by Jewel E. Ann
“You live with your mom?” The clueless girl giggled.
Elena wasted no time shoving Quinn away and kicking the girl to the curb.
“No. He lives with his fiancée. Now get out and don’t come back!” Elena hissed.
At that moment Quinn caught sight of me with his glazed eyes and shit-faced smirk. He didn’t bring home another woman for sex; we both knew that. There was only one reason he brought her home––to hurt me.
Mission accomplished.
Nodding to acknowledge that he had made his point, I grabbed my computer, phone, and purse and walked to the door where they were standing.
“You’re wrong, Elena.” I slipped my ring off and set it on the entry table. “Quinn doesn’t live here with his fiancée, because he doesn’t have a fiancée.”
“Addy, don’t—” Elena started to protest, but I shook my head to stop her from saying anymore.
“Dammit! Say something, Quinn! Don’t you dare let her leave,” she pleaded with her son.
Quinn stared at the ring on the table then his eyes met mine. His smirk was gone and even though he had trouble staying focused on me, I finally saw a twinge of pain in his eyes. I didn’t try to hold back the tears, I let them flow freely.
“I love you … I’ll always love you,” I said with a shaky voice as I wiped away my tears with the back of my fingers.
“What about your things?” Elena asked with a broken voice. She too had tears falling down her face.
I continued to look solely at Quinn. “There’s nothing here I need anymore.”
It was a lie. Everything I needed stood before me. My heart was screaming for him to stop me. One word … one syllable was all he would have had to say. Every cell in my body begged for him to say it. Just one, small, word––stay.
Nothing. He gave up on me … he gave up on us.
I opened the door and turned my back to both Quinn and Elena. “Goodbye.”
I heard Elena sniffling, but Quinn said nothing. There was no “never goodbye” because we both knew it was our forever goodbye. As soon as the door shut behind me, I let out a strangled sob. When I got in Karma my phone chimed. It was a text from Mac.
Hey, sweetie. My heavy heart is thinking of you. Eight years ago today we both lost so much. Hope you and Quinn are better and you’re finding comfort in each other’s arms. Call me. Love, Mac.
CHAPTER FIVE
“So where are we going, Addy?”
“I don’t know, Mac. Anywhere but here. I just need to feel something outside of myself.”
“It won’t hurt like this forever.”
“I know … because I won’t live forever. But right now my heart is bleeding out and if I stay I won’t––”
“You won’t what?”
“I won’t survive.”
*
Numb. That’s what it feels like to have your heart ripped from your chest. I trusted Quinn to catch me, and I found myself face-first on the ground. I gave him too much and knew it. But it was worth it. He was worth it. Lost, hopeless, and insignificant were the only feelings I recognized through the tingling numbness.
Before I left Quinn’s, I turned off my phone. Then, like a leaf sailing on the waves of the wind, I found the open road and drove. With each passing mile it became harder to breathe. I wasn’t ready to let go of Quinn, but it wasn’t my choice. We had been hanging by a thread, and he broke it. The love I used to see in his eyes was tainted with so much anger, I no longer recognized the man I loved. Forgiveness happens in the beat of a heart, forgetting takes a lifetime.
Headed for destination unknown, I was completely alone. Taking each intersection with the randomness of a coin toss, I drove until I just couldn’t drive anymore—found a hotel and collapsed for about six hours. This was my routine every day for a week until I instinctively made my way back to Milwaukee.
It was late and the streets looked abandoned. I parked Karma in her old spot and grabbed what few belongings I had acquired over my week’s journey. The air was stagnant and muggy, and the cricket chirps were amplified by the stillness. The familiarity of my loft embraced me. Everything was just how I’d left it. I’d thought my return would be to move everything to Chicago … with Quinn. Instead, I found myself doubting if I would ever move back, if I would ever see Quinn again.
The next morning I realized I had two choices: waste more precious time grieving a love that wasn’t meant to be or move on. I was familiar with the former, so I chose the latter. A long run followed by yoga and meditation brought out the strong and peaceful Addy I hadn’t seen in the mirror for quite some time. The dull ache in my heart was still there; it was a constant reminder of how much I’d lost, but also how much I’d loved.
“Surprise!” I yelled out as I walked into the Café.
“Well, I was when I saw your car out back this morning.” Jake smiled as he walked toward me.
“Missed Karma, didn’t you?”
He hugged me leaving my feet dangling in the air. “Karma? No. You? Definitely.”
I rubbed his head. “Chrome-dome no more? I like it. Copper blond reminds me of my dad.”
He set me down and ran his fingers through his short stubbly hair. “Less menacing.”
“Since when do you want to be less menacing?”
“Since I started getting more satisfaction from the kitchen and less from the fighting ring.”
“Mmm, I’m glad to hear that. I’m starving. Why don’t you show me your latest masterpiece?”
“Absolutely. Have a seat and I’ll be right back.”
Jake returned with a plate of lemon-blueberry pancakes topped with maple cinnamon syrup.
“These look amazing, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t run far enough this morning to eat all of them.”
“You look thin, too thin. Don’t get me wrong, you’re beautiful, but thinner than I remember.”
I smirked and nodded my head while I shoved in a large bite. “Fair enough,” I murmured with a full mouth.
I had unintentionally lost weight since Quinn’s accident. All my focus and attention had been on him. When Mac and I left for a year after the fire I lost a lot of weight. Some people eat when they’re stressed or grieving, but not me. I couldn’t think about food until someone forced it down me.
“I’ve had too much on my mind to think about food.” A painful smile etched my face.
Jake leaned back in his chair, lacing his fingers behind his head. “A chef who hasn’t had time to think about food, huh? Sounds troubling.”
“You could say that.”
“I take it you’re not here just to check up on me.” He winked and flashed his boyish grin.
Savoring the delicious lemony sweetness in my mouth, I contemplated how to answer. “I left Quinn … or he left me. I’m not sure, but we’re no longer together.”
Just as quick as I gained back my appetite, saying those words aloud robbed me of it again. I knew we were over, but that was the first time I acknowledged it since I’d left New York. I could barely swallow the bite I had in my mouth.
Jake looked at me with wide eyes and a slack mouth. The silence between us confirmed it.
“Hey, I’m going to go shower. I’ll take the rest of the pancakes with me and bring the plate down later. If that’s ok?”
“Addy, I don’t know what to say.”
“I just didn’t want them to go to waste, so I thought—”
“I’m not talking about that.”
I stood up and rested my hand on his shoulder. “I know you’re not. You don’t have to say anything. There’s really nothing to say. I’ll see you later.”
Jake nodded but said nothing. I didn’t want his pity, and I sensed he knew it.
*
After I showered I turned on my cell phone for the first time since I’d left New York. I had more missed calls from Elena and Mac than I could count, but nothing from Quinn. A pang of remorse clenched my heart for a second, but I pushed away the looming feelings of bitter regret. I may
have been the one who walked out the door, but he asked me to leave the moment his drunk ass crossed the threshold with that floozy.
I called Mac before the search party showed up at my door.
“Adler Sage Brecken, where the hell have you been?” Her voice was pure anger.
“Nice to hear your voice too,” I chided.
“Well, you don’t just break off your engagement and go AWOL for a week without pissing people off with worry!”
“Pissed off with worry?” I laughed. “Now that’s a new one.”
“Stop it, Addy! You don’t get to humor your way out of this.”
“Who told you?”
“What?” Mac asked confused.
“Who told you I broke off my engagement?”
She hesitated for a moment. “Quinn, well … technically Elena.”
“I’m not following.”
“I called looking for you after three days of leaving messages on your phone.”
“You called Quinn or Elena?”
“Quinn first, then Elena. You should have called me, Addy. Does our friendship mean that little to you?”
“No, Mac. It’s because our friendship means so much to me. You mean so much to me. I feel like I take away a part of your happiness every time I show up on your doorstep needing to be pieced back together. I knew you’d have insisted I drive straight to your house, but I needed time.”
There was silence on the line. I figured she was processing. “So where are you now?” she asked in a calmer voice.
“Milwaukee.”
“Oh, sweetie. You should come home.”
“I am home. For now this is home.”
“I miss you.”
Her whiney voice made me smile. “I miss you too, and I’ll come visit soon.”
“Addy?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you going to be okay?”
Of course she couldn’t see me, but I nodded to myself as I closed my eyes and focused on my heart.
“Eventually.”
*
Every detail of the following month stayed etched in my head, but it wasn’t because of my gifted memory, it was because time passed so slowly. I volunteered at The Sage Leaf Café most days and found myself hanging out with Jake in the evenings. He shared his less than tragic break up story. Jessica abruptly packed up and moved to California to follow her dreams of acting. Jake suspected it had more to do with her high school sweetheart who paid a visit to her a few weeks before she decided to leave. He said he never really loved her and that she was more of a distraction. That brought back memories of Quinn and his “distractions.” It amazed me how men found it so easy to use women like that.
Jake and I did everything: movies, dining, rollerblading, dog walking, volunteering. I even tagged along to one of his fights. It was my first underground fight experience, and after it was over I declared it was my last. Jake emerged virtually unscathed, but his opponent’s bloodied body was hauled away on a stretcher. Jake insisted it looked worse than it really was, but I wasn’t so sure. It was the first fight he’d had in months, and I was hopeful that someday he would completely give it up.
It was close to midnight by the time he dropped me off at my loft. He parked his Harley and removed his helmet as I removed mine.
“I’ll be fine. You don’t have to walk me to my door.” I smiled.
He grabbed my hand and led me up the stairs. “Yes, I do.”
When we got to the top, he turned to face me. Jake was not as tall as Quinn but still had several inches on me.
“Why?” I asked as I grazed my thumb over the small cut above his eye. It was his only mark from the fight.
He put his hand over mine pressing it to his cheek. “So I could do this.”
His lips brushed mine. I started to pull away.
“Jake,” I whispered.
“Shh.” He kissed me again, lingering a bit longer, before stepping back with a sexy smile.
“Goodnight, Addy.”
He jogged down the stairs and straddled his bike while fastening his helmet. I was in a complete daze as I touched my fingers to my lips and watched him leave. I stood frozen in place for a few minutes after he drove off. Jake was almost ten years younger than me, and my head was ready to explode with confusion. I finally opened the door to my loft, nearly stumbling inside, then I plopped down on my couch.
I was looking for every reason why kissing Jake was a catastrophically bad idea, but in the grand scheme of my messed up life I couldn’t think of one good reason. As soon as I came to that conclusion, I packed a bag and drove to Chicago.
*
“Addy!” Mac yelled as I grabbed my bags from the back seat.
I walked toward her then dropped my bags to hug her.
“Hey, Mackenzie! I’ve missed you.”
She pulled back to look at me. “Well, you should not be missing me. You should be making my neighbors an offer they can’t refuse on their house so you can move in next to me.”
“Chicago … someday, but not yet.”
We walked into her house.
“Evan and I are holding The Sage hostage, so if you want to enjoy sailing this summer you’d better rethink ‘someday.’”
“I have nothing better to do than drive down here every weekend for a sailing threesome with you and Evan, so nice try with the blackmail.”
She poured us both iced tea, and we made our way to the porch overlooking her large, wooded lot.
“Have you talked to him?” she asked hesitantly.
“By him I assume you mean Quinn, and no, I haven’t. Elena has left me several messages, but I haven’t called her. I sent her a few texts letting her know I’m fine and asking how she’s doing.”
“How she’s doing? Nothing about Quinn?” Mac raised her eyebrows in disbelief.
“I haven’t asked about him, but she’s offered more than I wanted to know.”
“Such as?”
I sipped my tea and looked out the window at a spastic squirrel zigzagging around the back woods. “Such as he hasn’t been sober a day since I left and he quit his physical therapy.”
“I wondered.”
“What do you mean by that?” I looked at her with a raised eye brow.
“Well, when I called him looking for you he was …” The tight apprehension in her face was apparent, even though she had no reason to hide the truth.
“Drunk. Just say it. He was drunk.”
Her nose wrinkled as she nodded.
“What’d he say to you?”
She didn’t answer.
“Just tell me, I can handle it,” I insisted as I put my glass on a coaster then started nervously twirling my hair.
She released the breath she’d been holding. “He said you … crippled him and then dumped his ass and …”
“And what?”
“Addy, what’s the purpose of this? If it’s over, then why do this to yourself?”
“Mac.” I looked at her until she caved and finished.
“He said he couldn’t care less where you went.”
Quinn was an awful drunk, but knowing that didn’t lessen the sting.
“I bet you wish you never met him.”
I winced hearing her say those words. “No, I loved Quinn … I’ll always love him. There was a moment in our relationship when I knew I’d given him so much of myself that I wasn’t sure I’d survive without him. I did it anyway, because being with him was worth it. But I am, one day at a time, surviving without him.”
“I don’t know how you do it. You’re such a better person than I am. And you’re definitely a better person than Quinn could ever hope to be. He doesn’t deserve you.” Mac spoke with an undercurrent of anger to her voice.
“Well, until I’m ready to face my past, and I mean really face my past, then I’m never going to have a lasting relationship. I try to convince myself that my past doesn’t matter, but it does. It’s part of who I am, and by not sharing it with Quinn I never let him know me, all
of me.”
A lone tear trailed down my cheek. “I may have deserved better than he gave me in our last few weeks together, but he deserved better too. He deserved the truth.”
Mac stood and put her hands on her hips. “Well, this conversation has turned into a real downer if you ask me. Let’s call Evan and tell him to fake an illness, malaria or something, so we can go sailing.”
I went from tears of sadness to tears of laughter. “Malaria? Really? Has Evan been out of the country recently? I think he should go with something more believable, say … rabies?” I tried to keep a straight face but failed miserably.
“Whatever, smarty pants.” She rolled her eyes.
Mac had a lot of information stored in her brain; she was just very selective when it came to using it. We were a couple of oddballs. Mac was flighty by choice, and I was an unpretentious walking zombie of “wasted potential.”
*
Lake Michigan was calm and warmly inviting that day. Evan had just finished a big case the week before so he had some wiggle room in his schedule to hang out with us for the afternoon.
“What have you been up to in Milwaukee?” Evan casually asked.
I was trying to corral my windblown hair into a ponytail, so I gave him a generic answer. “Not much.”
“Mac said you’ve been helping out at the Café. How does that go over with Jake?”
Oh yes, Jake.
“He’s good with it. We’ve done a role reversal. I wait for his instructions and he’s grateful to have another set of competent hands on busy days. I don’t have to plan the menu, coordinate catering, or shop for food and supplies, and he doesn’t have to pay me, except for a few free meals.”
“You forgot to mention how much time you two have been spending together outside of work,” Mac had to add.
She was aware we had become good friends and were spending a lot of time together, but I hadn’t told her about the kiss.
“Yes, we have a lot in common so we’ve been hanging out.” I replied with an even tone as I picked at my fingernails and searched for a new subject.
“That’s great. He sounds like a good distraction from all you’ve been going through.” Evan commented.
Jake was definitely a distraction, but I wasn’t sure yet if he was a good one.