the touch of my decay.