“Do you want to move home?”
“No. It’s time I make it on my own.”
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Jessica
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I returned to Haven Springs a week after deciding Savannah wasn’t for me after all.
I’d been gone three and a half weeks, and while everything still looked the same—I knew I wasn’t.
Although a tiny part of me still hoped that Alan would be there, and he’d be able to explain how he hadn’t really made a fool of me. Or seen me as someone he could easily lie to.
While I’d been in Savannah, my righteous anger had morphed into plain ol’ pain.
It was a familiar feeling; similar to when Jon lied about there being no way he could be the father of my child and then immediately started dating my “friend” Jenny.
At first I’d been furious. With Jon, with Jenny, at the unfairness of the situation—everyone believed him, even people who had seen us together. No one had come to my defense. I was the pariah and he was still the golden boy.
But the longer I was away from school and all the two-faced people there, I just became sad. Sad that I’d been so easily duped, and that my gullibility meant my daughter was going to grow up without a dad. And there was the harsh reminder that people did shitty things and tried to say it was in the name of religion.
With Alan, I’d just been gullible. But it still meant Ruthie wasn’t going to have a dad. At least the people betraying me this time hadn’t tried to justify their shittiness with righteousness.
My first stop in town was getting the keys to the one-bedroom apartment above the hardware store I’d managed to rent while still in Savannah—sight unseen. Mary had loaned me the money for my first month’s rent and deposit.
“I promise I’ll pay you back.”
She’d waved her hand at me. “I didn’t go to any of your showers—baby or wedding, consider this my gift.”
I laughed out loud. “I didn’t have either.”
“Then this is my gift to you and Ruthie. If you ever baptize her, this better put me in the running for godmother.”
“You’re the only one I’d even consider.”
But as I trudged up the creaky stairs full of cobwebs at the back of the hardware store, I kind of wished she hadn’t given me the money.
My heart fell when I walked in. “Dump” was putting it mildly.
It was probably good that I hadn’t seen the apartment because I doubt I would have rented it if I had. And this was the only affordable thing I’d been able to find that was available right now.
“Time to put your big girl panties on,” I said for probably the tenth time that week. But this time I really meant it. I was going to see my parents. If they didn’t disown me, I hoped they’d let me take Ruthie’s crib and if they were feeling generous, my bedroom furniture.
****
Alan
I’d spent the last month feeling like I was crawling out of my skin. I wasn’t used to not having control of a situation, but that’s exactly where I was.
Jess had left me while I’d been stuck saving the world—literally, so it wasn’t like I could just say, “Deuces, fellas! I gotta go beg for my wife’s forgiveness.”
I completed the mission successfully and hopped on the first plane that got me anywhere close to North Carolina.
But Jess was nowhere to be found when I arrived in Haven Springs.
It didn’t take long to figure out she’d changed her number, and Carol and Ed were no help. Although Ed didn’t shoot me when he opened the door when I stood on his front porch, so I took that as a win.
I fell asleep on the floor in Ruthie’s room, berating myself again that I had no one to blame but myself that my wife and little girl were gone.
