“Hey,” I start, taking a step back toward the door.
“Hey Derek.” She gives me a sad look, and I can tell by it that she knows every single detail of what went down yesterday.
“Is Birdie home?” I ask, some small sliver of hope still pulsing beneath the surface.
“No,” Hattie says, leaning against the doorjamb.
“Oh, right. Okay. Well, I’ll try again later today. Did they go shopping or…” I let the sentence hang, because my brain tells me if we hadn’t fought, if I hadn’t been a complete tool, the girls would be at the store helping me today.
As it is, Archer and Garrett were running the shop for me today so I could fix what I broke. At their insistence.
“No, they went away for a while.”
At her words, blasé as she speaks them, my heart drops somewhere down near my stomach, and I pull my hands from my pockets, staring at her like she must have said something different and my brain interpreted it wrong.
“Went away?”
Slowly, Hattie nods, her gaze full of sympathy. “Yeah, Birdie needed to get out of town, so they went on a girls’ trip.”
Emotions fight within me. Part anger, part fear, then this foreign part that feels like I’m missing something. That something being a fun trip with my girls.
“Oh,” I say, unsure what else to do. “Where?”
For a moment, Birdie’s sister watches me, her kind smile wavering, like she’s deciding if I’m trustworthy or not. “I don’t think I’m going to tell you that.”
Apparently, I’m not.
“Why?”
“Because, Derek, you screwed up here,” she says, laying it on the line, just like her sister did. “You messed up, and Elizabeth needs space to decide how to move forward. This will not be something that can be fixed with a simple sorry.”
I hang my head, panic working its way through my chest. I know she’s right, I couldn’t have messed up worse.
Well, I could have, but I did enough damage with what I did. Enough damage that I’m going to have to work my way back into Birdie’s good graces again. I’m going to have to build that trust—the trust I worked for months for—all over again.
Instead of filling me with dread or anger, it fills me with a sense of purpose. I will and can do that. I will earn her trust back, earn her love again, because there is no way that I was losing the one person in this world that gets me, that loves me, that cares for me enough that she basically has worked two jobs for months, trying to make my dreams come true.
“Okay. You’re right. I’m sorry, it was rude of me to ask,” I say, stepping back. “Just tell her that I was here, please? She won’t answer my calls, and I don’t want to overstep, but I don’t want her to think I’m giving up.”
Hattie shrugs. “We’ll see, Derek. I really like you for her, but she’s my sister. Her wishes come before yours.”
I nod, understanding where she was coming from and grateful that Birdie has such a great sister who is backing her up.
She makes a face and says, “I’ve gotta get to work. I’ll see you around.”
“Yeah, okay,” I reply and turn back toward my car, making my way to it and sliding in. I close my door and let my head fall back to the headrest. My eyes slip shut at the realization that I haven’t accomplished anything.
Birdie is gone. Away to get some perspective and to get away from me. At least, that’s how it feels. I know better than to accuse her of that after what I did.
My eyes slide open and immediately land on my gear shift, where one of her hair ties rests, then slip to the back seat, where Rora’s car seat—one I bought so that I could always take care of her whenever it was needed—was sitting.
There is also a Barbie in the seat next to it, like wherever we were going was so exciting she didn’t even remember to grab it before she left.
I don’t touch any of the items, intent on leaving them there sowhenthe girls got back and I worked for their love and trust again, it would be here waiting for them.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“Sometimes distance can be what brings you back together.” - Warren
