No tears.Yeah right, Pops.It seems crying is the only thing I’m capable of. I’ve lost all direction, lost who I am, because that old man and that weathered restaurant were everything that defined me.
My phone lights up for the umpteenth time. I’ve avoided every call and every text message from every single person I know. I don’t want to hear it. The sympathy, the condolences, the pity in their voices.Poor Jennifer, what is she going to do now?
No thanks. I would rather hide and deal with my loss alone. It’s easier to wallow when no one is constantly trying to console you. The pain is more potent when you can drown in it all on your own. Call me a masochist, but it’s all I have left to hold on to, the sadness.
At half past eleven, I drag myself off the couch, pull on a hooded sweatshirt, and walk outside into the cold, drizzly October morning. I walk solemnly down the sandy sidewalk, my face dewy from the chilly mist.
I stop short once I get to my destination. Fifty feet away from the place I once considered home. The little life the old restaurant had left is gone. The desertion was its undoing. It looks depressed and ragged under the dreary gray sky. As aged as the building is, it never came across as rickety as it does now.
I wince when I hear the excavator’s thunderous movement. Frozen solid and completely powerless, I watch as the steel arm swings around and dangles the clawed shovel over the structure. The rain starts to fall heavier as the hydraulics of the machine hiss air and grind gears at a disturbing sound level. My heart drowns in my chest with the first punch of the claw through the slanted roof. It crumbles like hard candy. Punch after punch after punch, the machine demolishes the dark shingles until they’re gone. And punch after punch after punch, I cry a little harder and die another death.
I knew coming would kill me, but I couldn’t stop myself. I was obsessed. I had to see it with my own eyes. Witness it fall. And fall it does as the excavator tears apart every last piece, until there’s nothing left of me or the building. Pulling my hood tighter over my head to shield my face from the elements, I hash out all the emotions battling inside as I stand at a crossroad. So much hate, so much rage, and equal amounts sorrow and regret.
What now?
What the fuck do I do now?
A black shadow over my head startles me. No, not a shadow, an enormous umbrella. The rain stops pelting down on me as Shane and Chase encase my body.
I haven’t spoken to either of them in weeks. And it wasn’t for their lack of trying either. I was just too hurt, too upset. My trust in them deteriorated, even if it was unwarranted. Even if they didn’t know what Ty was conspiring until it was too late. Guilty by association is the category I placed them in.
“We thought you might come,” Shane hums consolingly.
“Oh, yeah?” I retort bitterly.
“Yeah, and we thought you could use a friend,” Chase adds soothingly.
“Is that what the two of you are?Friends?”
“At this moment, yes, but you know we’ll always want more.” Shane doesn’t hold back.
I lift only my eyes to look at them. “Why?”
“You know why.”
“Then say it.” I push for no other reason than to add to my emotional turmoil.
“Because we love you, and you know it. You’ve always known it. And we want you to come home.”
“I don’t have a home. I don’t have anything.” My lip quivers.
“That’s not true. You have us. We can help you through it. Don’t turn us away.”
My pride doesn’t want to give in. They still work for the man who destroyed my life and took everything from me.
But my loneliness, my despair, is screaming at me to collapse into their arms and fall apart. Allow them to help me to heal.
“C’mon, Jenn, you know this is right. You know we’re meant to be together.” Shane sidles up next to me. The heat of his body inviting me back to that safe, secure place. “I know it’s hard. You feel lost and betrayed, but we would never do anything to intentionally hurt you.We know you know that.And we know you know our feelings are real.”
“I do know it,” I reluctantly admit, hiding my face in my hood. “But that doesn’t make the situation any easier.”
“Maybe not, but it makes it worth fighting for. And you’re a fighter.” Shane lifts my chin. “And strong and loyal and determined. We need a woman like that to love us.”
God, do they know what to say and how to say it.
“I don’t feel very strong at the moment.” My voice is small.
Shane scans over my weathered expression warmly. “The good thing about moments like these? They pass. Come home. Let us love you.”
