Page 100 of Hard to Lose

In my head I can hear Dickman’s voice telling me to suck it up. That she’s only hard to lose if I let her be. That life sucks, but you’ve got to move on.

After the cemetery, I end up sitting beyond the outfield fence watching a high school baseball game. The innings wear on but nothing becomes clearer in my head. Instead, the hurt becomes more, the reality of it all settles less, and I’m left to wonder how I could have been duped. How I could have fallen for Chase Kincade so effortlessly when normally I’m so guarded?

I drive some more.

Through wooded neighborhoods and farmland, but nothing eases the ache beneath my breastbone. Nothing calms the doubt I feel toward my own judgment. And nothing is going to make any of this any goddamn easier.

I’ve never wanted to talk to my mom again more than I do now. She received one of those orange envelopes too. She chose Sal over me, and I had to move on for my own sanity. For the first time since I sent it, I wish I could call her up for no other reason than to ask her how she can love someone and hate them simultaneously.

I know that’s how she felt about Sal.

And it’s currently how I feel about Chase.

When street signs become blurred and night calls to the sky, I finally go home.

The house is like a ghost town. Deserted when she had been everywhere. Quiet when it had been so full of life.

I want it to be like you were never here in the first place.

But who am I to lie? Chase is fucking everywhere. Her hint of perfume still lingers in the air. The blanket she folded in that triangle is still on the couch. The goddamn kitchen island we made love on sits there as a reminder.

No regrets feels like it has a whole new meaning now.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Chase

“Are we going to talk about how you’re sitting at your desk—here in our office—and no one knew you were coming home?” Brexton’s voice asks from the doorway of my office.

“Just trying to catch up on work,” I say without lifting my head up.

Truth be told, I’ve been back in town for four days but this is the first day where my eyes don’t look like I’ve been crying.

“You couldn’t even peek your head out and say hi to us? We wouldn’t even have known you were here if Letty hadn’t told us,” she says, referring to our receptionist.

“I got in early.” I steel myself before looking up to meet her eyes to make sure I won’t cry when I do. And if I don’t look at her, she’ll know something is wrong. “Did you see the stack of shit on my desk to do?” I meet her eyes and give a quick, tight smile. “It would have been nice if you guys helped out a little. Christ.”

I’ve given her enough of a look and a semi-bitchy comment, so when I avert my eyes, I assume she’ll walk away.

Instead she sits down in front of my desk.

“I don’t have time for this right now. Maybe we can catch up after work?” I offer, full well knowing I’ll bolt out and say I have to deal with a client and dodge her.

“No. We can catch up now.”

Silence settles through the room and even though I keep typing away, not really having any clue what I am, in fact, typing, the weight of her stare grows heavier and heavier.

“You’ve been gone for seven weeks. You cut off communication with us except for the obligatory emoji response to our texts after you asked Dekk and me for advice. And now, out of the freaking blue, you just show up to work without warning? All that and you don’t think I’m going to plop my ass down in your chair and demand to know what in the hell is going on?”

My fingers are flying over the keys as the tears threaten. All I can do is keep my head down, staring at my monitor. “Everything is fine. I promise.”

But I never should have added those last two words because when I do, my voice breaks. It breaks in front of my sister—who gets me way too well and knows exactly what that sound means.

“Chase. Look at me.” Her tone softens. Where it was previously annoyed, now, it’s soft and compassionate. Of all my sisters, she’s the one most used to the heartbreak that comes with love. Now of course she has Drew, but before him, there were many men who made her cry.

Of all my sisters, she’ll understand me right now.

I bite my bottom lip and shake my head as my eyes blur with tears. “I can’t,” I all but whisper. “I just can’t.”