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“There is no horse poo involved this time,” I promise. “And I don’t need real help. I just need you to not let me back out of what I’m going to tell you when I start to get cold feet.”
“I swear,” she says before I even give her any details, and that’s the kind of support I’m looking for in my life.
Chapter 37
Cash
“Fuck,” I grunt when I pull the mail from the mailbox outside my house.
I know from just a glance at the loops and swirls in my name that the card came from Adalynn.
Running my thumb over the writing makes my chest ache in an all-too familiar way. Being without her has been impossible the last month and a half. I’ll catch glimpses of her in town, but I send Eastyn or Chandler down to the bakery for cupcakes. Talking to her would land me on my knees, begging for just a sliver of her attention. My anger subsided as quickly as it always does when we argue, but I’ve stayed away because I know it’s what she wants.
This birthday card, however, could mean that I might possibly be wrong.
I carry it inside, wanting to cherish the intimacy of opening it up.
Years ago, she got a card in the mail from her Aunt Mable. Offhandedly, I mentioned never having gotten a card in the mail like that, and that same year, on my birthday, one arrived. She has sent one every single year after, and it seems even this chasm of pain and distance between us isn’t powerful enough to break that tradition.
A series of questions run through my head as I unlock my front door and step inside my little house. The water bill and weeklyLindell Bulletinare forgotten on the small table just inside the door as I walk toward the couch and take a seat.
The white envelope is stained from its travel through the postal system, but the smudges on it don’t fade when I wipe at them with my fingers.
If she’s still going to send the card, then she can’t hate me, right?
Is this an olive branch, her way of begging me to reach out to her, or is this simply Adalynn being Adalynn and even though she may not want me around her, she doesn’t want me to have a terrible birthday? Months ago, I’d know the answer to that question. Months ago, I wouldn’t have to wonder if she still cared for me.
My first instinct is to jump and find her, to track her down and tell her everything that has been eating away at me. It’s been nearly two months since the confrontation in her bakery, after Chandler’s dad passed away.
The heat in town has calmed some, making calls to the police department fewer. It’s given me more time off from work which I’d been praying for, for months. But it came right at a time when I needed to stay busy, when I needed something to take my mind off the woman I’ve craved for years.
I haven’t seen her nor that guy she was chatting with since that day at the bar, and with the hangover that bottle of whiskey gave me, I’ve been suffering without alcohol. I just don’t recover the way I used to, and, honestly, I hated the way it made the ache for her dull. Adalynn is like a bruise that I just can’t help but press a finger to in order to see if it still hurts. It always hurts, always feels like an open sore that has no chance of healing.
The intimacy we shared, the way her body sang when I was inside of her, was amazing, next level, something I have no hope of ever finding again. But given the chance to go back, I’d change everything. If it meant not losing what we used to have, I’d give up those experiences. I’d forgo those memories.
When I pull the card from the envelope, I notice the difference immediately. There’s no hint of perfume coming from the thick paper. The absence of it is like a jolt to my synapsis. Ifthere’s no scent now, and there’s been one every year prior, then she was misting her perfume over them in the past.
It has to mean something, right? That maybe I wasn’t seeing her the way I should’ve been all these years?
The card is simple, something she’d send to someone she doesn’t know very well, much different from the funny ones she has sent in the past.
I could sit here and dwell over a million unanswered questions, but I’ve done nothing but that for weeks and weeks. I’ve given her space. It’s what she asked for before I lost my temper at the bakery. I put my needs first, and in that moment, I felt as if I had the right to be selfish, but the ultimatum ruined us.
Adalynn is the kindest woman I’ve ever met, but she has never done well with now or never. Helping someone and being inconvenienced is very different from being backed into a corner, and that’s exactly what I did that day. She stood her ground, and although I hate the outcome, I’m also proud of her for not letting herself get bulldozed.
She hasn’t kept the status quo. This card is a sign, at least that’s how I’m planning on seeing it. Even though it’s plain and unimpressive, the thought behind it is what I choose to focus on.
I drop the card to the scarred coffee table I grabbed at a garage sale a few years ago and head to my room.
My shower is quick, but I spend a little extra time in front of the mirror when I shave. I can’t do anything right now about my overly long hair, but I’m also not going to waste another day without her in order to get an appointment at Hair Force One in town either. The unruly locks haven’t bothered me until right now, not even when Mr. Hinkle asked me if I was hanging out with Hippie Jones with another declaration that if I stop using deodorant, he’d complain to the city council.
I pull on the pair of jeans that Adalynn helped me find at a department store a few years ago and the navy polo she said made my eyes look mysterious. I put on deodorant but argue against the cologne because I don’t want to do too much. It will only make the rejection worse, but before I can get to the front door, I turn back around and give my chest one spritz because she’s the one who got me the bottle last year for Christmas.
Instead of turning on the air conditioner in my truck, I roll down the windows before heading to her house. I suck in a deep breath but refuse to lose any steam when I see her driveway empty. She isn’t at the bakery either and that little bubble of hope that began to inflate in my chest threatens to pop until I turn and see her car parked beside Madison’s SUV outside of Black Widow Designs, a clothing boutique. The offerings there aren’t really Adalynn’s style, but Madison may be the one shopping.
I have to circle the block to find a parking spot, and I end up on the far side of the building. I don’t waste a second climbing out. My name is called before I can round the corner to get to the front door of the shop.
I wave at Donnie when I look over my shoulder and realize he’s the one who called out to me.
