“You were just going to, what? Write me a note?”
“No.” She looks so sad. It’s in her eyes and the flat hold of her mouth. “But I was going to kiss you goodbye right before I had to leave.”
I don’t like this. I don’t want us to separate like this. It seemed too complicated and not really worth it to book our flights together on the way back when we weren’t coming out at the same time. I’m not leaving until tomorrow, and my mom is going to drive me to the airport. It didn’t seem like a big deal, because of course we’d have plenty of time together in California.
Truthfully, I kind of wanted to travel on my own. There are a lot of things on my “by myself” list that need checking off. I liked it. Sliding through the clumps of families and darting around weary business travelers to grab the last open seat in the waiting area. I have a feeling I’m not going to feel so much like a sophisticated traveler on my way back. It’ll be all wiping my tears away with cheap napkins and eating my feelings with overpriced airport nachos.
I pick at the blanket. “I’m sorry about last night.”
“Don’t apologize.” She holds my hand and laces our fingers together. “There is absolutely no place I’d have rather been.”
“Right. Because you adore having your girlfriend freak out in the middle of sex with a mental breakdown.”
“If that’s what you needed. If it was cathartic.”
“Don’t leave.” My fingers clench on hers, and I grab her thigh with my other hand. “Please. Don’t go. I’ll buy you a ticket back tomorrow, and we’ll drive down together.”
She shakes her head with more of that damned sadness. “I have to go.”
“You don’t. You can call Skylar and tell her you’ll be in tomorrow.”
“You need me to go.”
“No!” I sound panicky again, but that makes sense because I am panicking. She’s going to say goodbye and really mean it. “I love you. Stay, please. Move here with me.”
“I can’t do that.”
“You can have a spot in Nanna’s building.” I scramble to my knees, clutching her waist as if I could physically keep her here forever. “You’ll be the only tattoo artist in town. The tourists will die for it. You’ll get all the business for miles.”
“Hush, little one.” She holds my head, and my eyes feel so heavy. I lean into her touch. “Shhh. I’ll see you in California.”
That’s not a yes. I can hear her no echoing in the vast gulf between us. “Don’t leave me.”
My voice breaks when I start crying. My tears are hot enough that they scorch my cheeks. I think it’s because I cried so much last night. I wipe the drops away with the back of my wrist, and then I have to wipe snot away too. Oh god, how puffy and red must I be? Maybe that’s why she’s saying no.
“You have to do this,” Cai says. “This move is something you need, and you need to do it for just you. All by yourself.”
She’s right. I know she is. The truth only makes me cry harder. I sob and cover my face with my hands as if that’ll keep me from embarrassing myself. It’s too late. “I’m sorry. I should have never walked into your booth. I’ve only brought you headaches.”
“Don’t say that.” She drops to her knees beside the bed and suddenly her head is at my waist when she wraps her arms around my hips. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. You shine so bright, Tansy. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone stronger than you.”
“I’m not strong,” I insist. “I wouldn’t have … I’d have left so much earlier.”
“You did leave. That’s what matters. And you’re brave and hopeful enough to pull up stakes on your entire life.”
“To go back home.” Her hair is silk between my fingers. “That’s not bravery. That’s running away.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I don’t want to leave you.”
She stands up slowly. The kiss she presses to my forehead stops my tears but breaks my heart.
“You’re not,” she says. “I’m leaving you.”
Tansy
Luke Bryan is excellent packing music. He’s telling me about the time that he lost his girl as I fold brown paper around my dishes. I took advantage of Cai running out for lunch and drinks as a chance to crank the country. She’s not super fond, though she tolerates the songs of betrayal with a faintly amused smile—and I think I caught her humming a Florida Georgia Line song under her breath a few days ago, though she denies it. Vehemently.
There’s not much to pack, since I never really got around to really unpacking, so Cai and I figure we’ll be done by the end of the weekend. Imogene is coming later in the afternoon, once she’s done with the baby shower she’s at. The extra set of hands will help. The moving truck arrives Monday morning, and I want everything absolutely ready to go. The less I need the movers to do, the more money I save. The more money I save, the bigger a down payment I have for a house in Salmon. If I play my cards right, I should be able to keep my mortgage far under a grand.
When there’s a knock on my apartment’s front door, I don’t even bother to turn around. It’s got to be Cai. “Come in!” I call, then put the paper-wrapped plate in a box.
“This is cute,” says a voice that I’ve often thought about but not actually heard in months.
I spin. The sheaf of paper drops from my numb fingers and swirls around my ankles.
Jody’s cut her hair pixie short. I wish it looked awful on her, but it doesn’t. It makes the stark ridges of her cheekbones look even more wickedly sharp. She fingers the lights strung on my miniature Christmas tree. Cai gave me the shotgun shell strand almost six weeks ago as an early Christmas present.
“You always did like kitsch,” Jody says dryly. “I think it’s the diner-loving redneck in you.”
I want to rush her and snatch my tree into a hug. Jody only decorated for holidays when it was color coordinated and tasteful. I don’t even like her looking at my adorably Charlie Brown–esque tree. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to let you know that I’ve taken you off my insurance policies. You’re no longer my beneficiary.”
“So?”
“I thought you’d like to know.”
I think she might be implying that I’m a money-grubbing whore. Or something. I fold my arms over my chest and cup my elbows. I don’t remember what it feels like to breathe. “Okay. That’s set, then.”
“I just need you to sign this.” She pulls a folded pack of papers from the Tory Burch purse dangling from her shoulder. When she smooths them out on the table, they’re a thin sheaf of legal papers.
“No.”
“You haven’t even asked what it is.” The coldness she’s giving off used to be the kind that froze me and made my blood thicken like ice floe.
“You can leave it, and I’ll have my lawyer look at it.”
“It’s a quit claim on my condo.” She narrows her eyes. “You can’t possibly think you have any claim on it.”
“You’re the one who brought me papers to sign.” I swallow. My voice is shaking, making mince of my hard-sounding words. “I think that means that you’re worried I do have a claim.”
“It’s always been mine.”
“You made that more than clear. You never let me be comfortable there.” Jody had gone house hunting on her own. I didn’t even see it before she made an offer. I never picked paint, never picked furniture. I was an eternal guest in my own home. Except … “It’s because I paid most of your down payment, isn’t it?”
“That was a loan, and it was repaid by letting you live with me rent-free.”
The money had come when Grandpa Harold died. I hadn’t thought of it much because it was all wrapped up in the time that he died and when I quit my public school job. Jody let me stay with her free of charge until I started at Woodbridge. She’d just asked me for a loan. “I was your girlfriend.”
“You were.” She comes closer, and suddenly even having the dining room table between us isn’t enoug
h. “I miss you, Tansy.”
“Don’t say that.” I hate that my voice goes up. I hate that I jump back.
“It’s true.”
“I don’t care.”
She’s close enough to touch me. She grabs my shoulder. Her fingers are ice, which makes me shudder, but even that doesn’t make her let go. She drops to her knees.
“Take me back, Tansy. Please. I miss you.” She ends on a sob, and her face looks as if it should be crying—her mouth turned down and her forehead wrinkled up—but there’s absolutely nothing in her eyes. They’re dry. I knew she loved that condo, but this is crazy excessive, even for her.
“Let go of me!”
She loops a hand around my knee and with the other reaches for my hand. I yank away hard enough that I stumble. My elbow smashes a box, and it clatters. I catch the small of my back against the edge of the kitchen counter.
She’s saying my name, over and over, and she keeps fucking reaching for me, saying, “Please!”
I kick. It’s barely more than a flail. I miss. “Go away!”
She throws herself back, exaggerated shock written on her face. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Don’t come near me.” I’m half-standing, half-leaning against the counter. My grip is the only thing keeping me from falling. I refuse to go down. My flip-flops skitter across the tile. “Get the fuck away from me.”
She holds both hands up as if she’s the victim here, as if she’s showing me how harmless she is. “I’d never hurt you.”
“You raped me.” I push myself up and stand. My back aches so damn bad. I don’t let any of it show. “On the couch. You hurt me and you raped me and it wasn’t the only time.”
“That’s … That wasn’t …” She stands up.
God, she’s taller than me and this kitchen is so small. All the air is gone, because I can’t seem to breathe. I’m trying though. I’m learning how to breathe. “It was. It was you, making sure you had power over me. But you know what, Jody? You don’t. You’ll never have power over me again.”
“You fucking bitch,” she snarls, and it’s as if there’s a beast who’s been lurking under her pretty face that finally claws its way free. Her mouth is twisted. Her eyes are dark. There’s a dull red flush across her cheeks. Her hands clench and open. “You fucking white trashy country cunt. Fucking mountain people. You’re lucky that I ever paid attention to you in the first place.”
“Oh yeah?” I say, as if my hands aren’t shaking and my stomach isn’t threatening me with vomit. “Then why were you the one on your knees begging me to take you back?”
She snaps. Lunges for me. I duck, but there are boxes in the way. She grabs my wrist and pulls and I don’t freeze—I grab something out of the open box beside me. It’s wrapped in paper but it’s hard, and I smash it against the side of Jody’s face, then again. One more time as she comes closer instead of going away.
The third time I hit her, the thing I’m holding crashes against her nose. Both crumple. I think I must have been holding a glass, because it loses parts of itself and something sharp slices my finger.
But Jody claps both hands to her face and howls. Blood spurts from between her fingers. “Help me.”
“Fuck no.” I stand. My hand doesn’t hurt. I wonder if it will later. Or tomorrow. Everything’s kind of blurry right now. “Get out. Get out of my house. Get out of my life.”
“I need help.”
“I’ll call the cops.”
“And I’ll tell them you assaulted me!” I think I’d be more scared if her words weren’t a mushed-up nasal mess.
“You’re the one in my house.”
“And she’s got me too.” Cai stands in the doorway, a six-pack dangling from her fingertips. “I’ll back her up.”
Cai’s tank top shows off the way her shoulders and arms are covered in tattoos. Her dark eyes are blazing. Her mouth is set in a flat line. She is so fierce that Jody looks like a baby in comparison.
And I’m just as fierce as her. My shoulders are back and my chin is up. “Get out,” I tell Jody. Once upon a time, all I wanted in the world was to go away. It was the only way I could save myself. Now I have a life worth saving, and it’s Jody’s turn to go away. “I know your bosses. I know your family. I’ll Facebook message every single one of your friends and tell them how you raped me. Unless you leave right now.”
“Don’t do this,” Jody says, but her eyes are so wide that I can see the white around the color.
“Don’t push me.”
Her mouth opens, then closes.
And then she leaves. Breaks and runs, pushing past Cai and battering shoulders. Cai isn’t shaken though. She stands firm until the door slams behind Jody, and then she drops the beer. It crashes and foams, but I have Cai’s arms around me and I suddenly realize I’m crying.
I break into sobs, but it doesn’t feel like the other times I’ve cried about this. “I’m safe,” I say, “I’m safe.”
“You are.” Cai’s hands coast over my back. I think she’s holding me in and making sure I’m all right. I can’t seem to get close enough to her. I fist her tank top at her waist and push my face against her neck. “I’ve got you.”
“She raped me.” I say the words against her skin. My hand hurts, and yet I’ve never felt more alive in my life. I’m so free. Jody doesn’t own even a little bit of me anymore, not even the parts that hide in the dark. “The last night. Other times. She was … she was …”
“She was a fucking cunt.”
I burst into laughter. “Yeah, I guess.”
“I know it.” She’s practically growling. “Jesus, Tansy. You’re so brave. I was so goddamn scared when I saw the car downstairs, and you’d already beaten the shit out of her. I can’t believe how brave you are.”
“I’m not. I’m so weak.”
She holds both sides of my face and makes me look her in the eyes. “You are brave. It’s why I love you. You’re still soft, that’s what makes all the parts of you. That’s why you’re so amazing.”
I have no words. Tears spill over my cheeks, and I think they’re washing me clean. I kiss Cai. She kisses me back.
I don’t know where we can go from here. Cai and I live two different lives, and I need to go home to Idaho. It’s where I’m supposed to be. But I know that no matter what, I’m better for having Cai in my life.
I used to think that I knew love, but that was just desperation and loneliness and dependence. This is new. This is strong.
I’m the one who’s grown. I’m the one who’s done the work to build myself up from the tiny speck I used to be—but Cai has held my hand through the whole process. And I love her. I love her more than I ever would have thought possible.
I don’t know what my world is going to look like without her.
Tansy
By mid-July, I’m intensely glad that I budgeted the money for a riding lawn mower. We had a record rainfall this spring and still lots of rain this summer, and as much as I love my little house, I think I might hate it if I had to walk to mow an acre and a half. Living on the very outskirts of town has its ups and downs. At night, when I can stand on my back porch holding a glass of wine and see the stars stretch until the mountains reach up to claim them? Completely worth it.
Even with the machine, I’m sweating as I park it in my garage and let myself into the kitchen. I strip off my soaking-wet T-shirt and walk into the kitchen wearing only a sports bra.
Gyoza twines around my ankles. “Who’s my pretty,” I coo as I scratch behind her head. She holds still long enough to stick her orange butt in the air, so I scratch it too. “Who’s my sweetie?”
She only purrs in response.
“I don’t get a meow?”
She sniffs and wanders away to sit next to her food bowl, which is still totally full. Her nose goes into the air to express her disdain.
“Well, too bad,” I tell her. “You’re getting pretty plump. The vet said you needed the light stuff.”
I’
m turning into the crazy lady who talks to her cats, but I’m good with that. I put a load of laundry in, then bring my pitcher of sun tea in from the porch where I’d had it brewing on the wide-board railing. I know it technically doesn’t make the taste any different, but iced tea that’s been cooked by the sun makes me happy inside and out. I pitch the tea bags and pour myself a glass over ice to take to the papers I have spread over my dining room table.
The room is on the small side, and I don’t like the closed-in feeling. If I have a chance someday, I think I’m going to have the wall between the kitchen and the dining room taken out. Or at the very least have the door made into an archway. But at least the window looks out only on the thick screen of trees that hides me from my neighbors.
Not that I’ve gone full hermit. I know my neighbors on both sides—hard not to in a small town. Patsy, my neighbor to the north, came over to introduce herself with a loaf of poppy seed bread the day after I moved in. Norm came the next day with a list of local service people and a bottle of wine, though he spent most of his time asking me about Patsy. I think I might have the widow and widower over for dinner sometime.
Not today, though. I’m teaching summer school—low teacher on the totem pole—and I’ve got a stack of assignments to go through. Switching from my small, intimate class of second graders to teaching middle school language arts has been a pretty big jump, but I think I’m covering ground pretty well. Wrangling twenty-five students at a time has been the biggest adjustment. It helps that they’re pretty good kids.
An hour passes before I realize, and my watch beeps to remind me to stand up and stretch. I put down my purple marker with a sigh. Anthony is going to need some extra help with his grammar if he’s going to pass this time around. Maybe I should call his mom and see if he can stay after tomorrow.
I wander into the kitchen to pour another glass of tea and stand in front of the cool air pouring out of the fridge. My phone is on the counter. I flick the display on, even though I know it won’t show me anything good. No messages.
No calls either.
I lean on the counter and stare at the glassy rectangle, chewing on my bottom lip.
Cai’s been pretty quiet over the last week or so.
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