Crashed(book three)(161)

And I see him.

There is a single light on in a section of the grandstands and just in its fringes I see a lone shadow sitting in the darkness. My feet move without thinking and start climbing the stairs, one by one, to him. I can’t see his face in the darkness, but I know his eyes are on me, can feel the weight of his stare. I reach the row of bleachers he’s sitting on and I start walking toward him, anxious and calm all at the same time.

I try to think of what to say, but my thoughts are so jumbled with worry I can’t focus. But once I’m able to see his shadowed face, everything vanishes but heart wrenching, unconditional love.

His posture says it all. He sits leaned over, elbows on his knees, shoulders sagging, and face stained with tears. And his eyes—the ones always so intense but dancing with mischief or mirth—are filled with absolute despair. They lock onto mine, begging, pleading, asking so much of me, but I’m not sure how to respond.

When I finally reach him, his grief crashes into me like a tidal wave. Before I can say a single thing, he strangles out a sob the same time he reaches out and pulls me into him. He buries his face into the curve of my neck and just hangs on like I’m his lifeline, the only thing keeping him from slipping under and drowning. I wrap my arms around him and cling to him trying to give him what he needs.

Because there is nothing more unsettling than watching a strong, confident man come completely undone.

My mind races as his muffled sobs fill the silence and the trembling of his body ricochets through mine. What happened to reduce my arrogant rogue to this distraught man? He continues to hold on as I shush him and rock subtly back and forth—anything I can to quiet the storm that’s obviously raging inside of him.

“I’m here. I’m here.” It’s the only thing I can say to him as he releases all of the tumultuous emotion. And so I hold him in the dark, in a place where he made his dreams come true, hoping that just maybe he’s coming to terms—stopping and facing head on—the demons he usually uses this track to outrun.

Time passes. The sounds of traffic on the highway beyond the empty parking lot lessen and the moon moves slowly across the sky. And yet Colton still holds on, still draws whatever he needs from me while I revel in the fact that he still needs me when I thought he didn’t anymore. My mind jockeys back and forth from memories of a shower bench and him clinging to me then like he is now. Of what could figuratively knock this man of mine to his knees. So I just hold him now like I did then, my fingers playing in his hair for comfort until his tears slowly subside and the tension in his body abates.

I don’t know what to say, what to think, so I just say the first thing that comes to my mind. “Are you okay? Do you want to talk about it?”

He loosens his grip and presses the palms of his hands into my back, pulling me tighter against him, if that’s even possible, while drawing in a shaky breath. He’s scaring me, not in a bad way but in the sense that something huge had to have happened to draw this kind of reaction out of him.

He leans back and squeezes his eyes shut before I have a chance to look into them, scrubbing his hands over his face before blowing out a loud breath. He hangs his head back down and shakes it, and I hate that I can’t see his face right now.

“I did …” He blows out another breath and I reach out and place a hand on his knee. He just nods his head as if he’s talking to himself and then his body tenses up again before he speaks. “I did what you said I should do.”

What? I try to figure out what exactly I told him to do.

“I did what you said and now … now my head is just so f*cked up over it. I’m a goddamn mess.”