“Because I asked you to,” he says simply.
“So you’d lose the farm before you let me help?” He only glares at me, as if asking the question somehow negates my belief in him. “God, you are so stubborn!”
“Let it go!” he barks.
“What if I can’t?”
“Then we have bigger problems than the farm.”
My breath catches in my throat. The threat in his tone is loud and clear. “I’m only trying to help.”
“You want to help?” he asks. “Then don’t bring this up again.”
Before I can give him the tongue-lashing he deserves, he walks out, slamming the door.
*
No matter how old you are, sometimes a woman just needs her mom. So right after Rorke slammed the door, I hopped up, threw on some clothes, and drove to see mine. She met me on the back porch with biscuits and open arms.
I’m not sure I should be spilling secrets about Rorke’s family finances, but I know anything I say to my mom, she’ll take to the grave. I pull at my hair, trying to get it off my neck, the heat and humidity already in full force this morning.
“I’m so frustrated,” I say. “My job has caused problems for my personal life, for Daddy. This is a chance for something good. I mean, what’s the point in having money if you can’t help those you love when they need it?”
“Have you said that to Rorke?” Momma asks.
“I can’t get him to listen to reason.”
“Can’t never could,” she says.
“I love you, Momma, but what does that even mean?”
“It means you have to keep trying.” She pats my thigh. “That’s what marriage is. It’s ninety-nine percent trying.”
“What’s the other one percent?”
“Sex,” she laughs.
“That’s your big advice?”
“That’s the best advice you’ll ever get,” she says.
*
Song of the day: “Issues” by Julia Michaels. I’ve got my pad of sticky notes in order of what tasks I need to tackle first. It’s not on my to-do list, but it’s the most important thing I’ll do today—fix things with Rorke. I hated the way he left this morning. We’re supposed to be giddy over getting married; it shouldn’t be like this. I’m not sure how we’re going to get over this hurdle, but avoiding one another is not the way.
I pull up next to his Jeep in the school parking lot, jot a little note, and stick it to his dash. It’s such a silly little gesture, but I know he’ll appreciate it. I still find it hard to believe he used to get jealous of my notes to Levi. He’s loved me for so long and in just a few days, we’ll make it official. Nothing should be more important than that.
I head towards the field, the sound of whistles and the banging of shoulder pads leading the way. I’ll never understand the draw of running as fast as you can into another person. Women don’t fight that way. We usually don’t let our opponents see us coming, preferring a sneak attack or a stab in the back.
But I see her coming right at me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
RORKE
Walking off the football field, I reach for my phone. I need to apologize to Sterling—for the way I left, my tone, slamming the door, my behavior these last few days. Plus, I know she’s not going to tolerate my shit for long, so it’s best to apologize and get it out of the way.
I haven’t changed my mind about the money. I don’t see anything changing my mind about that, but we have to find a way to move past this. Sterling doesn’t pick up when I call, and I don’t leave a message. A voicemail apology is not going to cut it. Neither is a text. But I do send her one, asking her to meet me at my place.
I expected her to respond. She’s always good about that. But the whole drive home—no response. As I step out of my Jeep, my gut twists and tightens, knowing she must be really pissed. Deserved or not, I don’t like it. I hate knowing I hurt her feelings, yelled at her, then left. Maybe she’s inside waiting.
The barn door opens with a squeak. I’m nervous about how to resolve this, but the thought of seeing her soothes me—her sweet smell, her smile, her laugh. Taking a deep breath, I find peace in my certainty that everything will be alright. I’ll say what I need to say, and we’ll be okay. I flick on the light. Ever just walk into a room and know something is different? Something’s been moved or added?
My eyes land on her pillow, holding her ring in two pieces and resting beside it, a check for the value of the loan on the farm.
She’s gone.
The first minute after I realized she’d left me, everything stopped—my heart, my breath, my life. The pain of losing her resuscitated me in the second minute, and I sprang into action, dialing her number over and over again—her cell, her home in New York, her office there. Nothing.
She was here a few hours ago. Just because she’s left me doesn’t mean she’s left town. Like a bat out of hell, I race to her house, seeing her car still parked beside it. She’s here. I haven’t lost her. Relief for a moment.
Banging on the back door and calling her name, I know I must look like a raving lunatic when her mom answers the door. “Mrs. Amy, I need to see Sterling right now. It’s important.”
Her father appears, placing his hand on top of his wife’s shoulder, and a slow rain begins to fall, pattering against the roof. “I’m sorry, Rorke,” her mother says. “She’s gone back to New York.”
“No, her car’s still here. Did she say anything else? We’re supposed to get married in less than two weeks.”
The way they look at each other tells me the wedding’s not happening. “You should talk to Sterling.” They try to get me to come inside, but I can’t. I can’t just sit here and do nothing. I thank them and dodge raindrops to get back in my Jeep.
Socrates said, “The hottest love has the coldest end.”
But this can’t be the end. If she left her car here, then she must be flying. I pull out my phone, finding the number to the Mobile airport. Maybe she hasn’t boarded a plane yet. I can call the airport and have them page her, saying there’s an emergency. She’d answer that page, worried about her parents. It might be a low move, but so is leaving me without a fucking word.
Holding my breath, I wait on hold, hoping and praying it will be her voice on the other end. But it’s not. She’s gone. My only hope now is that she sees my messages when she lands and calls me back. But that could take several hours, depending on her flight and connections.
I make a few more calls to see if perhaps she said goodbye to anyone—Ms. Mirabelle, her book club friends, but no one has heard from her. I stop at the only jeweler in town, certain this had to be the place that cut the ring off her finger. And I was right, but the man couldn’t tell me anything other than she kept her eyes closed the whole time.
At this point, my Jeep seems to be driving itself, directing me where it wants me to go. I shouldn’t be surprised when I pull up in front of the cemetery. I don’t get out right away. I haven’t been back here since we buried my father, unsure if I could stand in front of both their graves. I wish Sterling was here with me.
Pulling out my phone, I look up flights to New York, staring down at my screen. Telling myself she’s going to call, I decide not to book one, shove the phone in my pocket, and step out into the rain. Rain in the summer in the South is a weird thing. Afternoon showers are common, but when the rain stops, the air feels more humid than before. But this rain is different—slower.
The sky weeps for her, but I won’t.
Crying is final. I cried when Levi and my father died because it signified an end. I won’t let myself shed one tear over Sterling. This is not an end.
This is simply a side effect of love.
All the great poets and writers for centuries have written about this. The pain and anguish of love. I thought I understood it because I lost her before. But this is different than when she left when we were kids. The heart associates feelings with certain people. Like when I remember Levi, my heart feel
s a joy you only know as a kid. But my heart is starting to associate Sterling with pain and loss. So much of my life was spent yearning for her. And now it hurts to think about her. And that’s dangerous. That’s when people give up on each other. And that can’t happen.
I kneel at the foot of their graves to talk to my brother and father. “Sterling left. Yep, just like that without even a goodbye, she left. One minute we were supposed to get married, the next, she’s flown back to New York. No explanation, no fuck off, no good reason. Yes, we had a fight, but I didn’t expect this.”
Closing my eyes, I will an answer from beyond the grave. The one that comes isn’t the one I expected. Charles Dickens died almost a hundred and fifty years ago, but his words from Great Expectations echo in my head: “I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.”
When she pushes you away, you have to love her harder. Be stubborn. That’s what my dad told me. I may not know what to do or say, but I know how to love this woman. I just have to keep doing that and trust it will be enough.
*
I walk the dirt paths of the farm most of the day. It’s been raining for eight hours straight. It’s like the sky is sad or something. Can’t blame it. And this whole time, not once have I thought about money, losing the farm, any of it. The only thing I can think about is Sterling.
My worry has turned into being pissed off. That damn check stuffed in my pocket is like a knife to the gut. It’s enough to save the farm. I’d told her during the whole prenup discussion that her handing me a check would cement the end of us. But that’s a damn lie. I need some answers.
My cell phone rings as I reach the door to my house. “Sterling, are you alright?”
I hear her inhale like she’s mustering courage. “I’m fine. I had to leave.”
“Why? Is there some emergency at work?”
“No.”
“What the hell is going on? How could you leave like that? We had a fight, and you run away. I thought you were stronger than this.”
“That’s not the . . .”
“Was this all just too fast for you?
“No,” she says weakly.
“Are you pregnant?”
“What? No! Why would you think that?”
“I don’t know what to think. You leave without a word, except one from your bank account,” I snap.
“Was it not enough?” she asks with a snip to her voice that is unmistakably fake.
“Nice try,” I say. “What else you got?”
“Leave me alone.”
“Not until you tell me the truth. Why’d you leave?”
“I haven’t been able to sleep.”
“That’s nothing new,” I say.
“I don’t want to be married to you. I want more, Rorke. I don’t want small town living. I never did. I certainly don’t want to spend my life on a farm. It’s not enough. You aren’t enough. You could never be enough.”
It hurts like hell to hear those words from her lips, but nothing about them feels real to me. “Sterling, I’m not sure why you’re saying all this, but . . .”
“Because it’s true. I’m not going to hold myself back just to be with you. And I’ll have to so your pride doesn’t get hurt. I run my own company. You’re just a teacher.”
“Why didn’t you have the decency to tell me this face-to-face?” I ask. She falters, unable to answer, and I know why. She couldn’t lie to my face.
“I knew you’d try to stop me from going.”
She’s right about that. “I’m coming up there. We need to work this out.”
“No!” she screams. “I don’t want you here. I don’t want to see you.”
“Either you’re lying to me now or you lied every time you said you loved me. Was every kiss a lie? Every smile? Every time you came, screaming my name? Was I not enough then?”
“I was fooling myself, buying into a fantasy. But then I realized it’s going to take more than a couple good orgasms to make me happy.”
“After all, you have a toy for that,” I bark. “You made it so you never need a man for anything. Not for money. Not for sex.”
“That’s right!”
“There’s just one problem.”
“What’s that?”
“You made it so I need you. I need to love you. It’s like breathing or eating or sleeping. It’s basic. Loving you has been part of me for as long as I can remember. Are you really going to lie to me and tell me my love isn’t enough?”
“It’s not about your love for me. It’s about my love for you. My love for you won’t be enough.”
I hear her sobs through the phone, wishing I could reach out and hold her. “Sterling? We’re supposed to be getting married.”
“The wedding is off. Goodbye, Rorke. I’m sorry.”
The line goes dead.
I stand frozen for a second, my brain and heart both trying to make sense of what just happened. There’s power in the heart. There’s power in the brain. Often, they’re not the same. They are competing forces, but not this time. This time they are both telling me the same thing. This doesn’t add up.
I flip open my laptop. Staring at my computer screen, the flights to New York are outrageous, especially last minute like this. They want two weeks advance purchase for the cheaper fares, but I don’t have two weeks. It’s already been a day, and the clock is ticking. Still, I talked myself out of this earlier. My finger hovers over the purchase key. The cost of the ticket is about a week’s pay for me.
She’s worth every penny.
I have to go get her. There’s no other choice.
And I’m not coming back without her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
STERLING
Hot tears fall down my cheeks as I sit at my desk. Remember the old nursery rhyme, “First comes love, then comes marriage?” I think I’ve rewritten it. “First comes sex, second comes love, third comes rip your fucking heart out in pain.” And I can only blame myself, but there was no other choice.
I don’t remember the last time I got any real sleep. Probably not since Rorke and I were in New York together, which seems like a lifetime ago. I’m desperate for a distraction. Normally, work does it, but I need something more, so I hit the music app on my phone. Machine Gun Kelly and Hailee Steinfeld start torturing me with “At My Best.” Last night was the cruelest thing I’ve ever done to another person. I don’t recall ever intentionally hurting someone before. But everything I said was designed to do just that. Hurt him. The only man I’ve ever loved.
My love for you won’t be enough.
That’s the lie I fed him yesterday. Only, it’s not a complete lie. I had to say something, give him just the right lie. The lie that would kill his love for me, but still leave him whole enough to love someone else eventually.
He thinks I meant I don’t love him enough, but that’s not what I meant at all. I meant my love won’t be enough for him if he loses what he loves because of me. He’s lost too much already.
Maybe we just aren’t meant to be. For whatever reason, we just can’t get it right. At least that’s the line I’m feeding myself this hour. Anything to try to close this gaping hole in my chest.
Miles sticks his head in my office, and I quickly wipe my cheeks. “Ms. Jamison, can I get you some lunch?” I shake my head. “Tea? Coffee?”
Rorke’s right. He is a little ass kisser. “No, thank you,” I say, and he excuses himself.
Shaking it off, I know I just need to keep busy. I have a conference call with my lawyer, who has squashed the copycat company into the ground. Wonder what the bill for that piece of work will be? He tries again to convince me of a prenup. I want to tell him the wedding is off, that the prenup is totally unnecessary, but I can’t manage the words.
The rest of the day, my body moves from meeting-to-meeting, but my head’s not in the game, and I left my heart back in Alabama. Sighing, I pull out a list of universities that ha
ve invited me to speak. Some want a onetime engagement; others would like for me to teach an entire semester. I stare at the list, noting none of the schools are even close to Alabama.
My cell phone rings. I keep expecting it to be Rorke, but it never is. It seems I finally crushed the stubbornness out of him, just like I know I crushed his heart. There was no other way. I knew he’d come after me unless I hit him where it hurt—his pride, his ego. The guilt I feel over hurting him is only bearable because I know it’s for his own good.
I pick up and immediately hear my momma say, “Rorke came by.”
“I know.”
“So you talked to him?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m fit to be tied,” she says, and I imagine her red hair blazing. “What in blazes are you thinking, child?”
“Momma, just do what I ask. Please cancel the wedding.”
“Hush your mouth. I will do no such thing. Not until you tell me why you’re hurting that boy. For God’s sake, his father just died, and you’re practically leaving him at the altar!”
“I have my reasons.”
She groans, and I hear her say, “Please talk some sense into your daughter.”
Then I hear daddy’s voice, “Sugar.”
There’s no good word for what happens next—crying? Yes, but it’s more than that. Sobbing? That’s not quite it, either. Wailing? I’m not making any noise. Bawling? I’m not sure that includes the snot running down my face.
How can one word from my daddy reduce me to this? It’s because he sees the little girl inside me. The one that’s scared. The one that’s trying to be brave. He waits on the phone with me. He’s used to sitting with people working through their pain. He’s good at it because he can be quiet, really hear the depths of despair. And when I’ve finally settled, he offers me only one word.
“Fight.”
I’d expected him to say love, sacrifice, truth, honesty, or prayer. I hang up, confused and too tired to try to figure it out. Not much gets figured out today.
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