As sunlight streamed through the window shades across the room, I stirred and rolled over to my back. The room was stuffy, and I found myself gasping for air through my mouth. My face felt swollen, and my eyes felt dry. Opening them, I blinked several times to clear away the fog from my mind; my head was so fuzzy I couldn't think.

Sitting up, I found my body ached like I had been run over by a truck. When my hips screamed out in pain for sitting up, I groaned and held tensely still, clenching my teeth. It was then, in my painful pause that I realized I was in Rowen's bedroom. It took only a second longer to remember why and felt my throat tighten.

Despite the soreness, I scrambled to my feet to rush over to a vanity mirror across from the bed. I stared at myself. I was a mess. My cheeks were flushed from too much heat, my lips were chapped, and my eyes were red with long-past tears from the night before; as I stood there, the tears threatened to return. Last night... Rowen and I had... It felt wrong to even think it.

My gaze moved to the reflection of the bed behind me and my heart sank. Rowen wasn't there. That meant he was awake, sober, and probably knew exactly what happened... Even if he didn't remember, he was smart enough to make a guess. I pressed the heels of my palms to my eyes as everything suddenly became too much. My throat ached to sob uncontrollably, but I held it back, afraid Rowen would hear me. What had I done? How could I face him now? I dropped to my knees. I never made mistakes like this. Never. What would I do? How could things possibly get any worse than this?

I was biting back an outcry into the palm of my hand when I heard the door behind me open. I looked back like a wounded animal to see Rowen standing in the doorway. "Kevin...? Is everything okay?" he asked, concern written in his tone.

Furiously wiping the waterworks from my cheeks, I grabbed my clothes off the floor and pulled them on. "I'm fine," I said. I hurried past him, making sure I didn't make physical contact as I passed. "I'm gonna take a walk."

Rowen reached out to stop me, but I jerked away as if violently burned. Rowen withdrew his hand, the look on his face haunting me as I shoved my clenched fists into my pockets and dropped my eyes to the floor. "I... I really can't talk right now," I said.

Then I ran out the door without looking back. I didn't even grab my jacket. I raced through the trees and out to the lake as fast as I could. I hardly saw where I was going, and I didn't care so long as I got as far away from Rowen as fast as possible.

Not until I had scratched my bare arms on trees, tripped over roots, and found myself heaving with exhaustion did I finally slow to a stumble before dropping to the rocky earth. I coughed in the chilly air, trying to regain the oxygen to my lungs. I hadn't had time to think about how sore I was until then, and my hips ached from my run. No, everything ached.

Sighing shakily, I wiped cold sweat from my forehead. Now that I wasn't running, my thoughts caught up to me and I felt a choking sob crawl its way up my throat like a leech, sucking the air from my chest. I told myself that I had to stop crying. I needed to think; I needed to figure this out. We could talk it out, maybe forget it altogether. I could fix this, I reasoned. I could fix it...

"Oh, who am I kidding?" I closed my eyes and shook my head, not caring that I was talking to myself. "I can't fix anything..."

"Man, you look terrible."

I jumped at the voice and looked up at Rick who stood a few feet away. "Everything go okay last night?" he asked.

I sighed and looked back down at my lap. "No. It couldn't have gone worse..." I admitted.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Rick asked.

There was nothing I wanted to do less, but Rick was already gesturing for me to follow him back to his cabin, so I picked up what little of myself I had left and followed him. It wasn't like I had anywhere else to go.

*******

"You guys actually had sex?" Rick asked. He tossed his head back and laughed. "Oh, that's great."

"It's not great, he was drunk," I scowled. "He had no idea what he was doing."

"But it was progress," Rick said. "Rowen isn't an intimate guy. The fact that he was so into you means that you guys have chemistry, or at the very least, he wants you guys to have chemistry. Think about it; this is the perfect way to get him to open up. All you two need to do is sit down and talk about it-"

"Okay, that's enough," I said, cutting his rant short. I stood up and headed for the door. "I can't believe I thought I could talk to you."

"Where are you going?" Rick asked.

"Out. I'm not going to sit here and talk about this anymore," I said. "Last night I made the biggest mistake of my whole life and I'm probably going to regret it for the rest of my life. So, thank you, but I don't want to talk about this anymore. Rowen can deal with his own intimacy issues."

"Wait," Rick urged, stopping me at the door. "I'm sure you're not the only one regretting last night. He's probably hurting too."

Strangely, the thought of Rowen hurting made my chest ache more, but I wouldn't let myself dwell on it. "Maybe he is," I admitted. "But that's not going to make me any braver. I couldn't face him before, and I can't face him now. I don't know if I'll ever be able to and... I don't know if I want to."

Rick sighed. "I know how you feel, but sometimes it's the only way to mend things."

"Well, then maybe I won't be able to 'mend things'," I snapped. A lump formed in my throat for not the first time that day as the very thought overwhelmed me. "Maybe we won't be fixed," I said. "Maybe we'll just be broken."

My walk back to the cabin was slow, but it didn't last nearly long enough. When I got close enough to see the log walls through the trees, my feet stopped of their own accord. I couldn't make myself go any farther. I wasn't ready. I turned away and walked somewhere else; anywhere else was fine, I decided. I would come back later when I could talk without choking up at the sight of him. If that time ever came, that is. I didn't care where I went. I was just going to walk until my legs gave out or until I finally convinced myself to go back and try to make things right... or until I just died out in the middle of the woods. If I was lucky I'd get the latter.

I stepped under a low-hanging branch and came out to a large cliff. The beautiful sight was calming, and I sat down by the tip, dangling my legs over the edge. The view was like a painting. The ground, about fifty feet down, was covered in trees and I could see a stream running along the ground. If I concentrated on picking out the finest details of the scene, I could sort of keep my mind off of everything else. 

When the racing of my heart had slowed to normal, and I could breathe without shaking, I lay back in the leaves and I took a deep breath. The sky was cloudy, but if I focused, I could pinpoint the brightest spot that I guessed was the sun. I hadn't seen a clear sky in my entire time on this mountain, but this was pretty close to perfect. The next thing I knew, I was opening my eyes to a significantly dimmer landscape with orange and purple peeking out from holes in the clouds. I must have fallen asleep while I was looking at the sky. I sat up, looking out at the setting sun no longer hidden by the grey clouds. 

I had been out all day. Rowen was wondering where I was by now. With a sigh, I got to my feet. As much as I would have rather stayed out hours longer, I knew I needed to get back. If I didn't, who knew what Rowen would do. My absence had already made him drink so heavily he-

I shook that thought away before it could begin to fester. This wasn't the time to psyche myself out about Rowen again.

I started towards the trees. I was stepping into a particularly full pile of leaves when the ground beneath me was suddenly no longer there and I found myself falling through a hole in the rock cliff. Gasping with surprise, I tried to grab something to halt my tumble, but when I reached out, my arm was sliced by a jagged piece of rock. As rock walls turned to a rock ceiling, I felt my back hit something unstable, and my eyes widened in horror as my body tipped back over the edge of a forty-foot cliff.

*******

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