Maybe my memory didn’t do me the injustice of remembering just how stupidly gorgeous the guy who divorced me was, but it’s staring me in the face right now, making me feel like an absolute mess. His hair is even doing that gorgeous thing where it falls just right around his face.
At the same time, he seems like a stranger. Maybe it’s in the way he’s aged or how he’s holding himself. There’s just enough there that’s different.
I realize my teeth are gnashing through my inner cheek after glaring at him too long.
I don’t know what words will unsolder my jaw. What do I even have to say to him now? I don’t want to dig up all that pain.
It would be all too easy to fall into old patterns, to shout at him,“You know, maybe this was going to be the consequence all along of never introducing me to your family. That your mom could meet me one day and hire me to cater a wedding. You really should have seen this coming, Shawn.”
“Elise, slow down, just hang on, can we, can we—”
He fumbles through half-posed questions that sound like he was going to say “talk” or “start over,” and I’m not ok with either of those options.
I’m seized by this terrible déjà vu. The tangled, raw mess that the end of us was. Conversations that were unproductive and led nowhere. Solutions picked apart until they were just as bad as their original problems. All the things I held back because I couldn’t bring myself to ask for better from him.
I can’t be here. I need to get out of here.
“No. Shut up,” I say, because my brain has nothing kinder in the bank.
He actually does, blinking at me in surprise.
I take in a deep breath, and then let it out. I look at him for a beat. I was kind of hoping something else would just happen to come out on the exhale, and when it didn’t, I have to try again.
“I’m leaving. Don’t call me,” I tell him, even though I’m pretty sure he does not have my number anymore. Or that I blocked him years ago. I probably should have just said that I need space to breathe and think, but I don’t have the capacity.
I don’t feel like providing any answers. His mom can sure as hell explain to him how I ended up in that house for the last two years, and I’m sure he can figure out the rest from there.
To his credit, he takes a step back, and slowly nods. He crams his hands into his pockets.
I don’t flee.
I turn around, telling myself that I’m not shaking either, when I get my keys out of my pocket and struggle to find the right one.
I get in the car, and I want to just drive. I don’t know where I would go. Do I just run out on this job? Deanna and Aiden and Logan? Do I pack my things and move the fuck away again? I could use the downpayment I had nearly all saved up for my cottage, but I’d have to start my catering business somewhere else and that would eat into my savings again.
No, that was desperate, deranged thinking. I can’t just throw away everything I’ve built because Shawn showed up, can I?
Not to mention, I’ve never abandoned a job in the middle of the day before. The cakes are still in the oven, I still have to wash the stand mixer bowl and implements before I head to the brewery for today’s house brews tastings.
What tasting? How am I going to wander back inside and get the cakes out of the oven and dodge questions that will most certainly rip the whole life I’ve built to shreds?
It stings to think about abandoning the brewery’s catering contract when the Hayes have been so good to me. Like when I got sick right after Thanksgiving and was stuck in bed for a couple days and couldn’t fulfill my end of the agreement that weekend. The memory overwhelms me, thinking about the stack of movies Aiden brought over with Logan in tow, carrying a quart of wonton soup, and later Deanna dropped off a box of herbal tea so fancy I still can’t bring myself to open the packaging.
No, no, don’t think about it.
The feelings start to reach my eyes, and I know I can’t be here. Not when it feels like an asteroid of emotional damage is headed my way, and I need to get out of its path.
So, I drive. I get on the road and leave down the lonely, winding road from the house. I glance only once in the rearview mirror, watching my ex-husband’s posture wilt.
I don’t know what makes me stop. Exhaustion sweeps through me, and my hands feel shaky on the steering wheel. I don’t really think about putting the car in park—it just happens.
I don’t know what I need. Maybe someone else to drive, to take the wheel on this whole situation. I dig into my jeans’ back pocket and thankfully find my phone. Now that I’m looking around, it looks like I left my bag at the Hayes House, and I’m not going back for it right now.
Whatever. Right now, I just need a moment to be a baby and call my mom and cry.
It rings, and it rings. And it rings.
And then it stops.
