“I wish I knew.” I try to count the number of pickup trucks I see instead of the freckles dusted across the top of his hands. Large hands that grab and yank…
“Seriously, what’s the matter with you?”
I laugh, finally turning to face him. “Do you want the entire list or the condensed version?”
His eyes flick to mine and then back to the road. A bright-green flame licking at the edges of my sanity. Teasing me. I’ve completely lost it. I clear my throat. “Really, Aidyn. Just drop me off at my hotel.”
“No fucking way.” Another quick glance. “If you don’t come back, Jane will string me up by my balls.”
Now I’m thinking about his balls, and I’ve got to get a fucking grip on this thing. But thinking about gripping doesn’t help at all, and I sigh. All my frustration escapes like the balloons at the wedding. “You’d probably prefer I didn’t return. It’d make your life easier.”
His body freezes and the air around us thickens with tension. “You’re a fucking idiot.”
I can’t argue with that, so I don’t even try. Staring out the window at my hometown seems safer. Not sure I even care where we go. We pass by Carlton’s Drug Store, where, once upon a time, you could get ice cream. I remember the musty smell from where the roof used to leak. The yellowed black-and-white tiles as I tried to corral Emily and Jane, thirteen and four, into not wandering off. Not that anything would happen to them in our small town, but it only took one whooping with a switch from the old willow tree for me to learn that keeping my sisters safe was the most important job I had.
A heaviness settles on my chest, making it difficult to breathe. I failed. And in that moment, I would gladly take a switch. I’d welcome the pain. Turning my head away from Aidyn, I use my wadded-up clothes to wipe my eyes. This is why I don’t come home. It hurts too fucking much. And I can hear Aidyn’s words as clear as if he’s saying them.Stop being a coward. We’re all hurting.
We stop at my hotel, and I take the quickest shower possible, knowing Aidyn is waiting for me. Is he pacing the room? Or sitting on the queen-sized bed? And that brings thoughts I don’t need or want, especially since the shower has to be quick and the walls are thin as parchment paper. I’ve done everything I can to keep the peace between us, so when I emerge from the bathroom seven minutes later, hair still dripping but fully clothed, andsee the scowl on Aidyn’s face, it sets fire to my tired-of-his-shit attitude. Nothing I do is ever good enough. And I can quit pretending it is. We make it to the diner with barely a word between us, and I wait downstairs while Aidyn changes.
But I’m not unproductive. I mentally examine every slight, every thing that irritates me about Aidyn Christy. It’s not just about Emily. There are things I don’t reexamine, including how we met and the choices made, because they aren’t relevant now. And they have nothing to do with my frustration with the man.
He makes everything more difficult. It’s deliberate. Although it’s not just me he’s that way with. But that’s giving him an out.
One he doesn’t deserve.
The diner hasn’t changed much: the colorful backsplash Emily added when they first opened, the same old mop she bought him as a present. Part of me feels relieved, but a small part is irritated—the sameness rubbing at a wound still raw after two years. Would I be any happier if it had changed? Maybe not, but that isn’t the point. And I’m not sure what that actual point is. I want to wallow in my anger. Shove my frustration in his face so he feels it. So he knows he isn’t the only one grieving.
I want to hurt him.
And that isn’t like me at all. The man is clearly hurting already. But his hurt has a fragile layer of healing over it that I want to pick at. If it heals completely, then where are we? What are we?
Nothing.
5
AIDYN
I stompup the stairs to my apartment over the diner. That man is the most infuriating person on the planet. And I’m sticky all over. Once in the bathroom, I strip off my clothes, careful not to get cake everywhere, and step into the hot shower. The pelting water soothes my muscles.
But images of Garrett covered in cake—I refuse to think about that man, so I focus on the cake. The hours I spent baking and decorating. Painstakingly getting every detail perfect. It took one moment of anger to ruin it. Cake everywhere. But that’s all it takes for everything to change. One second of frustration. One second of someone not paying attention. One second for a truck to slam into your car.
The terror in her eyes. The spinning as the world shifted. I brace myself against the tiled wall. Focus on getting clean. Not on twisted metal. Or blood. Or my sweet love, grabbing my hand, her eyes filled with pain as she tells me it will be okay.
But it wasn’t fucking okay.
Things are easier now than they were after it first happened. Every day gets a little easier. But this wedding—I scrub the stickiness off my arms and body and wash my hair. Jane isdepending on us to bring the other cake. And Garrett is waiting downstairs.
A flash of him, fresh from the shower—hair wet, skin flushed—has my body reacting in a way I don’t want. I switch the water to freezing.
After my shower,I slip on dress pants and a shirt. As I fasten each button, I give myself a talking to.Keep your head on straight, Aidyn. Don’t let him get to you.Don’t ruin another cake.
The man makes everything more difficult.
A picture of Emily on the nightstand grabs my attention. I trace the line of her sweet face. “I’m trying, love. I didn’t mean to ruin Jane’s wedding. And your brother… I don’t know what to think. What to do. When we met that day in my da’s bar, Garrett and I were having a grand time, but then you walked in, and it was all over for me. Your brother was cold after that. He obviously thought I wasn’t good enough for you. Which was true enough. He made his opinion doubly clear by fucking off to New York. And then, after the funeral, he blamed me.” I skip over those days. Too traumatic to think about. “And now, it’s all a confusing mess. I don’t know what to think. Except, I’m lonely, love, and I miss you so much.”
Even without a response, getting it all out releases some of the pressure. I can do this. Face Garrett. Deliver the cake to the reception and not do anything else to mess up this wedding.
I wipe the tears from my face. I’m done crying. At least for today. On the way downstairs, I remind myself to be civil. Everything is fine. Just keep the peace.
