“You’re back? You were never here! It’s been months and now you just show up? What do you expect from me?”
I stood on the bottom step listening, knowing he probably heard me pull up anyway. Frankly, he probably heard me barrel ass out of the store parking lot. My truck was still too damn loud.
“The lady up town said you were with some Mutt girl.”
That’s when I said, from outside the door on the porch, “He’s been with me.” I opened the door and walked inside, head held high.
“Her?” she asked him, her voice thick with judgment. “You’re with her? Your name is Mutt?” she shouted in my direction.
I looked at his face, disgust from hearing her say Mutt all over it. He hated Mutt, but his reaction gave me a little hope.
Then I realized it wasn’t my fight, and he really only needed to deal with one crazy woman at a time. Everything was up to him.
I couldn’t sit around and watch. I wasn’t supposed to be there. I’d just been impulsive. Besides, what was I to say after all?
I’d left before he woke up, leaving without a note or a goodbye. I was no better than my fucking mom. And if I couldn’t leave my dad yet, maybe he’d want to be with her anyway.
It was all his call. Still, I loved him.
“You, shut up,” I said to Rachelle, because I didn’t give a shit. Nobody gets away with talking to me like that. Never have.
Then I spoke to him. “Vaughn, I’m going to my cabin. When you’re done here … well, that’s where I’ll be.”
“You can’t tell me to shut up. This is my house.”
Yeah. I definitely needed to go or they were going to see a woman come unglued. But first, first I was going to tell her what I thought of that statement.
The house was hers? My ass.
“Your house, huh? Where do you keep the silverware? What breaker keeps Vaughn from getting the fuck shocked out of him when he plugs too many things into the backsplash by the refrigerator? Where is the extra toilet paper? The clean towels? How many coats of paint did we put on this wall? Or that one? When was the last time the sheets were washed on your bed? This isn’t your house. And my name is Hannah.”
My adrenaline was making me feel like I was about to fly around the room, like a bird set free from a cage.
“Are you going to let her talk to me like that?” she asked Vaughn.
“She’s not wrong, Rachelle.” His tone was neutral.
I didn’t need to hang around for what was about to go down. I’d said my piece.
I just hoped that whatever he felt for her really was long gone. For his sake.
Also, having seen her I wondered, if he’d ever wanted her, how could he possibly want me? We were polar opposites. I’d never be like her, and she was nothing like the town tomboy I was. If that was what he was looking for I’d only be a disappointment when the newness wore off.
He could do better than both of us.
I got back into my truck and headed out to my cabin.
On one hand, if he didn’t show up, at least I’d have coffee to cry into, and my work was caught up so I could just wallow out there alone.
On the other hand, I could lose everything. Including things I wasn’t sure I was even ready for. Things I’d carelessly ran away from that very morning.
How had I ever thought she was what I wanted? The look on Rachelle’s face as Hannah asked her about the house was ugly in every way possible.
The way she sneered at Hannah as she spoke. As my strong, beautiful woman stood up for me.
The way Rachelle ignorantly looked down at her, having no clue how much she lacked in comparison to Hannah.
Every single point Hannah made was true.
“I’m sorry you drove all this way, but there isn’t anything for you here,” I told her. I didn’t need to be mean or callous toward Rachelle, I simply wanted her to leave. Just the same as she’d chosen to do months before.
“You’d really choose her over me?” she asked, her tone much calmer.
“I don’t have to choose. There is no you or her. It’s just her. Only her.”
She rolled her eyes, a truly unattractive trait of hers I never did like.
Leaned in the doorway of the kitchen, looking at her standing in my living room, I didn’t hesitate. “I think you better go.”
She gave me a doe-eyed, silent plea to reconsider, and it only made me shake my head.
After the moment passed, she huffed and marched toward the door, then turned around. But, before she could open her mouth to say whatever the hell she thought she needed to, I said it for both of us. “Goodbye.”
The door hadn’t even shut before I had my phone out dialing Hannah, but the battery died and my phone dropped the call.
Shit.
I went to find a pair of shoes to throw on, but the ones I usually left by the back door were gone.
She must have worn them earlier; she did that sometimes.
Wait.
I’d only been up a few minutes, but suddenly things weren’t adding up.
If she was just getting breakfast, then why didn’t she take my Escalade?
Where were my shoes?
Had she walked home?
After pulling my running shoes on, I ran out to my SUV.