Page 83 of Cruel Summer


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“That’s probably a good thing.”

“I always wondered what kind of person you have to be to do stuff like that,” she said. “To totally disregard common sense and the rules.”

“Someone who’s in the moment,” he said. “Again, I’m not actually advocating for the North American edition of running with the bulls. But you know, there’s something to be said for being led by passion. By your impulses.”

“Is there?” She wrinkled her nose. “I’m not sure that I believe that.”

“No?”

She thought about that for a while as she watched the large, shaggy beasts grazing with their heads down. She tried to feel it. The kind of energy that would propel somebody to discard all common sense to run wild like that.

There was a sliver of it. She couldalmostfeel it. The need to just let go. It was like wanting the tattoo. But it required her to unlock so many of these chains that she still had around her wrists. Chains she was often not at all conscious of.

But they were there. Who was she living for?

The list was long. She was not at the top of it.

She wasn’t even sure she was on it.

She had created for herself a life that she found very, very livable.

The alternative had been dealing with the heartbreak in the community. In her family.

The judgment that both she and Will would have received if they hadn’t gotten married would’ve been so much greater than the judgment they had gotten for that pre-graduation ceremony.

She’d kept that fear with her. If they split, then they would only ever be the couple who got pregnant in high school and got married for that reason…and failed.

Fear was very strong glue.

But it wasn’t enough.

“I can kind of understand,” she said. “I’m still not going to do it. Because I like living. But…” The words had almost come out. She had very nearly said it.

I’m afraid of my passion.

Her passion was how she’d had gotten pregnant at eighteen.

Her passion, her feelings, had led her to nearly kiss Logan when she was lost in the fog of her grief, and the loneliness that it created.

Both of those things had been a betrayal.

A betrayal of the values that she had been brought up with.

A betrayal of the vows that she had made.

What frightened her most was that it wasn’t a betrayal of herself. Not really.

Not the deepest part of her.

The part of her she’d been training to be someone new, someone better, since she’d first realized she might be dangerous.

Somewhere inside of her was a woman who wanted to run around with the buffalo.

That was scary. She didn’t like it, and she had spent the better part of the last twenty-two years suppressing it.

Even when she had been tempted with Logan, she hadn’t done it. She hadn’t done it because it was wrong. She hadn’t done it because it frightened her.

She hadn’t done it because you just…you couldn’t. You couldn’t do things like that.