by Claire Adams
“Look, Jason—”
“Lucy, I promise you, your luck will turn around with hunting. Maybe I can get out with you soon, and we can do something,” he said.
“Oh. Y-yeah, sure. That would be nice,” I said.
Maybe something wasn’t too terribly wrong if he was offering future plans. Men didn’t do that if they didn’t plan on sticking around, right?
The waiter came with our drinks and took our orders, and then things fell silent again. Jason was being reserved and nowhere near being the cocky human being I knew him to be. He always had these anecdotes about Mike from work or had some weird story about Megan to tell me, and I always got a kick out of the fact that he seemed to tell me those stories about her just to rile me up. He enjoyed fluffing my feathers just to see how protective I would get of him and his daughter, but tonight was different.
And it was making me a bit sick to my stomach.
“So, I guess I can say I now know why women called you Maximum,” I said, grinning.
“Oh, really? And, why’s that?” he asked as he sipped his drink.
“Oh, come on. You know why,” I said, cocking my eyebrow in the air. “I mean, it’s obvious.”
“I suppose. But, those days are behind me, I guess,” he said.
I had given him the perfect opening for all his stupid, cocky little jokes, and he intentionally closed it off. So, I tried another route.
“I suppose it depends on the angle you wanted to take with it,” I said.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“You know,” I said under my breath. “Size versus girth type of thing.”
“Lucy, you know we’re in a public restaurant, right?”
“Well, yeah. But you’re not really acting yourself,” I said.
“Because we’re in a public restaurant,” he said.
“Which is odd anyway because neither of us really enjoy doing this type of thing.” I couldn’t believe he was passing his strange behavior off on the location.
“Lucy, please. Can we just have dinner before we get into this?” he asked.
“Get into what? Really, Jason, I wish you’d clue me in.”
“I don’t think I can see you anymore,” he blurted out.
“Wh-what?”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can see you anymore,” he said.
“Oh, come on, Jason. Quit being an idiot,” I said.
He has to be joking. I mean, he smiled at me after I said it.
“Lucy, look. You make those jokes about me being Maximum and shit, but what comes with that is that it’s just not my style, you know?”
“What’s not your style?” I asked.
“Staying with women for long. I just don’t do it. I’ve got Jenna to think about and a career to keep tabs on to support her and, I mean, it’s been a lot of fun and everything, but it’s just not me.”
“Not you to... to what?” I asked breathlessly.
“To stay with a woman for a long time,” he said.
All at once, the room darkened, and all the noise fell into the background. My chair disappeared from underneath me, my body floating in this endless expanse of darkness, as the air was ripped from my lungs. I felt tears lining my eyes as my throat went dry, and I started to cough to try and rid the knot from my throat. My head was spinning, and my vision was becoming fuzzy. Soon, I was gripping the chair with all my strength just to make sure someone didn’t rip it out from underneath me.
It was happening.
Jason was leaving me because I had told him I loved him.
“But what about all the things we shared with each other, huh? On our first date. About David? And Danielle?”
I could’ve sworn I saw him wince. I could’ve sworn that, just for a split second, he was regretting every word that poured from his face. Our food was set in front of us, and he thanked the waiter silently, but when the waiter was out of earshot, he threw his gaze up to mine.
And the tears poured down my face when I realized he was serious.
“Emotionally, it was nice. You know, to find someone who got that. And, I’m always gonna be here for you, Lucy, if ya ever need someone to talk to. But, I just don’t—”
“Stay with women who tell you they love you?” I asked.
I couldn’t believe it. He held my stare with all the sincerity in the world while he dumped me in the middle of a fucking restaurant full of people in this town who’d chew him up and spit it out the moment they realized what he’d done. He’d manipulated me into sharing everything with him so he could feel good for one fucking second.
And now that he was done with me, he was tossing me out.
Like a used condom for his Maximum dick.
“I really was, wasn’t I?” I asked.
“You really were what?” he asked.
“Another notch on your bedpost. That shit about your nickname: it’s true, isn’t it?”
I saw the confusion run across his face, and I felt my hands wrap around my iced tea.
“It’s true what my coworker said. That the reason you’re called Maximum is because you have a maximum number of women for your notched bedpost. I-I bet your bedpost isn’t even a bedpost, it’s just some sprawling toothpick that holds up the shavings you sleep on every single fucking night to remind you of all the pussy you manipulated into bed,” I said, hissing.
“I’m sorry, Lucy. But you knew the rumors. I’m not too sure why the hell you’re even so upset about it. I mean, if your coworker warned you, why didn’t you just take the hint?” he asked.
“Because of our first date, Jason. There was something there, and you knew it. Y-you manipulated me into telling you things I would never have, in my wildest dreams, ever told anyone.”
I knew people were staring, and I could tell Jason was taken aback, but that smug-ass look on his face and the apparent disgust for my anger made me sick. This bullshit, pathetic excuse for a man had taken my heart, twisted it so I would do whatever he wanted, coaxed me into confiding in him about anything and everything, and then dumped me when he was done with my body.
“You promised me I could come to you with anything,” I said, whispering. “You just told me you’d come hunting with me.”
My mind was swirling at a thousand miles a second. The waiter was trying to talk to me, but I had no idea what he was saying. I could feel my tears pouring down my neck while I watched Jason slowly stand from his seat, but the moment he tried to reach out for me, I snapped.
I threw my full glass of iced tea all over his face, and then threw the glass at his feet and watched it shatter.
I grabbed my purse and stormed out of the restaurant right as thunder began to clap in the sky. Lightning pierced the heavens, opening up the dark clouds so they could pour their water onto my head. My tears slid in perfectly with the rain pattering against my body, and I wrapped my arms around my chest to keep from shivering violently.
I didn’t know where the fuck I was going to go, but I sure as hell couldn’t stay here.
I took one last look up at the restaurant before I started for the main road.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Jason
“Daddy, why isn’t Miss Lucy here?”
“She had plans for Thanksgiving, princess,” I said. Damn. I knew this was going to come up. I’d only been delaying it.
“But I thought she was bringing pie,” she said.
“Well, she couldn’t bring it,” I said.
“Miss Lucy promised, though.”
I knew my daughter was confused. Before all this bullshit happened, Lucy had planned on coming to Thanksgiving dinner. She was bringing the dessert and the ice cream, and she was also going to show me how she brewed her apple cider so we could have some for dinner.
But, things change sometimes, and there was nothing I could do about that, especially not when I’d been the one that changed them.
“Well, we’ve got our Thanksgiving, right? I’ve got the homemade macaroni and cheese you
like and the turkey with that jelly I can’t stand? And, I also made those butter biscuits you love, and I even put cubes of cheese in them,” I said.
“Miss Lucy promised,” Jenna said, pouting. “I miss her. And Miss Megan. She’s an awesome babysitter. Why doesn’t she come over and play anymore?”
“Because we’re spending time and having fun together, right?” I asked.
“But you’re not Miss Lucy or Miss Megan. Miss Megan plays card games with me, and Miss Lucy splashes water with me in the sink.”
“Well, I could do all those things. Why don’t you teach me how to play that card game?” I asked.
“It’s not the same,” she said.
I had to somehow change the subject. Tears were rimming the eyelids of my beautiful daughter, and anger boiled up my throat. It wasn’t her fault she missed them. I just couldn’t believe I’d made such an erroneous mistake. Had I not opened myself up to any of this bullshit, dating and babysitting, and kept my dick in my pants, my daughter wouldn’t be suffering right now on her favorite holiday.
Never again would I do this to her. Especially since I didn’t know what kind of time I had left with her.
“Do you remember your grandparents, Jenna?” I asked.
“Who?” she asked.
“Mr. and Mrs. Lourda,” I said. “You know, your mother’s parents.”
“Not really. What do they look like?” she asked.
My heart broke a bit as I explained what they looked like. I told her about Mrs. Lourda’s kind brown eyes, warm like her mother’s, and Mr. Lourda’s piercing blue eyes that matched her mother’s ferocity. I told her about how Mrs. Lourda had a birth defect that caused her hair to grow in white from the time she was just a little baby, and I told her about how Mr. Lourda had been drawn to her because of her hair.
I went from explaining what they looked like to explaining how they met, and soon I was delving into the story of how I met her mother.
“Did Mommy have white hair like Grandma?” she asked.
“Nope. No, she didn’t. But she did have your grandmother’s warm brown eyes,” I said.
“Oh, yeah. You said that already,” she said, giggling.
“Do you think you might wanna go visit them?” I asked.
“Sure. Are we going to visit tomorrow? Because I wanna finish my mac and cheese.”
“Of course, you can finish your food,” I said, chuckling. “But I was actually thinking of going and staying with them for a while.”
“That’s okay. Miss Megan can watch me,” she said.
“Well, I mean you would come with me,” I said.
“How long?” she asked. “I wanna make sure we’re here in case Miss Lucy comes back.”
“Sweetheart, Miss Lucy isn’t coming back,” I said.
“Why not?” she asked.
“Because I figured we would go move in with Grandma and Grandpa,” I said.
“Why would we move in with people we don’t know, Daddy? Why are we leaving? I wanna stay here.”
“Princess, I think it would be important if you were near family. You know, other people to help take care of you that I trust,” I said.
“But you trust Miss Lucy. And what about Miss Megan? She’s come over lots of times so you and Miss Lucy could hang out. Why don’t I get to hang out with Miss Lucy now? What did you do?”
“Jenna, calm down. Just take a deep breath,” I said.
“Why are we moving? I wanna stay here. I like my daycare and my teachers. And you said you like your job. Why are we moving, Daddy?”
She picked up her fork full of macaroni and threw it at me across the table. She grabbed her sippy cup and tried to get down, but she got stuck underneath the table trying to get away from me. She was screaming and crying, yelling at the top of her lungs at the fact that she didn’t want to go, to move, and my anger boiled over completely.
How the hell could I have been so stupid as to have allowed this to happen? We had a perfect thing going. It was me and her against the world, traveling around to find a home. She never mourned her mother because she had never met her mother, and she never got attached to shitty grandparents because they never fucking gave a flying flip about her or the marriage I had with their daughter.
And then I fucked it up when my dick started thinking more than my head.
“Jenna, you need to go to your room,” I said sternly.
“That’s where I’m going!” she yelled. She stomped down the hallway and slammed the door, and I groaned, running my hands through my hair.
Why the hell did I have to hurt every single person around me? Why the fuck did I bring nothing but pain? All I wanted to do was enjoy life with the love of my life, and I got her pregnant, and it killed her. I wanted to have a decent relationship with my parents, but all they did was push me away when I’d left them for Danielle. All I wanted to do was have her parents be wonderful grandparents to Jenna, something that she would never get from my parents.
And what happened? I took Danielle from their hometown, and they fucking closed us off.
Why the hell did I cause so much pain? Why did it have to be me?
I took my pathetic excuse for apple cider and I went to sit on the porch. I couldn’t stand to hear Jenna crying in her room, and I figured I could give her a few minutes to piece herself together before I went in and tried to talk with her again. I looked over at Lucy’s house, but her car wasn’t there. She was probably spending Thanksgiving with that sister of hers.
They were probably bad mouthing me, and her sister was probably trying to console her. Lucy was probably using what happened between us as an excuse to never step out and date men again, and her sister would probably show up on my doorstep with a shotgun shooting scissors or some nonsense.
The wind kicked up and shivered up my arms. Goosebumps ricocheted up to my elbow, and my apple cider trembled in my hand. I felt that same pain shoot up my arm, reminding me of yet more bullshit I’d have to deal with come Monday, and I made a mental note to see if one of Jenna’s teachers could bring her home and babysit.
If I had to uproot her and get her near family, the last thing I wanted to do was give in and let Lucy and Megan come back over so she could reattach herself.
I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath as the numbness sank in again. I felt my fingers loosen on my cup, so I switched hands before it crashed to the ground. But, just as I did, I heard a pair of heels resounding up my cement driveway.
“Hey there, neighbor,” Megan said, smiling. “Brought you some pie.”
“Thanks,” I said.
She walked up to the porch and set it on the table beside me before she leaned up against the porch railing. She was wearing a sweater and a very form-fitting pair of jeans, and it was the first time I realized how pretty Megan really was.
Desperate as hell and slightly batty, but very pretty.
“How’s the little one?” she asked.
“Jenna’s a bit upset with me right now,” I said.
“Uh oh. Trouble in paradise?” she asked.
“Ah, she’s just pissed that you aren’t coming over as much anymore.”
“Well, that is kind of odd. You guys spending more time together as a family or something?” she asked
She was fishing, and I knew she was, but I didn’t care. After Monday, I was sure I’d probably have to move us closer to family, and we’d be done with this town and its slack-jawed jabbering and absolutely gorgeous women that got me in trouble with my daughter.
“I broke up with her, so not really much reason to need a babysitter nowadays,” I said before I sipped my drink.
“Oh, my gosh. Jason, are you all right?” she asked.
“Peachy keen, jellybean,” I said. I really wanted her to go away. If Jenna heard her voice on the porch, I’d never get her inside, and this type of weather would get Jenna sick.
And I sure as hell didn’t want the likes of Megan sticking around in what she was wearing so we could all have fun in my livi
ng room.
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, my mother always used to say that nothing is truly permanent. The cycle of life proves that to us. We move houses, trees die and are reborn, children are born and grow up. Nothing stays the same, and nothing stays exactly as we like it,” she said.
“And how was that comforting?” I asked.
“It made me go into the bathroom, take a hot shower, sing a cathartic song at the top of my lungs, and have myself a good cry. After that, I felt a hell of a lot better than I did beforehand,” she said.
“Well, maybe I’ll try that sometime,” I said.
“And if you ever need a babysitter, to take a break or go out with the guys or get a beer, just let me know, all right? All ya gotta do is knock on my door,” she said.
“Thanks. I appreciate that,” I said.
“Happy Thanksgiving,” she said, smiling.
“Happy Thanksgiving, Megan.”
“Oh! And don’t forget to heat the pie up for fifteen seconds and then lay on the ice cream. It’s perfect that way.”
I watched her walk back to her house, but the only thing I could think about was Monday. I had so much I had to figure out, and I knew, eventually, I would have to tell someone what was going on. If I had to brace for surgery that afternoon, someone would have to pick up Jenna, get her home, and watch her until I could get out and get back.
Which meant I had to tell someone in this blabbermouth town about what was going on.
And I didn’t trust a damn soul.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Lucy
“Luce, come on. You really need to cheer up,” Brianna said.
“Don’t call me that,” I said, mumbling.
“Oh, no. We aren’t starting this again. Luce, buck up and talk to me. You’ve been miserable this entire fucking holiday. What happened?” she asked.