by K. A. Linde
“I’ll take some of Kimber’s famous chocolate cake.”
I was glad that she’d actually ordered, so I could busy myself at work and not have to think about what she was going to say to me about David. Because Morgan was here on her lunch break for a reason. I was sure of it.
I passed the cake her way. “I don’t want to talk about David.”
Morgan grabbed it and a fork and plopped down next to Annie. “Good. I’m not here to talk about David.”
I scrunched up my brows and looked at Annie. She shrugged her shoulders, just as confused as I was.
Morgan dug into her cake. I helped three customers as she ate, anxiety eating at me. I knew she wasn’t here for cake. And it would come out eventually. I’d had a bad enough week. I wasn’t sure I really wanted a lecture from my older sister.
By the time the rush cleared, I was super exhausted. Not sleeping wasn’t helping anything.
“Spit it out,” I told Morgan. “I know I need to talk to David. I know I was harsh and need to make this shit right. But I’m still totally messed up about what happened.”
“You made your position on David perfectly clear,” Morgan said. “I’m here about you.”
“Me?”
“Seems fair,” Annie said.
I pointed my finger at her. “Hey now.”
“To be frank, you died with Maverick.”
My heart stuttered at those words. At the reality of those words.
“Yes, you’ve kept on for Jason, but inside, you’re dead.”
“Morgan,” I gasped.
“But you’re not dead, Sutton. You’re very much alive. You have so many people who love you, and all we’ve wanted for the last year is to see you happy again. To show that love you’ve always had shining through you. Maverick would have wanted you to be happy.”
“I know. But it’s not that easy.”
“Of course not. But I’ve seen you happy with exactly two people since he died. First, with Jason. You want to guess what the second is?”
“I know what the second is.”
“Shouldn’t that be your answer then?”
“I thought you weren’t here to talk about David?”
“I didn’t bring him up,” she said cleverly. “And, anyway, this is really about you. Because you are standing in the way of your own happiness. Yes, David is my friend, and I don’t like to see him hurting, but you’re my sister. You’ve been suffering for so long. I care about you.”
“She’s right,” Annie said. “You know she’s right.”
“Of course she’s right. She’s Morgan. She’s always right.”
“I’m not always right, but I am right about this. Why are you doing this to yourself?”
“Because I’m afraid to lose him,” I whispered. My heart contracted. “I know I pushed him away, and it’s the same thing when it comes down to it. But what if I put my heart on the line, and in the end, he still dies?”
Annie reached out and gripped my hand. “Is he worth taking the risk for?”
Morgan shook her head. “Imagine you were so worried about that with Maverick that you never took that chance with him. You never got married or had Jason. You’d erase all those happy times. Would you do it?”
“No,” I gasped. “I’d never want to erase Maverick.”
And then it all hit me. What I hadn’t seen before in my fear. What I hadn’t let myself express, even as I was pushing David further and further away. I would never get rid of those happy moments with Maverick even if I’d known what was coming. I would have held on tighter. I would have demanded more time, more love, more affection. I would have been able to remember the last thing he said to me that day on the Fourth of July. But I couldn’t. And it haunted me. The loss of him crushed everything.
But I’d still rather have those few years than none at all.
Why was it different with David? Because I’d already known such heartache? I was trying to protect myself. To keep me from hurting again.
But what I was really doing was erasing that hope for the future. I wasn’t clinging tight to the memories that would happen. I wasn’t demanding more time. I wasn’t stealing more affection. I was foreseeing our inevitable demise and leaning into it rather than clinging to the good.
And that was what people meant by Maverick wanting me to be happy.
Not that he wouldn’t, of course, want me to love again.
He would have wanted me to cling to life.
That was my happiness. As it always had been.
“If you love him, then you can’t let him leave,” Morgan said.
I glanced up. “Leave?”
“Didn’t you hear a word I said? David tried to quit Wright. He’s on his way to the airport to go back to New York.”
“Oh my God! He can’t go back to New York.” Then, I was rushing out from behind the register. “Tell Kimber I had to leave. And that I’m sorry.”
“Wait, you’re going now?” Annie asked.
“Right now. No time to waste. Thank you. I love you both,” I cried over my shoulder as I left the bakery.
I ran full speed to my car around the back of the building. I sped toward the airport, but I knew it was about fifteen minutes to get there. If David had already boarded a flight, I was screwed.
I dialed his number, but I wasn’t surprised to find that it went straight to voice mail. Either he was ignoring me or his plane was about to take off. Airplane mode was the devil as far as I was concerned.
My panic was going through the roof by the time I pulled into the parking lot outside of Lubbock International Airport. I parked near the front and dashed across the street and through the sliding glass doors. My eyes traveled all around the check-in area. It wasn’t a big airport. It would be obvious if he were here. I hadn’t asked Morgan how big of a head start he had on me, but it must have been significant if he was already through security.
I found the first airline that had a plane flying to New York City today and cringed as I charged my bank account for an absurd one-way flight. The woman looked at me as if I were insane when I bought the ticket. My lack of baggage probably didn’t help anything.
I snatched the paperwork out of her hand and hurried to the security line, which was mercifully short. I impatiently tapped my foot and prayed I wasn’t too late.
The person in front of me was probably the most annoying flyer I’d ever met in my life. She didn’t know if she needed to take out her iPad, she forgot to take off her shoes, and then her belt went off. And she complained incessantly while it was clear that she was the problem since she couldn’t follow instructions.
By the time I was through, I grabbed my purse and hastened to the terminal. My heart skipped a beat when I caught David standing in line for first class to board.
In that moment, he glanced up.
Our eyes met.
And everything felt like it would be all right.
Twenty-Three
David
This had to be a mirage.
It couldn’t be real.
Sutton couldn’t actually be here.
I’d figured that Morgan would tell her what I was doing, but I’d never imagined that she’d actually show up. And, as much as I wanted to jump with joy, I was guarded. She was suffering. She was grieving. But I had caused it, and I didn’t want to get my hopes up that a miracle could somehow happen.
She smiled shyly at me, a blush tinting her cheeks. She looked beautiful. Ridiculously beautiful. She must have come straight from work because she was still in her pink Death by Chocolate apron. She had flour in her hair, which was pulled up into a messy bun. She looked frazzled with dark circles under her eyes, which she hadn’t even bothered to try to cover with makeup. She must not have been sleeping. I could relate to that.
I blinked at her twice in confusion, sighed, and then stepped out of line. I walked over to where she was standing. “Sutton, what are you doing here?”
She held up a ticket.
“You
bought a plane ticket to New York?” I asked in confusion.
“Yes, well, I had to get through security.” She dropped the ticket back into her purse. “You can’t go back, David.”
“There’s not really a reason for me to stay.”
“I’m here,” she whispered.
“You made it pretty clear that we weren’t together.”
“I know. I’m not all right. I’m a big mess. I’ve been through a lot, and it sucks to deal with me right now. But I don’t want you to go.”
“Sutton…honestly, it’s too late.”
“Please…”
“You broke up with me. You said that we couldn’t be together. That you needed to work on fixing the broken pieces of yourself. I don’t think I can help you do that.”
“You can’t.”
I raised my eyebrows in surprise. Well, that wasn’t the answer I’d been expecting.
“Only I can fix those pieces, but what I realized is that…I was so busy looking at a possible future of suffering that I couldn’t see everything else around me. That my own world wasn’t just this grief. I was so into you that I scared myself.”
“I have always put you first. And I know you won’t believe me right now, but leaving is the right choice. It’s good for you.”
“How could you leaving be good for me?” she demanded.
“Because, as happy as we were, you were twice as miserable. It was like a roller coaster with way more lows than highs.”
“That is not true.”
“Think about it, and you’ll see that it is. I’m leaving for you. I want you to be happy. And all I cause you is heartache.”
“No, you’re the only thing that makes me happy anymore.”
I wished she hadn’t said it. Because it was so blatantly false. I’d tried to make her happy. But truth be told, she needed to find happiness with herself again before she could accept it from me or anyone else.
I leaned down and kissed her on the forehead.
“Please,” she murmured. “We can make this right.”
“This is good-bye.”
“No. No, this isn’t what’s supposed to happen. This is supposed to make it right.”
Tears fell down her face, and I gently brushed them from her cheeks.
“I wish I could make this right,” I told her.
I really did.
But it was out of my control.
And her running down to the airport wasn’t going to change my mind.
“I love you,” she whispered.
“Sutton—”
“Don’t get on the plane.”
“I have to.”
“You don’t. If you get on that plane, you are going to look back on this moment and know that you were wrong.”
“No more tears, Sutton.” I shouldered my messenger bag. “This was what you wanted after all.”
Anguish crossed her face, but the flicker in her eyes said that it was true. She was the one who had pushed me away. Running up here was too little, too late. I wanted this to magically fix everything, but it wouldn’t. We’d just be kidding ourselves if we believed it could.
I hoped I was wrong, but I didn’t think I was.
That was why I turned and walked back to the plane.
“David,” she gasped.
I closed my eyes against the pain and then handed my boarding pass to the stewardess. She looked between me and Sutton and then put it under the light. It dinged.
“You’re all good, sir. Welcome aboard,” she said with a touch of sadness.
“Thank you.”
I steeled my resolve and walked forward onto the plane. I forced myself not to look back. She could have followed me. She had a plane ticket. But I took my seat in first class, and she never boarded.
As the plane pulled away from the gate, my eyes instinctively looked out the window, back to the terminal. Sutton was still standing there with her face up against the window, still hoping for one last look at me. I knew she couldn’t see me, but I could see her. And, as much as I knew I had made the best decision, it felt like torture, wondering.
Was it the right move?
Twenty-Four
David
“Well, that was dramatic,” Katherine said when I entered her apartment what felt like a million hours later.
I grunted noncommittally. Sure, flying to New York on such short notice was dramatic, but I didn’t care. I was surly and unresponsive. I wanted to punch someone again and also call Sutton right now and apologize. But I wouldn’t. Even if I loved her. No, because I loved her.
She might have rushed to the airport to try to convince me to stay. Done all the right things to make me not get on that plane. And, still, I’d left because I didn’t believe her. I wanted to. But I found it hard to believe that she would really be okay and that we wouldn’t turn around a few days later and have the same fight.
She needed to know that I was serious about this. That I would actually leave. All the empty lip service didn’t mean a thing when actions didn’t back it up.
“And, now, you’re growling at me like a caveman. Wonderful,” she drawled.
“Thank you for letting me stay in your guest room. I can always go to a hotel though if I cramp your style.”
“Stay until you leave.”
I almost laughed at her retreating back. My sister…so personable.
“But you have to have tea with Mother,” she called from the kitchen.
Ah, no wonder she’d walked away.
“When?”
“Tomorrow. We’re meeting her around noon. I told her you had nothing to do since you are now jobless and a vagabond leeching off your relatives.”
Even better.
“You’re just the best, Ren.”
“Aren’t I?” she said with her classic false enthusiasm. “Now, I have to go meet Camden for dinner with his parents. So, if I’m not back before midnight, know that I’ve killed myself.”
“Katherine, that’s not funny.”
“Or he murdered me. One or the other.”
“Why are you marrying him? Is it for the Percy name?”
Katherine scoffed. “As if I’d change my last name.”
“You could hyphenate.”
She pursed her lips. “I’m still proud to be a Van Pelt. Someone in our family has to be.”
“But you don’t love him.”
“And you fell in love, and look where that got you.”
She slammed the door shut behind her, leaving me alone to my own devices. She wasn’t wrong, but she also was…herself. That generally meant she lacked tact. And, right now, she was throwing salt in the wound.
I kicked my shoes off and collapsed back onto her couch.
I felt like an asshole. But I hadn’t seen any other option. Walking away was the right thing to do. Even if it had been difficult.
I just needed to weather this. Heartbreak got easier with time.
Or so people said.
The next day, Katherine and I met our mother at an upscale restaurant for afternoon tea. I hadn’t been here in a long time. To get in, you had to have a reservation, and to get a reservation, you had to know the right person. All tea was served with finger sandwiches, little pastries, and a glass of champagne for roughly a hundred dollars per person. So that high society could socialize and gossip in private. It was absurd and quintessential Celeste Van Pelt.
“Hello, darling,” Celeste said, kissing me on both cheeks before turning to Katherine. “You look lovely.”
Katherine frowned. My mother didn’t dole out compliments any more than Katherine did.
“Have a seat.”
I pulled out Katherine’s chair before my own and then sat down, glad that I’d packed a suit before fleeing Lubbock. Otherwise, this would have been much more uncomfortable.
“So, you’re back?” Celeste asked. “So soon?”
“Yes, his girlfriend broke up with him. Didn’t I tell you, Mother?”
“Thank you, Ren. I can speak f
or myself.”
“Will you ever dispose of that ridiculous nickname?” Katherine asked.
“No,” I told her, point-blank.
Katherine arched an eyebrow at me and then hid it as tea was served.
“Well, tell me what happened,” Celeste said.
“Do you really care?”
“David, of course I care. I met the young woman, and she was on the unrefined side, but she was sweet. She got you to come back home for the first time in years. I do owe her a debt for that.”
Unrefined and sweet. I liked Sutton that way. The last thing I wanted was high-society Sutton. The thought almost made me laugh. Except the laugh was filled with pain and regret. At seeing her pink apron and flour in her hair and knowing it was the end.
“She lost her husband just over a year ago, and she’s not quite ready to date again,” I honestly answered her. My voice grim. “She thought she was. We tried it out. And it turned out that she wasn’t.”
“Tragic,” my mother said. She carefully added a dash of milk to her tea and stirred. “What a horrible loss.”
“Yes. And she has a two-year-old son who she is looking out for.”
“A two-year-old?” my mother nearly gasped.
Katherine must have not told her everything.
“Yes. He’s wonderful actually. But, as you can imagine, her in-laws are not making this easy on her. Her family, while supportive, has high expectations that fall on her shoulders. She carries around a lot of weight, and until she’s free of that, I don’t know that she’ll be ready for a relationship.”
“And you don’t carry around such weight?” she asked carefully.
“It’s different.”
Katherine laughed softly. “Is it?”
Yes, I had a lot of baggage. Holli’s death, my parents’ mess, my biological parents’ drug addiction, and everyone’s expectations for me. But I’d had more time to process that than Sutton had. She hadn’t had a year. I’d had eight and even longer than that for Holli.
I was mad that we were here, at this stage. That I’d put myself on the line for her, and she’d shattered it all. But I wasn’t mad that I loved her or that she’d helped heal me, too. I was actually more pissed that I hadn’t seen it coming. The signs had all been there. Yet I’d let it get to this point.