Loved at Last in Loveless
Zoey
I’ve only been to Hayworth once before. It was a school field trip in seventh grade and we came down in a caravan of busses to visit the steel mill. Little did I know then that I’d have a very morbid connection to that architectural blight on the Connecticut landscape. The mill once belonged to Demi’s father and now belongs to Gavin and Demi. Who would have thought that a hardworking lumberjack would have married a sugar mama? I shake my head as I take in the late afternoon landscape from an upper balcony at Winter Haven. Not that I think Demi is my brother’s sugar mama in the traditional sense, just sort of by default. I like Demi. And I like Demi and Gavin together. I may not have thought they were so great in the beginning, but now that I see how well they fit together, I more than approve. And that sweet angel they’ll usher into the world this fall has already stolen my heart. Some people are simply meant to be together, and Demi and Gavin are two of them. My expression sours as I watch the wheat fields in the distance shift from gold to a rich shade of amber. The sun is getting ready to set on another day. An Abel-free day. First one. I’m not so sure I like it. I suppose like every other disappointment in my life, I’ll have to get used to it. But I can already feel the answer to that deep in my heart. Just like the absence of my parents, I don’t think I can ever get used to not having Abel around me. He bore into my bones, became a functioning part of my marrow. Without him in my life, I’ll grow anemic and weak. Already I’m craving Abel as if he were red meat.
I spin on my heels and force myself to look at the small room they granted me here at Demi’s childhood home. It’s a crisis center now slash working resort for families with small children. An entire army of volunteers met me at the gate last night. Initially, I told them I was a runaway, but the bitchy girl with wide-brimmed glasses called me on my bullshit, so I told her the truth, told her I was related to Demi and that my life fell to pieces, that I needed a place to collect my thoughts—maybe do some finger-painting in their art therapy class. Hell, I might stay forever and run the place. Lord knows I don’t have any other prospects looming.
The bed is soft, lofty, and high, and I fall back on it like falling into a puddle of feathers. I pull out my phone, and my eyes snag on the messages Abel’s left me. He wants to talk. There are things he needs to tell me.
No kidding? I almost want to laugh.
Married.
My eyes close at the thought of it. Was that all I was to him? Some extramarital affair? And why the hell was he away from his wife for so long? Obviously, things weren’t right. But she sure claimed him last night. She wants him back, and that’s one party I’m not inviting myself to. It kills me to think Abel cheapened what we had by hiding such a bitter truth from me. If I’m going to be someone’s inamorata, I think I have the right to know. My heart and brain are on fire just thinking about it. Abel and his secrets have consumed us, burned us to cinder. I can’t stand the thought of it, so I do my best to sweep it away. Instead, I deflect with another form of torture, wedding pictures of Arlene and Holder. My husband and his whore. I shake my head as a website dedicated to their wedding pops up on my phone. A website. I almost want to laugh, but it’s done so elegantly it’s a knife in the heart all over again. I’ve seen it before, the presentation of it when it first blipped into existence. I cyberstalked Arlene on Facebook enough to know about all of their happenings.Got the wedding page up today! Be sure to stop by and check it out! All gifts ship directly to the happy couple.Wink emoji.
God, she’s so annoying.
But the wedding. The wedding was yesterday. They enjoyed their wedding night while I drove hours through foggy switchbacks. I risked my life to run from Abel. It was worth it. But today, today the happy couple is drunk off one another’s flesh. Or at least they are if they’re doing it right. But then, Holder never could do anything right. Our wedding night was a snooze-fest. I was already three months by then. I was growing a human life in my belly, one that he planted there himself. In the beginning it was beautiful, but it all soured quickly, and by the time I lost the baby, we weren’t even a couple anymore. I was the last to know, of course. Maybe that’s why I sided with Abel’s monster wife. And she was a monster to me. Just because I sided with her emotionally doesn’t mean I like her.
I click through the pictures of last night’s festivities and recognize familiar faces from Port, from the sororities, from the faculty. Rumor has it, Arlene dropped out. They want to start a family right away—four kids. I hope she gets them all. I hope they’re all colicky and have explosive shit-filled diapers and that the two of them never catch a wink of sleep again. All things I read up on when I was looking forward to my own precious babe. The bile rises in the back of my throat when I think of how easily Holder replaced me. Those stinging words we shared last resonate in my mind on a loop.We’re not the right fit. You’ll find someone else. I want you to be happy.
The hell he does. But with Abel I was beginning to believe it. I believed Abel truly wanted me, not just for the summer, but forever. It’s a tragic thing, the lies we tell ourselves when we’re desperate enough to believe them.
I click on the tab that readsShop Now!
Keeping it classy, I shake my head as I peruse my options. The Everything Store is listed, and I’m almost amused by this. Along with fine department stores and a few lowbrow yet chic rustic-inspired options, the Everything Store literally has as its name states, everything. Above the icon for the store—a question mark—it readsCan’t find the perfect gift? Feel free to get creative! Holder and I love surprises. Go ahead. Make our day!
Get creative. I can’t help but smirk as I click on over. I happen to consider myself a damn creative person. I may be a general screw-up in life, but I have always prided myself for my creative edge. Both Gavin and I are artists. My mother painted watercolor and my father carved evergreens. The fruit did not fall far from the tree.
I head over to a section markedsmexyand roll my eyes at the ridiculous word. I click on the adult content guidelines, assuring them I’m over eighteen, and a giddiness riles up in me. Maybe Ishouldsend the happy couple a gift? A hot pink dildo for her. An anal plug for the groom—but then, he’s got a built-in. Nope. I can do better. I click through pages for what feels like hours, laughing myself into a tizzy, until I finally settle on a ball gag for her— purple with mouth ties, and a strap-on for him, clear with glitter floating through it like a snow globe. It’s perfect. Just as I’m about to hitpurchase,a light knock emits over the door and I startle. Too soft to be Abel. My heart thumps its way to my throat from the quick shot of adrenaline. I head over and crack the door to find the same girl with the thick glasses leaning over a clipboard.
“How you doing?” Her voice is meek, her expression a little more sympathetic to my cause than she was when I got here, and I exhale with relief. She’s just checking in on me. She probably wants to take my dinner order for the kitchen. Chicken or beef? See, Holder? We’re both at the same point in our lives. Just about.
“I’m great. I was just about to take a nap, actually. But thanks for checking in.” I’m about to close the door when she jams her foot in the crack.
“You have a visitor.”
“Zoey?” Abel’s voice booms from down the hall, his footfalls stomping their way over in haste.
The girl with the clipboard gasps as she turns his way. “I said wait downstairs!” she barks loud and hostile. “I’ll call the police if you take another step in this direction.”
“Call them,” he thunders as the door widens and I’m staring at Abel McCarthy still wearing that suit I left him in last night, dustier for the wear. But he still looks hotter than hell in it. His watery blue eyes dig into mine, and all of time seems to stand still. “Zoey.” His voice breaks, and I lose it.
My arms collapse over his shoulders, and I pull him in with a violent embrace.
“Do you want me to call the cops or not?” the girl shouts, stumbling back a few feet as Abel spins me wildly.
“No,” I say, pulling Abel into my bedroom. “Please don’t call anyone.” I entomb us inside my tiny sanctuary with a click, my gaze still pinned on his. “You have something to say to me?” I give a hard sniff, trying my best to ignore the deluge of tears wetting the front of my shirt. Abel looks wrecked. The stubble is back with a vengeance, his hair is unkempt, finger raked at best, his eyes bloodshot as if he hasn’t slept, as if he bawled all night right along with me.
“I’m married.” He flickers a dry smile. “But only because I was too suborn to grant her the divorce she wanted.” He segues into a long-drawn-out drama that is primetime-worthy filled with jealousy, betrayal, cheating—his wife and his coworker, a baby he was led to believe was his—and my heart twists with that one, a baby that was revealed to belong to someone else. His wife went with the other guy. He tells me how they’re not together anymore, how Elizabeth tried to trap him in her web once again—my analogy, not his. How he deflected her and told her to have a nice life. How he chose me. “That’s when I came to Loveless. The day I found out that Ryan, my sweet baby boy, wasn’t mine at all.”
My heart shatters for him. I want to riot against the wind, bleed myself dry as I scream into the night all because of the anguish I feel for him.
Abel takes a bold step forward, all but closing the distance between us. Those tired eyes look as if he has his balls ripped through them.
“I’m so sorry I hurt you, Zoey.” His hand caresses my arm, and I don’t stop him. Instead, I drink down the feel of his skin over mine—something altogether unimaginable just this morning.
“Wow”—I blink back in disbelief—“I’m sorry I didn’t hear you out last night. I would have saved us both the gas to come here.” I chew the inside of my cheek while studying that smile flickering over his lips like a candle. “How did you know where to find me?” I was careful not to tell a soul. I told Neva and Kennedy I was alive and to give the message to Gavin but no one else. I didn’t have the guts to text my brother back. I didn’t want to hear or see him tell me he was right. The worst part was that for a small window of time Gavin was right. Abel McCarthy broke my heart.
