by Molly E. Lee
My gut twisted at the sight of tears brimming in her eyes. I took a deep breath, lowering my tone. “You can’t do it.” A rock lodged in my throat after I said the words. The love of my life had been offered her dream job, and I was denying her the choice to take it. Because of my own lack of knowledge, or my need to rush into the show like I had. I’d royally fucked things up for her.
“Excuse me?”
I shrugged, shifting to anger, which was easier to deal with than the guilt eating away at me. “I don’t understand why I’m not enough for you.”
She gasped. “You aren’t serious.”
“I don’t know, Blake. We’ve been off ever since you got the call about that asshole. I don’t know where your head is at anymore.”
She swiped at the tears underneath her eyes. “You mean we’ve been off ever since I had to take a trip down Dash-Groupie Lane.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Neither is blaming it all on the Justin mess.”
“You actually thought I had cheated on you! How do you think that makes me feel?”
“I apologized for that! I told you it was about me, not you.”
“Right, and that makes it okay that you think I would be no better than the asshole you were with for years.”
She glared at me through her tears, and I had a feeling if she was capable she would’ve crossed the room and punched me. “I would never think you were anything like him, Dash. I told you. It was me. I have problems. You are perfect. It’s me whose fucked up in the head.”
“I’m not perfect. And you’re not fucked up.” I crossed my arms over my chest, shaking my head.
She opened her mouth and shut it a few times. “How did we get here?”
“You. Deciding to take a job without even talking to me.”
She fisted the blankets around her. “I never said I was going to take it! I was thinking it over. I would’ve talked to you about it when I’d had a second to weigh my options.”
I dropped my gaze to the floor, shifting my weight. “You don’t have options. You can’t do both.”
“Are you saying you’d kick me off the team if I took this job?”
I bit my lip. “No. The network would.”
“What?”
I nodded. “Yeah. It’s a clause in our contract. Non-compete. You take this job, they own everything you shot while on the alley and you aren’t allowed with us on chases anymore.”
Her mouth dropped open for the second time that night. “Why didn’t I know that?”
“I found out after we’d already signed. It was well hidden.”
“How long have you known?”
“A while.”
“And you didn’t tell me because?”
I pressed my palms into my eyes before dropping my hands. “I honestly didn’t think you’d even entertain the idea of leaving us before the season ended!”
“Wow,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting them to call. I didn’t cause this. But you . . . you knew this could happen and you didn’t tell me!”
“Yeah.” I shrugged. “How’s that for perfect?”
Tears fell, each one ripping up my insides. I moved to go to her, but she held up her hand to stop me.
“For years, years I was in the dark about so many things, Dash.” She sniffed. “I never thought for a second you would lie to me.”
“I didn’t—”
“No, you’re right.” She shook her head. “Though, I never thought to ask you whether I’d need permission to entertain the idea of taking my dream job.”
I moved toward her, an apology on the tip of my tongue, but she stopped me once again. “Please, Blake.”
“I can’t,” she said, sucking in a sharp breath, her eyes squinting from the pain. “I can’t move, or I would leave.”
A sharp piercing sensation stung my chest. “You would?”
“I can’t fight with you, Dash. I’m already holding back tears I’m not supposed to be shedding right now. You putting this kind of ultimatum on me?”
Shit. She thought this was an ultimatum. One like that asshole used to keep her in line. “This isn’t like what he did.”
“Not as severe, no. But you’re asking me to choose you or choose my dream job.”
“It’s not up to me.”
“Isn’t it?” She pinned me with her teary gaze, and I grabbed at my chest. “You’re their star. You could demand anything. But you didn’t. Instead you decided to brush it under the rug and hope we’d never find out. Why do you think you did that?”
“Because I want you to ride shotgun next to me? Because I want you on my team? Because I love you and want us to do what we love together? How does that make me the bad guy?”
“It doesn’t.” She licked her lips, breathing slowly. “But I shouldn’t have to choose. I should be able to have both. Or at least have an open conversation about both. Not . . . this.”
“What do you want me to do?” I asked, barely a whisper as each of her words fucking shredded me.
“Right now?” She clenched her eyes shut, tears rolling down her cheeks. “I want you to leave.”
“Blake,” I begged.
“If you stay, we’ll just go around in circles. I’ve done it before, and I won’t do it again. I will not be forced into anything. Ever. Again.”
“I wasn’t . . .”
“Please. I need time. I wasn’t expecting any of this.”
All the air left my lungs in a rush as I shoved my hands in my pockets. The ring burned in my hand, but now I didn’t even know if I’d ever be able to show it to her. Her trust was already hard as hell to earn, and I’d broken it in ways I hadn’t even realized. I let go of the ring and used that hand to kiss my fingers in a goodbye gesture to her since she wouldn’t let me near her.
“Neither was I,” I whispered and turned around.
As I walked down the stairs, I could hear her crying and each sob broke something inside me. This whole time I’d been trying to show her just how unlike him I was, and yet, I’d caused her this kind of pain. My heart ached to rush back in and make her forget everything that had happened, but I knew she didn’t need that, and it would be selfish of me to try and insta-fix this because of my own guilt.
We’d come full circle, back to the very beginning of our relationship. To the moment where she was asking for time and I was walking away from her, feeling utterly lost.
Dash
THE SUN HADN’T fully risen yet, leaving the sky a pale grayish blue. I’d been awake before everyone else because I hadn’t slept well in over a week. The early morning dawn coated the dry, beige grass before me, making the pasture I’d sought out look like it had been leached of all its color.
A decent wall cloud broke the pale sky in half, blotting pieces of it out with pitch black. I sat alone on the bed of my truck, having ordered Daniel and Paul to chase another cell farther south in Texas, and I listened to the storm. The scene, with its the hauntingly rhythmic sounds of thunder and cracks of lightning, the sharp twinge of a wind gust before it settled again, made me feel like I had fallen into a Tim Burton movie.
Maybe I was sleep deprived.
Maybe I couldn’t believe I was back here—not here in the panhandle of Texas, but here in the sense that once again I was chasing and Blake wasn’t. Once again I was giving her the time she needed, agonizing over where her heart would end up.
Though, the last time this had happened, I had only gotten a taste of the future with her. Now . . . now I knew exactly how wonderful my life could be, if she’d just let go of her past, her doubts, and become mine in the fullest sense of the word.
“She has to forgive me of the rest, right?” I asked the gathering storm as if the subtle rotation could churn out an answer that would put my heart at ease, instead of plague me every second of every day I didn’t talk to her.
It’d been three weeks, and she hadn’t tried to call or text or anything. If her mother hadn’t been sending me updates on her healing process, I would
’ve broken down and called just to check on her. According to Ms. Caster, she was physically doing incredibly well, but mentally she was battling with herself. At least I still had her mom on my side. Why could she forgive me for what I kept from her and Blake couldn’t?
Of course, her mother hadn’t been emotionally abused for eight years and given ultimatums that forced her every decision like Justin had done to Blake. His threats on his own life every time she tried to break free or do anything for herself, had ruled and influenced every decision she’d made in her life before she finally left him for good.
“Fuck,” I said, sighing. That much was true but had I known I was going to make her feel like she was living in the past . . .
If I’d known that she would think that, I would’ve told her about the contract the second I’d found out.
Though, I’d never know if that was entirely true, as I hadn’t divulged Justin’s piece of bullshit I’d kept from her. My insides stung like I’d swallowed broken glass, but I couldn’t bring myself to pick up a phone and tell her all about that one. Even knowing how upset she was with me about keeping her in the dark about the show. Her past was already seeping into the present too much, elaborating on more Justin crap would only add another warrior to the battle she was having, and I wouldn’t do that to her.
Of course, I had thought she’d have figured out what she wanted by now. Could the choice really be that difficult for her? Spend the rest of the season with me and the show—chasing, doing what we loved—or be separated from me for months at a time to report forecasts on the local news? Blake was wild and fierce; she belonged in the field, not cooped up in some network studio. Not that I hadn’t thought about all the benefits if she did take the position—she’d be much safer, for one. And she’d be able to calculate the incoming data quicker than anyone they had on staff, that I was sure. She’d finally be fulfilling a long-standing dream she’d had for herself.
But she would miss out on all the action, which I knew for a fact she thrived on. Chasing storms is what brought her out of her shell in the first place, ignited the woman inside of her she had lost for so long. How could she give that up? How could she give up the chance to be with me, on my team, working together to study the storms that fueled the fire in our blood?
A shot of adrenaline coursed through my veins as the developing funnel snaked into a tornado that slowly reached for the ground beneath it.
“About time,” I said, hopping off my truck and aiming the camera in my hands toward the spindly beast.
Wisps from the wall cloud surrounding the tornado weakly stretched toward it but didn’t quite reach. The white-gray monster remained a tiny one but still beautiful in its powerful suction on the earth below it. A soft murmur whirred as opposed to the freight trains we sometimes heard from bigger beasts, but it comforted my racing mind, quieting it until there was only me and the tornado.
It weaved back and forth, more dance than thrash, and I breathed deeply, inhaling the smell of rain in the sky, and the disturbed earth not five hundred yards away from me.
Everything around me—from the rolling tan grass of the pasture, the spare tree that was bare of any life, the dark contrast between the wall cloud and the sky fighting to raise the sun—grounded me in a way nothing else was capable of doing.
Every doubt, worry, or problem I’d been chewing on melted away into the great insignificance that was trivial issues. In the presence of beauties like this, when I could feel the magnetic pull the storm created and still wonder how such a terrible monster could be so beautiful, I felt small and humbled. Everything else in the world shrunk in scale when I stared down a tornado, and though my breath caught as the funnel shifted course, drawing closer as if it wanted to embrace me rather than wipe me off the planet, I was calm.
The kind of crazy-calm paired with an insatiable hunger that no one could understand unless it was in them, too. Blake had this in her. She was my match, my mirror, my world.
A sharp twist made the dirt around the tornado’s base shoot upward, reclaiming my attention like it had known I was slipping dangerously close to focusing on anything other than what was before me. I lowered my camera and retook my seat on the bed of my truck. Shutting off the camera, I set it next to me, content to watch the tiny tornado that was already starting to weaken.
As quickly as it had developed, it was losing steam. The once-rapid churns stalled and sputtered like a fish out of water gasping for breath. With each piece of broken cloud that flaked off the tornado, a piece of my pain came back, the numbing effect of the storm lost its strength in sync with its hold on the earth.
Finally, it dissipated completely, breaking up the wall cloud from which it had come. I swear the sky sighed in relief as I said goodbye to the tornado and it said hello to the sun.
I made no motions to move, not adopting the on to the next mentality I usually did, because I wanted to remain in a place that quieted my mind. I lay back in my truck bed and watched the sunrise, thankful the storm had decided not to rain on me today. That was a small kindness I hadn’t expected. The adrenaline slowly ebbed out of me, and my eyelids grew heavy as the sun’s rays beamed down and soaked into my skin.
My cell phone ringing was the only indication that I’d fallen asleep. I jerked upright, my back screaming in protest as I swiped my cell.
“Yeah?” I asked a bit gruffly.
“Where are you?” Daniel asked, his voice hyper to the nth degree.
“Just outside of Goodnight, Texas,” I said, rubbing my eyes in an attempt to relieve them of the graininess. I held the phone away from my ear, checking the time. Shit, I’d passed out for two hours. That’s what I got for barely sleeping the past few weeks. “Why?”
“Catch anything?”
“Not really. An EF-1. What’s up?” I smacked the side of my face, desperate for a cup of coffee.
“I’m pulling you off the panhandle.”
“And sending me where?”
“You’re going home.”
I tilted my head. “Something I’m missing?”
“A massive cell is developing and is due to hit in three days.”
“Where?”
“Just outside Oklahoma City. This is hitting way too close to home for you to not cover it. You’re Dash Lexington, storm chaser. And these people love you.”
“You sound insane.” A weight sat on my chest with the idea of a huge cell dropping so close to home. Damn straight I wouldn’t miss it for anything on the alley—how had I missed the signs? Too busy with your head up your ass, probably.
“I have to paint a picture. You’re the star. I’m playing up that angle now that . . .”
His words jarred my chest, and I didn’t force him to finish. Blake had said I was their star, that I should’ve made different demands. I didn’t see it that way. I didn’t feel like I had any kind of power when it came to them.
“Anyway,” Daniel continued, stumbling over his own voice, “I’ve already told the boys. Now get your ass back home.”
“What about Blake?” I asked despite knowing in all reality she shouldn’t chase. She’d healed well, according to her mother, but that didn’t mean I wanted to risk her re-injuring herself. But, this was home. She’d want to be there.
“I didn’t think she’d be ready to chase yet,” Daniel answered.
“Is that the only reason you didn’t factor her into this chase?”
“I hate that she was injured on the job, Dash. Of course we wanted her on the show for longer. You two have chemistry that would’ve had housewives drooling over every episode, regardless of whether you’d caught a storm or not. We have to up the stakes, and a hometown chase is perfection. Filling in her loss—not just with the romance angle but with her ability to see things even you don’t . . . I didn’t realize it would be so hard until I chased with her alone.”
“So you recognize her value to my team,” I cut him off, not wanting to hear another word about the morning she’d gone off on her own and gott
en hurt. The day—or rather the night before—had set off a chain of events that led me right back to the starting point and I didn’t know how to find my way back to where we’d been.
“I do,” he said. “And we’ll be happy to have her back once she’s fully healed. Now, can we talk about this storm?”
She may not come back. The notion stabbed me again, the pain sharp and hot and draining. Chasing with her was like nothing else in the world—right up there with making love to her—and the idea that she could give it up . . . it sliced me inside.
“I’ll leave now.” Blake needed time, and I needed to attempt to outrun my thoughts, but I couldn’t say no to a cell near our home—even if I did feel like I’d hit rewind, and I was that best friend pining over the girl who had stolen his heart without him knowing again.
“Perfect. We’ll powwow when you get here.”
“Got it.” I hung up and jumped off the truck, happy to have orders for once. I closed the bed and sank behind the wheel. I glanced in the rearview, the crystal-blue sky filling it up. The difference from a couple hours ago was huge, but I left the sunny scene behind me, smacking my face to wake up again, and hitting the gas.
A new chase was exactly what I needed. A new storm to fill my mind with thoughts other than how the love of my life hadn’t made up her mind yet on whether she wanted to be by my side or separate herself from everything I thought we both wanted.
Fuck my life.
Blake
IT HAD BEEN four weeks since the tractor tire had used me for target practice. And three since Dash walked out his own door, leaving me in tears to pick up pieces of myself I never thought I’d see again.
I hadn’t called him. I was still furious with him for making me feel like I was that trapped girl again, the one who let a man dictate everything in her life with threats and ultimatums. Dash’s wasn’t entirely in his control, and it wasn’t nearly as severe, but the fact that he’d even put me in that position again stung. He should’ve known better. And the look of shock on his face when I’d even broached the idea of taking the meteorologist position hurt me worse. Because I could see the pain in his eyes, the sense of betrayal at the thought that I didn’t want to chase with him.