Bad Wrong Things

by C.P. Harris

I envied Clint’s ability to wash me away. I’d never been one to easily forget things. I remembered each scar given and taken. Every bit of pain received and dished out. Every ounce of high-octane love inflicted on my heart.

“I’m not the same man you left, Raven. I promise I’m not. But you’ll have to put me down first if you plan on leaving me like that again.”

“Tell me, baby,” he encouraged. “Tell me there will never be another man for you. Tell me you’ve missed me as much as I’ve missed you. Promise me we’ll do whatever it takes to make us work. Promise that you won’t hold this night against me. Say you believe things can be different.”

“Calm down, kid,” a deep, kind voice said, and I instantly deflated, hanging limp until being set on my feet near Officer Clint Miller’s police cruiser. “And what did I say about that foul mouth of yours?”

Two strapping men who shared a love of bad chick-flicks. The sappier, the better. A guilty pleasure we were proud of, to Joey’s dismay.

After reaching our destination and securing the canoe, we watched the sunset sitting side by side on a boulder in the sexiest moment of silence.

“Hair the color of a Raven’s Wing, eyes the color of glaciers,” he whispered. “You remember,” I said, brows reaching for the sky. “I remember everything you say to me, Clint.”

“It always does, Raven. It always does. I can’t lose my son, and I can’t lose you. Because that’s the same as losing me.”

never putting myself first again because when I did, people died. If death were to revisit, it would have to see me first. Not Raven. Never Joey.

“The mouth and the heart are connected. That’s why words hurt. I’d never give either to anyone but you.”

“You make me into someone else, Raven. Me, but more. I only hope we don’t end up sorry about that one day.”

“Promise me I won’t regret this, Raven.” “I promise,” he said, placing a hand over my heart. And Millers don’t break promises.

Oil stained the front of the mechanic’s button-down I’d gifted to him, the word Demon embroidered over the breast pocket because he fucked like one.

“You sleep with me, or you don’t sleep at all.”

“I’ll always find you in the dark, Raven,” I’d said, wrapping my arms around his shaking shoulders. Raven hid to be found. He ran to be caught.

“To my battery. To the man that keeps me going.” If only that were still true.

“I was in pain, Raven. I was at a fork without an aerial view of where the roads would end, and I made the wrong turn. I made the wrong call. I should’ve known better.”