Eternal (Eternal series) (31 page)

She could feel his frustration and his longing being released.  It was as if everything in their lives had led up to this point.  Everything was finally right with the world. 

The tip of his tongue gently caressed her bottom lip and then he pressed his lips fully against hers again. 

To Emma's surprise, he met no resistance.  She was leaning into him and melting around him, their lips molding together perfectly. 

Destry's mouth was so soft and moving with hers in perfect harmony. Her arms came up, wrapping around his neck, pulling him in.  She ran her fingers through his hair.  She couldn't get close enough to him.  The strange electrical current that had always accompanied his touch coursed through them, leaping out of his body and pouring into hers.  She could feel it flowing through every part of her, leaving nothing untouched.  It burned like fire as it went, changing her, connecting her to him, melding them together deep inside. 

Everything around her swirled and blurred together until there was nothing left but him and her.  With total confusion, and without permission from her brain, she realized—she was kissing him back...and she liked it!  She couldn’t make any sense of it, this was wrong.

Emma's whole life flashed before her eyes.  Nothing else mattered in that moment, except for him and her being together.  She was sinking into a warm ocean of bliss, and she didn’t want to stop, didn't want to come up for air.  He tasted too sweet, too perfect.

Suddenly, a horrible, crushing, feeling came over Emma.  She felt like there were a million pairs of eyes watching them, all of them seeing what she was doing, judging her for it.  It was probably just her own guilt; she wasn’t supposed to like Destry this way.  She'd already found her forever with Micah, right? 

The memory of Micah hit her hard as she thought his name, shoving her back into reality.  She had to stop this.  It wasn’t supposed to be happening.

“N... n…no,” Emma managed to mumble as she struggled to disentangle herself from Destry, pushing away from his soft, warm lips.  His hands were still gently grasping her face. She reached up and tugged them away.  “I can’t…no…I can’t do this..,” she stammered.

She was having trouble forming the words.  They were all jumbled around in her head, and she couldn’t put them together in any way that made sense.  The confused look on Destry's face stabbed at her heart, going in deep.  She was hurting him. 

This is exactly what she'd been trying to avoid, but had known was coming. 

He didn’t understand. 

How could she make Destry understand when she didn’t understand any of this herself? 

What was she doing?  How had it gotten this far without her stopping it?  Emma didn’t want this; didn’t want to hurt him, had never wanted that.  And yet, here she was, staring into Destry's beautiful eyes, knowing all too well the horrible pain she was inflicting.  She knew it because it was her pain too.

She
loved
him.

Emma had never allowed herself to think it before this moment.  It was like a hard slap in the face...it hurt.  The truth of it ripped at the edges of her heart.  She felt a flood of tears pressing against the edges of her wide eyes.  Emma held them back with as much force as she could muster.

“I want to go home,” she demanded.

Even as she said it though, she knew it was a lie.  What she really wanted was to stay here, with Destry, so close that she could feel the heat of his body coming off of him and hitting against her in waves, so close that every time he brushed up against her, her skin tingled. 

She wanted to feel his hands on her face as he kissed her.  Her soul ached to stay right where she was, but she knew she couldn't. 

She put her hands up to the sides of her face, pressing her fingers into her temples, creating a makeshift shield between her own guilt and the millions of invisible eyes that she felt burning her.

“But, Emma….,” Destry's face was wild with a mixture of emotions, “everything's fine, we didn’t do anything wrong.”

“
I did,” Emma's voice was shaking from holding back the sobs that wanted to break free.

“
No, it’s okay Emma, I’m sorry I kissed you…I should have asked…”

“
I don’t think of you that way,” Emma said, closing her eyes tightly, trying to make everything go away, “I can’t.”

“
Why not?”

“
Because I can’t,” Emma insisted, refusing to look at Destry.

“
You can Emma, and I think you do, you just won’t admit it to yourself.”

“
You don’t know anything, you can’t tell me how I feel,” she said coldly.  “You have no idea what I’m going through!”

“
I would if you would tell me...why are you being like this?”

“
Because, I love someone else!”  The words came out in a rush, and they felt like poison through her teeth.  Emma’s heart was beating wildly behind her ears, making her crazy. She just wanted all of this to stop.

“
I don’t believe you,” Destry said quietly as he stared out the window, his mouth forming a tight line across his face.

“
I need you to take me home please, if you won't take me I'll get out and walk,” Emma demanded, still holding her hands up to cover the sides of her face.  The pounding was getting louder.

She saw Destry's face fall as he turned to look at her, saw the look of defeat crushing him, like he'd just taken a hard punch to the gut. 

Emma wanted to pull him close, and tell him that she was an idiot, that this was all her fault and that it was all going to be okay for him, but she couldn’t, and it was killing her. 

Destry turned away from her mutely, started the truck and quickly shifted it into gear.  He spun it around toward home and Emma noticed, out of the corner of her eye, the deer running into the trees.

Why did she have to ruin everything good?  It wasn’t fair that this was happening to Destry.  He was a good person, and Emma believed the things he'd told her tonight.  She knew they had a connection neither one of them could explain. 

Emma knew Destry was upset, and probably angry with her; she couldn’t blame him for that.  She deserved his anger; she deserved his hatred, and so much more.

It was hard to be this close to him, and not be able to touch him.  Emma clasped her hands tightly together in frustration, she wanted to scream but she held it in, biting her lip, and just stared at the floor the entire ride home. 

It was the longest ride she’d ever experienced.  The silence was so heavy that her ears were humming from it.  Every once in a while, she would see Destry glance at her from the corner of his eye, he didn’t say anything.

When they finally stopped in front of Emma's house, Destry turned toward her again.  She was trapped unless she was willing to slide all the way across the truck seat, and make a spectacle of herself trying to escape out the passenger door.  She decided to be civil, and let him say whatever he needed to say.  She owed him that much at least.

Destry just looked at her for a few minutes.  Emma stared numbly out the window, her hands balled up at her sides.  Why didn't he just hurry up and get this over with already?  She didn't want to sit here with him any longer.  She was having a hard time holding strong, she wanted so badly to take back all the things she'd said, to reach over and stroke his face, to kiss him again.

"Emma, look at me," Destry said gently.

Emma slowly raised her eyes up to look at him; she had to force herself to do it, too afraid of what she might find there.  Finally her eyes met his unwillingly and her heart sank even deeper into the black abyss that already held it. 

His eyes were so soft, so full of light.  It was the way she'd always wanted a boy to look at her, but now it was making her insane.  Because Destry shouldn't be looking at her like that, shouldn't have these feelings for her, couldn't have these feelings, because she couldn't return his affection, no matter how much she wished she could. 

“
Tell me what I did wrong Emma, please,” he begged.  His face was pained and twisted. He looked as if he were being crushed by an enormous weight.  “Was it all that crazy stuff I said about us?  I wish I could take it back, but I can’t, because it’s the truth…well for me anyway.  I‘m sorry if I scared you, I won‘t bring it up again, I swear.”

“
No, it’s not that, I just can’t do this…”

“
Why not?  What’s holding you back?”  The look on Destry's face told Emma that he was confused, and desperate for some explanation of her unexpected reaction.

“
I can’t be with you Destry, I’m supposed to be with someone else,” Emma blurted out.  “You don’t just walk away from an angel….,” the tears had broken free. 

Emma couldn’t talk, she could hardly breathe.  Destry's eyebrows furrowed together in confusion, but he reached over and put his hand on Emma's knee, trying to comfort her anyway.  She pushed it off. 

“Please let me out,” she said between sobs.

“
Are you sure you’re okay?”  He asked tenderly, his voice barely audible. 

She nodded, not trusting herself to say anything.  She wanted to assure him that she was fine, but inside she knew she wasn't and she didn't know if she ever would be again. 

What really worried her was whether or not he would ever be fine.  How badly was she hurting him?  Emma knew that hearts that have been broken are never quite the same, even after they've healed. 

Destry opened the truck door and reluctantly climbed out.  Emma pushed past him avoiding his eyes as she got down out of the truck and headed straight for the house.  “I’m sorry Emma,” he called after her.  “I love you.”

Destry's words struck Emma solidly between the shoulder blades like a spear, causing her to hunch over in pain.  She stopped her march and turned to face him. 

“
I know,” she said simply.  She turned and started walking again, bypassing the front door, heading around the back of the house. 

Destry didn’t try to follow her.  She heard his truck pull away and she started to cry again.  She didn’t want him to be gone.

Emma tiptoed through the back door closing it silently behind her and headed straight to her room where she crumpled onto her bed and cried herself to sleep.



Destry drove away from Emma's house in shock.  What had just happened?  All he'd done was kiss her for like five seconds and she'd gone totally ballistic, muttering some nonsense about angels and loving someone else.

The kiss had been everything he'd imagined and more.  It was right somehow, for him anyway, but obviously not for her. 

Why did this matter so much anyway?  Destry had always had a plan for his life, a purpose.  Of course it included finding a wife and having a family someday, but not all of this drama.  This was too much. 

"I should have never said anything about all that 'meant-to-be-together' crap!" Destry scolded himself in the dark cab of the truck. 

He couldn't make himself stop thinking about the kiss.  He still had the taste of her on his lips.  He wiped his arm across his mouth. 

He didn't know where he was even going; not home, he had no desire to go there.  No one was home.  He was just driving aimlessly, trying to leave those thoughts and memories behind him, all the while not noticing where he was headed. 

After a few minutes he snapped out of his daze and realized that he was close to the same meadow where he'd just been with Emma.  He'd gone in a big circle.  He didn't want to be there, didn't want to be anywhere that reminded him of her. 

It wasn't the rejection that was upsetting to him, it was the feeling that he was right and Emma couldn't see it.  She was so stubborn.  Why couldn't she see that this was how things were supposed to be? 

Destry didn't know why that was; just that he couldn't fight it anymore.  He'd tried to fight it in the beginning and it had devastated him, drained him of everything that made life worth living.

It was beyond frustrating.  Emma didn't even want to try to see what he could see so clearly.  Why did he have these overpowering feelings if there was no way they were ever going to be returned? 

Destry knew that for his own sanity he needed to let it go—to let her go—and move on with his life in a completely different direction. 

He should go back to his previous plan of working hard, making a good income, finding a place of his own and making it a home.  More than anything else Destry realized that's what he wanted was somewhere he could call home, somewhere to lay down roots. 

The loss of his mother, and moving from the only home he'd ever known clear across the country, had left an emptiness in him that he needed to fill.

That was going to be his focus from this point on, he decided, no more chasing girls around who obviously didn't want to be caught; not by him anyway.  He was going to create a safe place for himself—a place that would be a home. 

Destry turned his truck around and sped away from this place that was a painful reminder of what he had just gone through.  He didn't want to feel this way ever again. 

He needed a girl that was safe, one that wanted him.  It didn't matter what she looked like or what her name was, all that mattered was that she would love him in return.  There were a lot of girls in this town that were more than willing to date him.  It was time he started weighing other options.