I decide to stop at the bakery on the way home to get some of her favorite donuts, and then, I make another stop at the market to get some flowers. I don’t think donuts and flowers will make everything better, but I hope it’ll at least make her smile a little.
When I walk through my front door, I’m greeted by Mia, but Jo isn’t anywhere to be found. I worry that she is curled up in bed again.
I take a second to love on Mia and set the donuts down in a spot that she can’t reach them before walking into the bedroom.
No Jo. In fact, the bed is made, and none of her clothes are on the floor like they were this morning. She either cleaned up, or she left.
As much as I’m trying to hold onto hope for the first option, I think I already know which one is the truth.
It’s confirmed when I walk into the bathroom and see that all of her products are cleaned out as well.
Typical Jo.
She doesn’t get what she wants, so she runs away.
She told me she was fine. She said she would see me when I got off work, and we could talk, yet here we are. Well, here I am. She’s nowhere to be found.
I take out my phone to call her, but it doesn’t ring at all before going straight to voicemail.
“Jo, I just got home, and you’re not here. You want to give me a call back and tell me what’s going on?”
I hang up and start pacing. Didn’t we just have a conversation about having a fight doesn’t constitute a good reason to break up? I didn’t even think what happened at the shop could be considered a fight. It was more of me trying to talk her down off the ledge.
Apparently, I did the opposite. I pushed her right off and away from me once again.
Fuck.
Chapter fifty
You are a Lawson
Jo
“For fuck’s sake! Why are you here?” Ronnie whines as she opens her front door and sees me with my duffel bag full of shit.
“Well, hello to you too.”
“Yeah, yeah. Come on in.”
As I step inside, she says, “But really, why the hell are you here?”
I open my mouth to reply with a witty, smart-ass response, but instead, I burst into tears, and all that comes out is a slew of garbled words that make no sense through the sobs.
My sadness softens Ronnie a bit. She pulls me into a hug before leading me to the couch where we both sit.
“Tell me what happened,” she prompts.
I tell her about my whole shitty day from my encounter with Cindy all the way to Beau rejecting me at the shop.
She listens to the whole story without saying a word. When I’m finished, she takes a deep breath and closes her eyes while searching for the right words.
“My sweet, sweet baby sister, I love you so much, but sometimes, you are a fucking idiot.”
“What?” I ask, completely taken aback.
“You heard me. Fucking. Idiot.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be my nice, supportive big sister right now? Aren’t you supposed to be on my side?”
