Day four of no response from Heidi.
Not even a text telling me to fuck off and leave her alone.
I was going totally insane. The only thing keeping me from banging her door down was the reassurance from Emery and my family that Heidi needed time.
Time.
That sick fucker.
It was turning into my least favorite word in existence. Something I had no control over. Something that constantly hounded me. Something that was impossible to run from or escape.
An endless snake eternally eating its tail.
Laughing at me.
And how finite my life was.
I brushed aside the thoughts that continued to plague me and sent Austin’s third call to voice mail. I knew he wanted to go out and drink. We’d done it every night since Heidi was unceremoniously fired and then dumped me. It had been a welcome reprieve from the ache that was so brutal, it was a fissure in my chest. But I needed a night away from it all. To be alone and decide my next move.
Without even knowing exactly where I was going, I pulled into the cemetery parking lot and cut the engine. It was a clear night, and the moon hung heavy in the sky as I stepped out of the car, threw on a North Face jacket from the backseat, and wandered out among the gravestones.
When my mom had died, I’d only been seven, and cemeteries had creeped me out for a long time after that. But, when my dad had died, I’d just stopped coming. I’d told Heidi that I wanted to introduce her to my parents when we were official, but the truth was…I hadn’t been out here more than a handful of times since they passed. And never alone.
But I felt drawn here tonight.
No more alcohol.
No more wasted nights.
No more forgetting.
I found my parents buried next to each other in the middle of the cemetery. They had ostentatious headstones that couldn’t be missed. The word Wright was in big letters on each of them. I sank into the grass between my mom and dad and just stared, unseeing. It was enough to be out there tonight and let my parents take the brunt of my pain.
Headlights pulled me from my seat, and I hopped up to see a flashlight coming toward me. But the person never made it. They stopped a few rows short of me, and I was shocked when I realized I knew exactly who it was.
Without a second thought, I walked right over and cleared my throat. “Heidi.”
She whipped around and held the flashlight like a weapon. Her breathing was shaky, her eyes wide in terror.
“Landon?” she asked softly.
“Yeah.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Same as you.”
She shook her head and turned away from me. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“Sorry about that. I wasn’t expecting anyone else to be here.”
“Me either.”
“Heidi, I—”
“Landon, don’t,” she muttered. “Please don’t.”
“No,” I told her. “I can’t just shut down. Not around you.”
She blew out a heavy breath. “I thought you’d be at a bar with Austin.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Emery said you’d been going out.”
“Yeah, well, it’s hard not to want to drink when your girlfriend breaks up with you.”
She grimaced. “I bet.”
“Man, I didn’t come over here to guilt-trip you. I…I wanted to see you. I’ve missed you like fucking crazy.”
“I know.”
“Emery tell you that, too?” I arched an eyebrow.
She shook her head. “No. Personal experience.”
I managed a quick smile at that. She’d missed me. Fuck, just seeing her was eating me from the inside out. I wanted her back in my arms, in my bed, in my life.
Sometimes, love cracked your heart open to show you what really mattered.
Her. Only her.
I held my hand out. “Come with me.”
“Landon…”
“Just…trust me.”
With a sigh, she placed her hand in mine and let me walk her over to my parents’ gravestones. She dropped my hand when we got there and stared down at their names on the stones.
“Your parents,” she whispered.
“Yeah. Um…I’ve never done this before,” I said, feeling totally out of my depth. “But, Mom…Dad…this is Heidi. She’s, uh…well, a friend. Actually, she broke my heart, but I love her so much that I wanted to introduce her to you anyway.”
“Landon…”
“Stop saying my name like that,” I said, turning to face her. “You sound so dejected when you say it like that. I want to remember the way you said it when you were moaning it on top of me.”
She jerked her head to the side and took a deep breath. “I should go.”
“Heidi, I understand why you blame me for this.”
“You don’t seem like you get it,” she said. Her hands were clenched at her sides.
“I do. I get it because it’s my fault.” I sighed. “Jensen is looking into who sent the videos to the company, and my guess is, it was Miranda. And, if I’m right, then you’re right. It is my fault that all of this happened. Because my bitch ex is trying to get back at me.”
“You think Miranda took those videos?”
“I think it’s a real possibility that she would want you to get fired after finding out we were together.”
“But wouldn’t she have sent them to Jensen?”
I laughed humorlessly. “No. She hates my family. All of them. She would know that Jensen would side with me and keep this quiet. And, you know, I should have seen this about her all along. You asked me once, ‘Why her?’ Why did I marry her?” I shook my head and glanced at my father’s gravestone. “I’ve been saying for a long time that it was because she wasn’t this person when we met and I thought she loved me. I don’t think I was willing to see what I’d actually done.”
“What do you mean? That you married a psycho?” She crossed her arms.
“Yes. I thought I was making the right choice. My dad wanted me to be with someone worthy of the Wright name. That’s why he didn’t want me with Emery. He didn’t think she was good enough. So, when I met Miranda out of college, she came from old money, worked as a nurse on the Tour, seemed to know the ins and outs of golf, and fit right into my life. I thought…I thought it was what my dad would have wanted. Even after I found out her parents were bankrupt and I helped them get out of debt, I was still blinded.”
“You paid off her parent’s debts?” Heidi gasped.
“Yeah. No one knows. I thought it was the right thing to do at the time. I had married their daughter after all. But, if I’d just realized then how crazy she was and how much she was using me, we wouldn’t be here right now.”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” Heidi said.
“I don’t want to talk about Miranda or think about the person I was when I was with her. I only want to be exactly who I am when I’m with you.”
She closed her eyes and turned her head to the stars. She was shaking slightly from the chill. Lubbock was so windy all the time that it would make nights cold. I slipped off the North Face I’d put on earlier and slung it around her shoulders. She looked like she wanted to protest but was too cold to do so.
“Thanks.” Her eyes dropped to the ground and then back up to mine. “I’m sorry for yelling at you the other day.”