by Amelia Wilde
God, I’m so fucking pissed at Angie. She has—had—a beautiful daughter. Minnie’s like nothing the world has ever seen. Why wasn’t that ever enough for her? Why was she such a violent, self-centered person?
I work myself up into an angry tizzy, sitting in the office building’s hallway. It seems fucking weird that this is where they keep the bodies, with the people ahead of me finally getting called back one by one into the office.
In what has to be the world’s biggest anticlimax, there’s no body.
It’s just me and Edward. He slides a photograph of Angie’s face across the desk toward me. “Do you recognize this person as Angela Molter?”
I look down at the photo. It’s definitely Angie all right, stringy brown hair and all. She looks like she’s fucking sleeping, which is what she did whenever she had a spare minute. There was almost never time to play with Minnie or take her to the playground or anything else, but she did have time to get high and sleep.
The sight of her unleashes a torrent of feelings that threatens to sweep me away. I’m angry. I’m devastated for Minnie. I’m at a loss for words. I’m unbelievably sad that I’ll have to explain this to my daughter one day. There’s no way I’m ever going to be able to take away the pain once she knows.
Not one of the emotions is love.
All of that is stored up, waiting for Valentine, who offered to spend more time with Minnie today than Angie did in the last year she was alive. I’d bet that’s true. It’s fucked up, but it’s true.
I swallow the lump in my throat. My hands clenched themselves into fists without me realizing it, and I have to work to release them.
“It’s her,” I say, and Edward nods, scribbling something on the form.
He starts to ask me questions about arrangements for Angie’s body, but I can’t take in much beyond a dull hum. My back aches from sitting in that uncomfortable-as-fuck chair all morning. The rest of me is dying to get back to Valentine and Minnie. So instead of answering I scribble down a number that I’m almost sure is Angie’s uncle’s and walk out.
They can deal with this. I’m finished. I’ve wiped my hands of all of it.
I’m ready to move on.
My shoulders don’t relax until I’m back in Lakewood, which is a surprise because I hate this place.
Only I don’t think I hate it as much as I first thought.
There’s no car in Valentine’s driveway, and in the kitchen, I find a note.
Went to the playground—she wanted another round! -V
It brings a smile to my face. Minnie loves the hell out of the playground at the beach, and that’s all that matters. That she’s happy. That both of them are happy.
I turn around and walk straight back out to the car. The day doesn’t seem quite so damn oppressive anymore. At the beach, I want to sit with my arm around Valentine, watch Minnie splash in the water, and tell her that we should make this something real. Something more. I don’t know how I’ll find the words, but she’ll understand. That, at least, is a given.
At least, I think it’s a given, right up until I pull into the parking lot and get out of the car.
Minnie’s in a swing, laughing her head off, and Valentine stands behind her, giving her a push every time she comes backward.
None of that is the problem.
The problem is the guy that’s standing just to the side of Valentine, smiling at my daughter, laughing in the sun. He’s way too close. He’s way too familiar with her.
No fucking way.
35
Valentine
I’m in a nightmare. I have to be. There’s no other explanation for Conrad showing up at this playground, right now, in the middle of the afternoon. There’s no reason except that the universe hates me and wants me to know it.
“Valentine!” He’d called my name just after I got Minnie into the swing and for one glorious second, I thought it was Ryder. But something about the tone seemed off, the voice was too high, and of course, it wasn’t him. My entire soul shriveled when I saw who it was, but I didn’t want to show that to Minnie. She giggled again and demanded another push on the swing.
“Ready, set, go!” I’d said, and she’d laughed as the swing went forward.
I couldn’t bring myself to answer Conrad, but that didn’t stop him from getting closer. “Valentine, hey.”
“Hey,” I said.
“How’ve you been doing?”
I stared at him.
“Ready, sec, go!” cried Minnie.
“Ready, set, go!” I said, pushing the swing. “Hi, Conrad.” It was more of a struggle than I thought to keep my voice under control. “What are you doing here?”
“Seriously, Valentine?” He’d said the words lightly, with the hint of a laugh, but his voice made my skin crawl. Then he’d sidled even closer, which is the current situation. It’s a conversation I really don’t want to be having, but what can I do? Minnie is having such a good time. I can’t yank her out of the swing without warning. I don’t want Ryder to show up when I’m taking her away from the park in tears. I desperately want her to have a good day, so I push her again. “I told you I would be in town.”
That must have been the text I got from him, but why would I pay attention to that when I was with Ryder? I almost laugh out loud, but then he’d want me to explain it, and I don’t want to get into that. I definitely don’t want to get into that. “I must have missed that part of your message.” And every part of your message after you lost your damn mind over a possible pregnancy and then, oh, ruined my first-ever job.
“I think we should talk.” Conrad crosses his arms over his chest. He thinks the pose makes him look intimidating. At one time I might have found it vaguely attractive to see him like that, but now it makes me want to roll my eyes.
“I don’t.”
Conrad laughs. “You’ve always been funny.”
I look at him like he’s from another planet, which he might as well be. Conrad has never appreciated my sense of humor. Playful interludes were never his thing and forget banter.
“I’m not being funny.” I have to keep my tone level because Minnie is hearing everything. She doesn’t seem to have noticed the tension in the air. I silently thank God for swing sets. “We’re over, Conrad. I don’t think we should be talking.” I nod at Minnie. “Plus, I’m busy.”
“Babysitting?” He shakes his head, clicking his teeth. “God, Valentine. If I’d known you were running back here to pick up all your high school jobs, I’d have—”
“You’d have what?” My voice is too sharp, and Minnie swivels her head around to look at me. “Hi, sweetheart,” I say. “A few more minutes on the swing, and then we’re going to go get ice cream. Okay?”
“No!” she howls. Okay. Too late. She has to have picked up on the strain in the air, and, like every toddler, she’s going to react negatively. Also, this is a great swing set. I can see why she doesn’t want to leave, but we have to go.
I turn to Conrad. “There was no reason for you to do anything, Conrad. None whatsoever. What happened between us was private.” It’s coming back to me in a flood of shame, and I hate the blush that rises to my cheeks. It’s a sick, embarrassed feeling. For a moment, I’m right back in the office, sweating through my skirt suit in front of my manager while he runs through some slick speech he’s practiced for when he has to “let people go.” I didn’t “represent the integrity of the company.” Never mind that it hadn’t been what we thought. Never mind that I had been mistaken.
But Conrad—Conrad hadn’t even been willing to give it a week. It was all said and done before my late period arrived. I’ll never know if it was really a pregnancy—one of those early miscarriages—or just the stress of graduation and the new job. But what I’ll never forget was the relief on Conrad’s face when I told him. His words ring in my ears even now. Thank God. Can you imagine what kind of mother you’d have been?
There was nothing left to do after that but pack up and get out.
I tak
e a deep breath. “I don’t want to talk to you.” I catch the swing, bringing it to a gentle stop. “Minnie, let’s get some ice cream!”
Conrad laughs out loud, stepping even closer. I don’t dare flinch away. I don’t dare back up a single step. I don’t know why the hell he’s doing this, but when the laugh dies out his voice is urgent and strange. “I made a mistake, Valentine, can’t you see that? I think you owe me a conversation.”
He’s standing so close that I can’t lift Minnie out of the swing without running into him, and the last thing I want is for her to brush against him. I don’t think about it, I just step in between them, putting my own body between his idiotic self and the swing. My back brushes against his chest and I flinch away. I don’t want to be anywhere near him.
Conrad, though, wants to be near me. And it’s at this moment that he mistakes my flinching, or deliberately misreads it, as some kind of excitement, reaches down, turns my face toward him, and kisses me.
I rear back, opening my mouth to snap at him, raising my hand to slap him, when he’s yanked back away from me. The collar of his shirt pulls his neck back like he’s a cartoon character and my hand swipes at empty air.
“Ice cream?” says Minnie and Ryder is next to her, out of nowhere, lifting her out of the swing. I’m absolutely flooded with relief. Now we can all get out of here, and—
“Sure thing,” he tells her, pulling her close. But when I meet his eyes, there’s nothing there but a bottomless rage. He’s hiding it from Minnie, but barely. “Let’s go.”
36
Ryder
I’m so angry I could yank the swing set right out of the ground and swing it at this asshole’s head. My muscles are tense, ready to follow through, but I can’t. Not with Minnie here. Still, the rage is so white hot that it’s threatening to burn me alive.
But it’s Valentine that I’m so angry at that I can hardly speak. A thick disgust curls in the pit of my gut. What the fuck was she thinking, letting him get that close to Minnie? What the fuck was she thinking, kissing him?
Valentine moves quickly around to the side of the swing set, her eyes wide. There’s a crackling urgency in the air now, and Minnie rests her head against my shoulder. She’s always gone quiet when things are tense, and I hate that things are tense right now.
But it’s not my fault that Valentine decided to go ahead and kiss another man while she was babysitting my daughter. This was already the worst day I’ve had in a long time, and this is just the icing on the cake.
Then there’s the thing that adds another awful layer to all of this. I don’t have any right to be angry. I can be pissed as hell that she would do this in front of my daughter, but Valentine isn’t mine. No matter how things seemed in the middle of last night, or early this morning, we still haven’t had that conversation yet. We’re not exclusive.
It doesn’t matter.
My brain can’t wrap itself around all this. All I can think about is getting back to the car. We have to go. I just threw a man down to the ground—a man who’s picking himself up and brushing himself off as we move toward the parking lot.
“Hey!” he calls out, sounding half furious, half astonished. “Valentine!”
“Do you know that guy?” I can hardly release my own jaw.
“Yes.” Valentine’s face is stricken, but I don’t care. I really don’t care in this moment whether she’s upset about getting caught. “But Ryder—”
“Valentine, we need to talk,” he says, coming after us.
I whirl around to face him, and something in my expression makes him stop dead. “Don’t come another step closer.”
“Hey, Daddy?” Minnie’s words are muffled by the side of my neck. “Ice cream?” My heart cracks into a thousand pieces. It’s a sweet attempt to get us all out of this horrible tension, but it doesn’t quite do the trick.
“Yes, sweetheart. Ice cream.”
I turn toward the parking lot again, and asshole gets his courage back up. “Who the hell do you think you are? Valentine, stop. I wanted to talk to you.”
“Where’s the car seat?”
“In the back of my car,” Valentine answers, fumbling for her car keys in her pocket. “It’s right here. It’s right here, Ryder.” She clicks the door of her car unlocked with shaking hands and reaches inside to undo the seat.
He’s not brave enough to come right up to the curb, but he lingers in the center of the lawn, watching us. Hurry up, Valentine. Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up. A deep cleansing breath does absolutely nothing, so I take another one. She gets the seat out of the car, and I step neatly out of her way. Mine is three spaces down. She goes toward it without hesitating, puts the seat inside, and fastens it, tugging three times to make sure it’s seated.
Calm. Stay calm, just for a little while longer.
I never should have done this with her. I never should have gotten in over my head.
I give Minnie a squeeze, and she throws her arms around my neck and kisses my cheek. “Ready for ice cream?”
“Ice cream!” she says with a little smile. That’s enough to get us out of here. I buckle her in, carefully, making sure the straps are exactly right. Then I shut the door and turn to face Valentine.
“I think we’re done here.”
Her mouth drops open, and the way she moves back half a step breaks something inside of me. But I can’t take back the words, and I don’t want to. I want to get far away from this place. Far away from this town. I want to get somewhere safe. I was beginning to think that boring, kitschy Lakewood might be that place. Not anymore. Valentine was a ticking time bomb, and the time just ran out.
“Ryder, I didn’t want—”
I could yell at her, but Minnie is close by. “Would you have let that guy near your own daughter?” That’s the rage my mind latches onto even though I’m not sure, even in this moment, that it’s entirely justified. “God, what the hell were you thinking?”
She opens her mouth again, and then closes it, stepping back.
“Go have your conversation.” I throw the words at her like weapons, and I see the look in her eyes when they land. “Just go, Valentine. We’re done.”
Valentine moves back another few steps, her eyes on me. Well, she can look all she wants. I’m not going to come running back. I’m never going to come running back to anyone. She let me down just like Angie did. She chose something else over Minnie. And over me.
There’s a part of me that’s screaming to take her in my arms, to hold her close, to breathe in the scent of her hair and let it drown out the terrible wait in that office building, the pictures of my dead ex-girlfriend, all of it. But I take that part of me in my fists and shove it down so deep that I can’t hear it anymore.
I just turn away from her and get into the car, pulling the door shut behind me. I resist the urge to slam it. Not in front of Minnie. No. Not in front of her.
I check behind the car, in all directions, three times before I put it in reverse. I pull carefully backward.
Valentine has moved over by the curb. She’s still watching the car.
Come after me, that wretched voice calls. Come after me, please, for God’s sake, come after me and never leave.
But Valentine’s shoulders go down, and she turns away, walking back toward him.
Walking. Back. Toward. Him.
I’m done.
I’m done.
When I drive away, I don’t look back.
37
Valentine
What. The. Hell.
Ryder gets into his car and starts to drive away. He’s being so careful with his driving—naturally—but he might as well have come after my heart with a butcher knife.
I feel like a fool for wanting to do all this for him. I spent all day feeling this incredibly deep connection with him. I cared for his daughter, making sure that nothing worried her at all. For her, this has been a fun, sunny day at the beach. And now, for me...
I should give him the grace to be an asshole in this moment.
He just had to do something incredibly difficult. It’s news that will be devastating to Minnie when she gets older, if not now.
But it’s an ugly, hurt feeling in my chest that blooms and swells and takes over. His words ring in my ears, cutting me again and again. Would you have let that guy near your own daughter? I try to justify the words for him. I try to tell myself that he doesn’t know it’s Conrad. He doesn’t know about the pregnancy scare. He doesn’t know that I dodged a bullet by not having Conrad’s baby. He doesn’t know how devastating Conrad’s reaction was, even though...
Fuck Ryder. He shouldn’t have assumed anything. I shouldn’t let my feelings get trampled by another man who wants to act like I’m a fucking failure at something I haven’t even had the chance to try. How dare he?
How dare they? He and Conrad both clearly assume that I’d be a terrible mother and I have no idea why it smarts so much, but it does. It’s like salt and acid on an open wound.
I’m sorry for myself for just long enough to turn around and slink back toward the beach. What am I going to do, anyway? Get in my car and then…drive out behind him? No. Not today.
As soon as I turn around, I hear him accelerate away, leaving me behind. My throat starts to close up. I have the wild urge to chase after the car, and it’s ridiculous. I don’t need to do that. We’re not there yet. We never will be there. That’s the thing I need to accept.
But I don’t have time to accept anything. I don’t even have time to storm over to the lakefront and wade into the water so I can scream under the waves, where nobody can hear me. Because there stands Conrad, with some shit-eating grin on his face.