Sift

by L. D. Davis

  I shifted my weight to one foot. “How…how do you feel about it?” I asked quietly.

  His gaze darkened. “How do you think I feel about it? How would you feel if you knew I was seeing someone else?”

  I shrugged a shoulder, not really wanting to answer the question, but Connor wasn’t letting me off that easily.

  “No, I really want to know,” he insisted. “I want to know how you would feel if you knew that I was seeing another woman, if I was with her in the same capacity that I am with you.”

  One of my hands curled into a small fist. I thought about giving some bullshit response that wouldn’t adequately express how I felt about the idea of his hands and his lips on another woman, about him being in bed with another woman and laughing with her and bringing her to his parents’, but I hated bullshit. I always wanted the truth, straight with no chaser, so I ought to give it that way, too.

  “I would feel angry,” I admitted, a little too sharply. “Angry and hurt. And I’d want to pull her hair out, claw out her eyes and make her eat mud.”

  One corner of his mouth quirked up just a tiny bit. “Why?” he asked.

  “Why what?”

  “Why would you want to pull her hair out, claw out her eyes, and make her eat mud?”

  I looked away from him as some of the anger faded inside of me. It was hard, but I made myself turn back and meet his eyes again.

  “Because…I don’t have any real claim on you,” I said softly. “But it don’t make you any less mine.”

  His eyes burned into mine. “Exactly,” he responded just as softly. “That’s how I feel about it, Darla. I want to rip his head off—whoever he is. The idea that you might have with some other guy anything close to what I have with you makes me feel violent.”

  He took one step, and we were toe to toe. His warm hand gently cupped my cheek.

  “I don’t have any real claim on you, but it doesn’t make you any less mine.”

  I thought he would kiss me, but he stared at me for a moment more and then stepped back again, creating space between us that I didn’t want.

  “For the record, I am not seeing anyone else. I don’t want to,” Connor said after a couple minutes of silence. “I don’t want you to return the gifts. I want you to use that ticket, Darla. No matter what happens between us.”

  I felt a little more relief knowing he wasn’t with anyone else.

  “Okay,” I said, though, in my mind, I told myself I wouldn’t use it. I wouldn’t take his money like that.

  “How long?” Connor asked after another stretch of silence. He was pacing in front of me, watching me carefully.

  “How long what?”

  “How long have you been seeing this other guy?”

  I hesitated as I eyed him. His question confirmed that he didn’t know it was Cade, or maybe that he wasn’t sure that it was Cade. “Do you really want to know that? Any of it?”

  His jaw tightened for a second and then relaxed a little. “I don’t want to hear it,” he said. “I don’t want to hear the details, but I want to know them. The only way for me to know is to hear. So, tell me. How long?”

  I swallowed, and then cleared my throat, suddenly feeling very nervous again. “Why don’t we just…let it go, Connor? Let’s just move on.”

  He stopped pacing and stared at me. “You’re the one that wanted to have this conversation, so we’re having it.”

  “I didn’t want to have this conversation in particular.”

  He pushed his hand through his hair as he made an exasperated sound. I had never seen Connor so serious, strung so tight. This side of him was as intriguing as it was daunting.

  “How long?” he demanded.

  Again, I hesitated. Then, very quietly, I said, “From the beginning. I guess you can say that I never stopped.”

  His brow furrowed with confusion, but only for a few seconds before understanding came to him. His eyebrows rose, his mouth opened, and his arms fell to his sides.

  “Caden?” he asked, his voice ragged. “It’s your ex, Caden?”

  The disbelief and pain heard so clearly in his voice made me choke a little when I tried to talk.

  “I…We really did break up,” I explained, my own voice shaking. “When I got back home, I didn’t see him for a little bit, but when I did, I made it clear that we were over. I became unquestionably single, but Cade…he wanted me back, and I thought…” I dropped my gaze to the green grass. “I thought I’d give him the chance to get me back without actually being with him. I was okay with that, especially when you broke off contact with me, but then you showed up at my job and…well, you know what happened from there.”

  Connor took a step back, and then another, and another, and more until there were several yards between us. It may as well had been several worlds between us.

  That disbelief was still on his face, but there was also anger. Not just anger, but fury. I had underestimated him. I didn’t think he had it in him to look like that. He wasn’t just a nice guy, he was human, and he was a man, and I made his face look like that, as if he could tear me to pieces and toss me into the bay.

  I took a few steps toward him. “Connor, I—”

  He held up a hand to stop me. He held it there as he breathed heavily, as if he were holding me back with an invisible force that he was barely able to contain.

  “I think you should leave.”

  I stilled and stupidly asked, “Now?”

  “Yes, now!” he barked. “Don’t pretend you don’t know how to do that. We both know that you are familiar with the concept of leaving.”

  I shrank back, but my own anger flickered to life. How typical of me, but this wasn’t all my fault. It wasn’t. It wasn’t like I hadn’t tried to dissuade him in the past.

  “I tried to tell you, Connor, from the very beginning, but you didn’t want to hear me. You just wanted what you wanted and were willing to be blind to the truth.”

  “You never outright told me that you were still going to see Caden!”

  “Because I didn’t know!” I shouted back, taking several more steps toward him. “I didn’t know what I wanted to do! You knew back in March that I was undecided, and I told you when you came to see me in May that I couldn’t give you anything more than friendship. You took more anyway!”

  Connor took angry steps toward me, pointing at the ground with emphasis as he threw his words at my face. “I knew in those first few days that you were undecided, but after I saw the bruises he left on your arms and the bruise on your chest, I knew that the lump on your head and the sore mouth you didn’t think I noticed weren’t just mishaps. I knew that he did it to you, and I didn’t believe for a second that you would go back to the man that abused you. I thought you were better than that, Darla. I would have never come in May had I known you were still with him.”

  That was the first time that he acknowledged the bruises he had kissed that night or mentioned any knowledge of my other injuries that I’d gained from my fight with Cade. Knowing that Connor had recognized what others closer to me had never been able to recognize in four years made me feel very transparent. I felt that there was nowhere I could hide, not even within myself, that Connor couldn’t find. Ordinarily, I may have relished in that, but not this time. It fed my anger and prodded at my fears.

  I swallowed. I was tempted to look away from his intense eyes, but I didn’t. I breathed in deep through my nostrils and let out a long breath through my parted lips.

  “I’m not ‘with’ him,” I said, trying to clamp down on my anger. “I’m not with anyone. I’m no more with him than I am with you. I haven’t lied to you or him about my intentions.”

  Connor’s next words dripped with contempt. “Do you tell yourself that every time you open your legs for one of us?”

  I didn’t even have a chance to think about it before my arm raised and I drew my hand back to slap him across the face, but Connor saw it coming. His hand clamped down on my wrist before I could follow through, and then o
n my other arm as I raised that one, too.

  “Maybe you and your boyfriend are okay with slapping each other around,” he growled at me. “Maybe you both get off on it, and that’s why you can’t seem to be able to leave each other alone, but I’m. Not. The. One. I would never raise my hand to harm you, Darla, but I can’t guarantee that you won’t get hurt if you try that again.”

  As we glared at each other, and as his hands continued to restrain me, my body gave a tremendous shudder, and I began to tremble. Within seconds, my fury evaporated into the air, and I was only left with a deep sorrow. I swallowed the first sob before it could reach my lips, but the second wasn’t so easy to send away. It came out and was quickly followed by more.

  Connor’s eyes softened a bit as he released me, but his face remained hard and cold. His hands fisted at his sides, and he moved back until once again several feet of grass was between us. He turned his back on me, laced his hands behind his head and cussed once. It was the only time I’d ever heard him say anything worse than damn or hell.

  I wrapped my arms around myself as I cried and watched him. Guilt was a blanket, suffocating me in the sweltering July heat. It was bad enough I had hurt him emotionally, but then I’d behaved like an animal when he’d said something to hurt me back. I used to slap Caden without thinking, too, but he always retaliated. He always gave me the fight I wanted, just like I always gave him the fight he wanted when he pushed me around. Maybe Connor had been right. Maybe we did get off on it.

  “I’m sorry, Connor,” I said in a raspy, teary voice.

  It was a weak apology, but I felt I should at least say it.

  He didn’t turn around right away, but his words carried on the breeze back to me.

  “If it had been anyone else—if you would have chosen anyone else over me, I would have been hurt. It would have broken my heart.”

  He turned. His eyes shone with unshed tears, which only made me cry harder.

  “But you chose to be with a man who hurt you. You chose a man who has never cared about your hopes and your dreams. You chose a man who uses your love to hold you down, rather than to let you live. You chose a man who leaves bruises on you, who has probably banged you up more times than I’ll ever know. You chose him over me.”

  His shining eyes hardened, and his voice became unyieldingly ascetic.

  “So, like I said. I think you should leave. Now.”

  He turned away from me and walked to the dock. I stood there longer than I should have, considering my welcome had been rescinded, and stared at his form against the blue sky and dark water. I wanted to go to him and make him understand, but I didn’t know what I could say to make it better. Probably, nothing could make it better.

  Reluctantly, I looked away from Connor and went inside to hastily pack my things for my hasty and heartbreaking exit.

  It only took me a few short minutes to gather my things and to haphazardly stuff them into my small suitcase and duffel bag. I had made myself stop crying because crying wasn’t going to fix anything, but my body still shuddered every few moments, as if it weren’t ready to end the sobbing.

  I made my way down the stairs and headed to the kitchen. I saw that Connor was still outside, but he was no longer on the dock. He was burning a path in the grass, walking several feet before turning around and walking back. His eyes were on the ground, and his brow was furrowed. Every few seconds he dragged his hands through his hair.

  A single tear fell from each of my eyes as I finally looked away from him. Carefully, as if they would break, I set the keychain and homemade card down on the counter. I gazed at them for a moment, wishing I could keep them so that I’d have a tangible memory of the best presents I had ever received, but I had no right to them.

  I glanced back at Connor’s pacing form once more, and with a heavy, shattering heart, I made my way to the front door and left the Chandler house.

  What would he tell his parents when they came back and discovered me gone and their son in a foul mood? I wanted them to remember me as I would remember them, with warm thoughts, but I wasn’t sure that they would.

  “Darla.”

  I had just cranked the engine of my truck when I heard Connor’s voice drift in through the open windows. I watched him approach with apprehension. It wasn’t until he reached my door that I saw that he held the pink, sparkly card and the keychain in his hands.

  “These are yours,” he said, trying to pass them to me through the window.

  I looked down at them and then lifted my eyes to his. “I can’t take them,” I whispered, shaking my head. “It wouldn’t be right.”

  He sighed impatiently. “It wouldn’t be right for you to leave them here either.”

  I searched his eyes, but they were carefully blank. “Connor…” I shook my head again. “You couldn’t possibly care if I—”

  “Just because I don’t want you in my life doesn’t mean that I don’t want you to be happy, Darla,” he snapped. The words hurt, but I stayed quiet as he continued. “He has held you back for years. I am not him.”

  I was crying again as Connor placed the card and keychain in my open hands.

  “Use it,” he said quietly, but firmly as his index finger tapped the glittering card. He touched my face, just once, and then walked away.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  I had silenced my phone earlier in the morning before sitting down to breakfast with Connor and his parents. I was so distracted by the emotions that flooded my heart, that I didn’t think about it until I was close to Pennsylvania and at a rest stop for a pee break. After getting back into the truck I pulled my phone out of my satchel, all the while secretly hoping that Connor had called me to tell me to come back. Connor hadn’t called me, but Caden had. Dozens of times.

  I stared opened mouthed at the phone. Cade rarely called me when I was visiting my family, which was where he thought I was. Even though the man could be very domineering, he did tend to give me my space when I was in Virginia and when I was at work. I hadn’t spoken to him since he pushed me out of his office on Friday. What could have changed since then? Did something happen? Some kind of emergency?

  The first call had come probably moments after I had silenced the phone, almost five hours ago. He had also left several text messages, but he’d revealed nothing in them. He’d just found creative ways of telling me to answer the phone and had demanded to know where I was. I scrolled through my other phone calls and discovered that my sister had called me three times, and Cherry had called a few times as well.

  “What the hell?” I muttered to myself, my heart suddenly beating fast.

  Maybe something had happened. Maybe to my mom or dad? Or one of the kids?

  I didn’t know who to call back first, but in the end, I didn’t have to call anyone. Cade called me again.

  “Hello?” I answered anxiously.

  “Where are you?” Cade demanded without preamble.

  My heart fluttered uncomfortably in my chest. I knew he wouldn’t be asking where I was if he’d been confident that I was where I let him believe I was. Fortunately, I didn’t have to skirt around the truth.

  “I’m in my truck on my way home.”

  His words were clipped. “On your way home from where, Darla?”

  I hesitated, confused. “Cade, did something hap—”

  “Where. The. Fuck. Are. You. Coming from?” His voice was like ice coming through the phone.

  I swallowed once, twice, and once more before I could find my voice again. “Maryland,” I whispered before I realized he couldn’t hear me. I said it again, a little louder. “Maryland.”

  He didn’t speak for several long moments. Then he asked, “Do you know where I am, Darla?”

  My stomach twisted as a thought came to me. My sister had called me. Why had McKenzie called me?

  “At home? At M.J.’s?” I asked, knowing he wasn’t at either of those places.

  His voice dropped. Low. Terrifying. “Why don’t you ask me where I am, Darla. Go ah
ead. Ask me where I am.”

  My anxiety level cranked up, and I thought my heart was going to pound its way out of my chest. “Cade, I—”

  “Ask. Me.”

  I took a breath. My hands squeezed the steering wheel. “Where are you, Caden?” I asked, my voice faint.

  “Why, thanks for asking, Dar. I am almost home after a long drive from fucking Craigsville-Nowhere, Virginia.”

  My heart stopped. The air was sucked out of my lungs. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t find the breaths necessary to make words leave my dry mouth.

  “I want answers, Dar,” Caden said, almost shouting. “I want the fucking truth. All of it. You are going to look me in the fucking face and tell me the truth.”

  I closed my eyes and lifted a shaking hand to my forehead to caress the ache that was growing there. There was no getting around it, no way to avoid it, and no way to run from it. I had to tell him about Connor.

  “Okay,” I finally responded, resigned. “Okay. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  “Fuck that!” he shouted through the phone. “You don’t get to fucking choose when! You’ve been lying to me for I don’t even know how long. You are not going to make me wait another fucking day, Darla. I’m going home, and you better be there by the end of the night.”

  Cade ended the call before I could respond.

  I bent forward and rested my forehead on the steering wheel under the weight of the day’s events and the angst that lay ahead. Part of me was tempted to turn my car around, away from Philly and Caden, away from Connor, and away from my family and just drive until all the drama and pain was gone and just a faded memory. I could just disappear. I had no obligations, no one to answer to. I could do it.

  My phone started playing “Country Girl (Shake It for Me)” by Luke Bryan. My sister was calling me again.

  “Hello,” I said flatly after tapping the button.

  “Darla!” she shouted with relief and exasperation. “Where in the living damn hell are you? Why didn’t you answer your phone?”