Abel
The skin of the lake shivers glassy as if a thousand snakes slithered just beneath the surface. The sky is thick with clouds striped with navy. I watched as the sun rounded out over the horizon the size of a thimble, but that was hours ago and I can’t seem to head to the boathouse, still dressed in the suit I donned yesterday, my ass still firmly planted in the sand. I spent all night driving down dead ends looking for Zoey, shouting her name as if she were a lost child. She’s not returning my messages. I’m sure she’ll lose my number soon enough, forget me as she begins a new life who knows where. I should leave the mountain. This is Zoey’s terrain far more than it is mine. I’ll let Gavin know. He’ll tell her. He may not know where she is at the moment, but eventually she’ll talk to her brother. Last night started out like a dream, some far away fairytale that managed to unfold in my life. Dancing with Zoey under the stars was magic. Hell, I was even looking forward to introducing her to my mother—my mother who wouldn’t have approved, but then I wasn’t looking for anyone’s approval. I rack my brain trying to remember if I ever told Zoey that Elizabeth and I were divorced. We weren’t, but we were certainly headed in that trajectory. It was the next phone call I was going to make come Monday. I only have myself to blame that things fell spectacularly to shit. It was me who stalled the divorce to begin with. I wanted Elizabeth miserable for what she did to me. She wanted my cooperation, and I wouldn’t give it. I was dragging my feet. Giving both her and that asshole she slept with the finger. And now she doesn’t want my cooperation, not in that way anymore. I don’t know what the hell she wants.
My phone buzzes and I fish it out of my pocket, but it’s not Zoey. It’s a text from Caleb.
Heads-up. Elizabeth’s coming your way.
No sooner do I frown into the screen than a shadow blocks the sun from view. Elizabeth. A dull laugh rattles in my chest. Elizabeth always did have a way of sucking the sunlight from my world.
“Mind if I join you?” she asks while taking a seat across from me on the defunct pier that sits between my boathouse and Zoey’s. I’ve had a lot of great memories with Zoey out here, and Elizabeth is here to cast a pall to them.
“I don’t think I could stop you.” My chin lifts to the pink clouds a moment. This isn’t something I want to do, but maybe it’s time. After Zoey took off last night, I tried to go after her, but halfway to the boathouse, Gavin tackled me—got a few kidney punches in while he could. Can’t say I blame him. “How’s Ryan?” My heart wrenches just saying his name. I didn’t get a chance to ask last night. Elizabeth picked the name out once we found out it was a boy. She went with it.
“He’s great.” Her voice flexes as if she might cry, but I know her well enough to understand it’s the way she sounds when she’s excited and relieved at the same time. I know all of Elizabeth’s ways, her mannerisms, and yet I had no clue she was sleeping with another lawyer in my own damn firm. “He’s getting so big. Sleeping through the night for the most part. He’ll be three months in just a few days. It’s hard to believe.”
“It’s hard to believe,” I echo without meaning to. Three months since that paternity test came back. Three months since I packed my bags, transferred my clients to someone other than Peter Fucking Goldberg, and took off for Loveless. Three months since I met Zoey. That last thought actually manages to buoy me on the inside. I hold onto the memory of Zoey like a life raft. God knows with Elizabeth here I’ll need it.
“So last night…” Her voice trails off. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t aware you were seeing anyone, and when you mentioned that you were—it just threw me.” She clears her throat. “I’m sorry I called her a whore. I didn’t mean to unravel whatever it was she thinks you had.”
“What we have. Present tense,” I correct a little too tersely for her liking.
Elizabeth winces as if I threw a handful of sand into her face. “Again—I apologize. I had no idea. When your mother said she was coming up for a fundraiser, I thought it might be the perfect setting to tell you about Peter and me. I meant what I said. We’re through. We’ve already worked out custody arrangement with legal. It’s all set. There’s nothing left between us.”
“Except Ryan. Eighteen years, a lifetime. You will be connected to your affair for the foreseeable future, Elizabeth. And my God, for that kid’s sake I hope the two of you can keep it civil.” Civil isn’t something that comes naturally to Elizabeth. “I meant what I said, too. I’m filing for divorce. I’m just sorry I didn’t do it sooner.”
Her cheeks redden, and her eyes blaze red with rage. Everything about Elizabeth is always burning, from the color of her lips to her hair, to that formidable temper.
“So you’re going to throw away seven years just like that? For that, thatkidyou’ve been messing around with?” Her voice rises to the sky, evicting a flock of sparrows from the evergreen above us. Elizabeth doesn’t understand the fact that the lake acts like a megaphone. Half the time I can hear Neva sneezing on her way to The Corner Store in the morning. But I don’t care to school her on the fact that just about anyone having coffee on their deck can hear her. Elizabeth has never been impressed with Loveless. Not once did she want to venture this way in our entire seven-year history. It’s too bad. She could have used a little bonding with nature. Instead, she chose to bond with my colleague. Elizabeth and I have had everything backwards since the inception of us.
My eyes are slow to meet with hers, but once I land over her gaze, I burn with a righteous anger of my own. “Yes. I would throw away everything we’ve ever shared for another shot with Zoey. I would erase who we were, who we thought we were. Hell, I would erase the day we met to have another minute in Zoey’s presence.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” She stumbles to her feet, and I hop up and catch her by the elbow before she has a chance to bolt.
“No. If we’re doing this, it all comes out.” My chest bucks with emotion, every bottled-up feeling I’ve staved off for months, for years comes bubbling to the surface.
Her eyes bulge with tears, a ripe anger contorts her features. “Go ahead.” She frees herself from my grasp. “Let me have it. I’m sure you’ve been waiting to tell me off for months,” she riots the words in my face.
“Not true.” I do my best to swallow down the lump forming in my throat. “I didn’t say what I did to hurt you. I meant it. You and I never fit, Elizabeth. We were a square peg trying to drive ourselves into a round hole. It wouldn’t work. It couldn’t.”
“Please!” She tosses her hands in the air. “We were made for each other. I can guarantee you we have more in common than that little tart you’re fucking.”
I shoot a quick glance to Zoey’s boathouse, and my heart hurts for her. Wherever she is, I want to be with her—explain myself if I could.
“You and I have a lot in common. You’re absolutely right.” I lower my voice, stretching out each syllable with an unnatural calm. “But that didn’t make us right for one another. We were missing something. You figured it out before I did. That’s why you were drawn to Peter.” I’m guessing, but I’m betting I’m right.
Her gaze falls to the ground. Her shoulders sag as she holds herself. “Yeah, well. Peter and I don’t have all that much in common, after all. You’re right. We have plenty in common.” She sayscommonin air quotes. “But at the end of the day, we weren’t a good fit either.” Tears roll down her cheeks as she looks up at me. “So you’re really convinced we’re through? Any second chance is taken off the table?”
I give a light nod. “I’m sorry. I know it’s not what you wanted to hear. That doesn’t make you a bad person.”
“But you evened the score!” Her cheeks slap pink once again. “I cheated. You cheated. We’re even now. We both got it out of our system. And if it makes you feel better, the fact she’s a decade younger than me is just acid over the wound.” She takes a step forward, the look of hope piquing on her face. “I forgive you. Can you forgive me? We can go to counseling. We’ll go to therapy. I’ll have Ryan in therapy as soon as he’s of age. You’ll grow to love him. You’ll make a great second father to him.”
“I should have been his first.” It comes out without the proper conviction. “But I’m glad I wasn’t. It’s easier this way. Less messy. And I would definitely go with the therapy as soon as possible. I think you’ll both need it.”
She slices me with a look that lets me know I’ve gone too far.
“I’m sorry.” I kick a rock into the shoreline. “I haven’t slept. I’m worried sick about where Zoey might be. She wasn’t exactly in the best state of mind when she took off. I have no idea where she went, and I’m not going to rest until I find her. I can’t.” I take a step forward and do the unthinkable, pick up her hand. “If at all possible, try to work it out with Peter. As much as I hate to admit it, he’s a good guy. You have a beautiful son together. Go to counseling with him. Stitch yourselves together if you can. You’re already family. I’m just a guy who was in the way when he probably shouldn’t have been.”
She gives my fingers a tug. “So you’re saying we were a mistake.”
