Bowen
I closed my eyes and white-knuckled the steering wheel. My lungs burned as that day came back to me in a rush.
Though it wasn’t like it had ever truly left me.
Waking up with flames licking my skin.
People crying and begging for help.
The bodies torn apart and strewn across the runway.
Dropping to my knees when I could barely breathe, choking and gagging on smoke.
Yelling her name until it felt like I’d swallowed razor blades.
Searching, panic-stricken and feral from the overdose of adrenaline coursing through my veins.
When I’d finally found her at the bottom of a pile of debris, she was bloodied and broken, unlike anything I’d ever seen before. This coming from a man who’d had to revive her lifeless body three different times before that day.
But this was worse, because unlike her suicide attempts, I had no fucking idea what was wrong with her.
I’d won that day.
I’d saved the woman I loved.
But I was no hero—or else one hundred and fifty-two people wouldn’t have died.
The passenger-side door suddenly opened, and I snapped back into the present.
Remi climbed inside. “Oh my God, Bowen. I am so sorry. Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I replied, but I was about as convincing as a boy with a bat claiming he didn’t know how the window had broken.
Her hand landed on my forearm. “I am so sorry. You have to know it was just as much a surprise to me as it was to you. I would never in a million years put you in a position like that.”
I hit the ignition and tried to pack it all down. “It’s fine.”
“Bowen,” she started, but I couldn’t listen to her apologize again.
I wasn’t mad at her. I wasn’t really even mad at Katherine.
I just felt like a fucking fraud.
Therefore, my tone was far harsher than I intended—and she didn’t deserve it—when I snapped, “Really, it’s fine. Let it go.”
I figured she’d cop an attitude. At the very least, insist on talking it out.
But much to my surprise, she was quiet the rest of the drive home.
And even more to my surprise, she was quiet when we got back to my place too. She touched me every chance she got, but she didn’t have much to say when we ordered a pizza for dinner. Nor did she talk my ear off when we sat outside on the swing, watching mindless TV for well over an hour with her head in my lap. She wasn’t mad or distant. She was just…quiet.
Which, with Remi, was unnerving.
When we crawled into bed that night, not bothering to even dress after toweling dry from our silent shower, she cuddled into my side, and I couldn’t take it anymore.
“I miss you,” I whispered, kissing her on the top of her head.
She tipped her head back, resting her cheek on my pec. “I didn’t go anywhere.”
I brushed the hair off the side of her face. “Yeah, you did. And I asked for it after that whole fiasco at the mixer. But you’ve been quiet all night and my ears don’t know what to do without you talking them off. Feels like they’re squinting to hear from you.”
She smiled. “You needed to work through your thoughts. And I want to be the one who holds space for you. Support you the way you need me to, not the way I necessarily want to.”
Her kindness blew me away, and I teased my fingers up and down her side. “I don’t need space now. I just need you.”
“And I need you too, but after the pain I saw on your face today…” She shook her head. “Look, you asked me to let it go earlier and I did, but you’re the one who’s still packing whatever it is around. It’s not mine to let go.”
If I’d ever experienced a paradox, it was right then. My body was wrought with shame and at the same time consumed with my adoration for the woman in my bed. I let out a sigh. Ultimately, she was right. And having her beside me was the best kind of distraction.
“Consider it gone, babe.” I stretched my back and rocked into her center, which was pressed against my hip.
“Bowen, it’s not that simple.”
“Trust me, I know. And I’ve spent enough money in therapy over the last few months to realize it’s a fucked-up logic. But that doesn’t change how there was nothing heroic about what I did that day.”
My hand smoothed down her side and palmed her ass. She was better than any therapy.
Remi’s fingers wandered up my bare chest and rested over my heart. “There was a room full of people today who disagree.” She placed a kiss on my shoulder and her warm lips on my skin caused my defenses to lower just enough to attempt some sort of explanation.
They didn’t know the truth. They had their perspective; I had reality.
“Remi, heroes make brave choices. They decide to race inside burning buildings, jump into freezing waters, or teeter on the edge of a bridge—for someone else. They put themselves in harm’s way for the betterment of another. I didn’t do that. I was fucking terrified, racing around like a madman without the first concern for Sean Meyers or his family. I had one objective—the rest was just luck.”
“You were looking for Sally,” she whispered, rolling onto her stomach so she was halfway on top of me. “Did you find her?” Her blue gaze locked with mine.
I found you was what I thought, wishing like hell I could tell her the truth. But deep down, I knew the lies were the only reason I still had her at all.
“Yeah,” I replied. “But do you have any idea how many dying people I passed while I searched? How many people tried to stop me? How many people I heard begging for help? The only reason I quote un-quote saved the Meyers family was because I was looking for her. There was a lot more cowardness on the runway than there was anything heroic.”
She didn’t say anything for a long time, but I braced for the same inspirational spiel I’d heard at least a dozen times from my family and therapists alike. Bowen, it doesn’t matter how it happened. People are alive because of your actions that day. I’d heard it all. Sometimes, I even believed them too. But survivor’s guilt was real, and it ate me away from the inside out. With everything I’d seen, I found it almost impossible to find any positive in the hell we’d endured in the moments after that plane crash.
However, Remi didn’t say any of it.
She suddenly sat up and swung her leg over my hips so she was straddling me. With her hand on my stomach, she stared down, her eyes boring into my soul. “Wait a minute. You told me you thought that plane crash was fate.”
“Yeah, fate for us. You and me. But I cannot and I will not believe those people were fated to die that day.”
“Okay, and what about the Meyers family? What do you believe their fate was?”
My head snapped back as I peered up at her. I’d never actually considered it before.
“Was their fate to die trapped in the wreckage? Or was it to just randomly be saved by a man who’d spent months trying to keep his fiancée alive and was desperately scouring the wreckage for her instead?”
My heart stopped and thick emotion built in my throat. “It’s not the same.”
“It’s exactly the same. If you believe in fate the way you claim you do, you can’t tell me you weren’t fated to save that family. You don’t have to be happy about it, and you sure as hell shouldn’t have to sit through a surprise party honoring you for it. But it happened. You saved their lives. And that counts. And to them, that’s major. If you believe in fate, then you must finally accept they’re not alive because you accidentally saved them.”