I did as she asked, barely still holding the cup in my shaking hands.
“What am I going to do?” I whispered brokenly.
“I’ll tell you what you’re going to do,” she said, hooking her arm through mine and tugging me to my feet. “You’re going to go to bed and sleep. In the morning, you can cry and complain and call him names. And I’ll listen and join in if you want. If not, I’ll make pancakes with chocolate chips. Then we’ll spend the rest of the day watching sappy movies and eating ice cream.”
I let her guide me down the hall to my room, but I knew sleep wouldn’t come. I was so stupid, and tonight just proved that.
“Seriously, get some sleep.”
I nodded and slumped in bed, but as the hours passed, I went over every minute I spent with him over that one imperfect week, wondering what I could have said or done to make it all turn out differently.
How had I not seen this coming?
How was it possible that he made love to me like that, and then turned around and threw me away?
Was it even making love? Was that just the way he was with all his women?
No, that couldn’t be it. I’d never seen him act like that in all of the last ten years. He didn’t sit with women in his lap and he definitely didn’t allow them to nibble on his ear.
And not once had he ever shown interest in Ellie May.
I sat up, going through it all in my mind again.
The way he looked at me, how he watched me and looked out for me whenever he thought something was wrong. He hadn’t been mad at me when I threw that knife at him. No, he smiled and laughed it off. But something changed in the hospital.
He was fine the night before, so what happened that he suddenly was mad at me? Had someone said something to him? Did he think I did something and that’s why he was acting this way?
Or maybe it was Archer. That had been a week ago. Was it possible that there was gossip going around town about him taking us home?
I was out of my bed and throwing on my pajama pants and a t-shirt before I could think better of it. There had to be a reason he was doing this, and I was going to find out. I slid my feet into the closest thing I could find, which just happened to be slippers, and then I was out the door with Cheyenne chasing after me, begging me not to drive out there.
But I had to.
As I unlocked my car door, I saw Mrs. Abernathy sitting on her front porch with a mug of what I hoped was coffee, but ignored her and all pleasantries.
My phone rang beside me, but I ignored it until finally, I couldn’t anymore. “Cheyenne, I’m doing this.”
“This is a really bad idea.”
“It’s not. He’s upset about something. I think he thinks something happened with Archer. That’s the only thing that makes sense. That was about the time that he got so pissy with me.”
“Bailes, listen to me. You do not want to go out there. Whatever he says, it won’t make you feel better.”
“Unless I can convince him to talk to me,” I argued.
“And do you really think that will work? Can you honestly tell me that you are one hundred percent certain that you’re right about this?”
“Yes!” I snapped. “I know Liam. He wouldn’t do this to me.”
“But he did, Bailes. You saw it with your own eyes. He was there with Ellie May, and as much as you don’t want to believe that he would do this to you, he did.”
“But there’s a reason behind it! I know there is, and I’m not walking away until I’m sure there’s no going back for us.”
“Bailes—”
I hung up before she could say anything else. My phone buzzed incessantly the entire way to his house as the morning light crept over the horizon. I was almost there. I would figure out what was really going on, and we could move on with life.
Whatever he thought happened, I just had to convince him that it wasn’t real.
