Breakup in a Small Town

by Kristina Knight

  Adam’s mouth went dry and blood rushed from his brain to his pants. He turned slowly and saw Jenny set her juice glass down deliberately. The denim of his jeans tightened around his hips. She reached behind her to tug the zipper of her dress down, down, down.

  “And I don’t want to talk.” She slipped one strap over her shoulder and then the next. She pulled her arms free from the dress, but held it to her breasts with one hand. “Why don’t you turn off dinner?”

  Adam reached behind him, flicking the burners into the off position. “I wasn’t hungry, either,” he said, his voice rough.

  Jenny turned and let the dress fall as she started up the stairs toward their bedroom. The room from which he’d been banned when she’d asked him to move out just a few short weeks ago. The room which, after tonight, he might never see again. He pushed that thought from his mind.

  She didn’t wear a bra, but her lacy panties were hot pink. Her hips were full, and those long legs tapered down to bare feet that were still a little bit tan from the long summer months.

  Jenny’s curly hair swayed side to side as she walked, beckoning him to follow. Adam did.

  He had to let her go, for real, this time. They’d given this a good run. Had nearly made it back to the Jenny and Adam they’d been before the tornado. It killed him that they hadn’t made it all the way back, but after the seizure at the school, he’d realized they could never be the same people they had been. He would never have full control over his body, over his mind, again. She would always be afraid of what might happen next.

  But he could give her tonight, then he would walk away.

  Jenny sat on the bed, pushing herself to the pillows. “I—”

  “You said you didn’t want to talk. So don’t talk.” He reached the bed, rested his knee on the mattress and his hands on either side of her body. “Just be with me,” he said.

  Jenny’s pupils dilated, making her hazel eyes look nearly black in the dwindling evening light.

  “I don’t think I can be completely silent,” she teased, then pressed her mouth to his jaw.

  “Try,” he said, and covered her lips with his.

  Adam took his time, exploring her mouth the way he had a hundred times before, but it felt completely different. As if they hadn’t been here, in their bedroom, just a few days before. She tasted sweet, like the best parts of a crisp Missouri fall.

  She tilted her head, giving him better access to her mouth as he thrust his tongue inside. He nipped the corner of her mouth and she sighed before running the tip of her tongue along his bottom lip. Her fingers played with the hair at his nape, urging him closer and closer. Adam knelt on the bed, taking her face in his hands. He pulled back a fraction.

  “I’m just going to say one thing before we go back to the no-talking thing.” He kicked his Nikes off his feet. “You are the best person I have ever known.” Tears glinted in her eyes. “I love you, Jennifer Anne Buchanan. I always have.”

  Then he pressed her back against the pillows and stripped off his T-shirt, and because he didn’t think the words would be enough, tried to show her with his hands and his mouth how much she meant to him.

  * * *

  SHE WAS LOSING HIM.

  All the progress the two of them had made over the past month was gone, as if it had never existed.

  Jenny rested her head on Adam’s chest, listening to him breathe. He hadn’t said anything, but she could tell in the way his hands rested loosely over her back. The Adam she had come to know over the past couple weeks held on. He comforted. He encouraged.

  That Adam was gone, even though he was still with her in their bedroom. Even though he’d told her he loved her. She hated him for that.

  He’d made her believe. In him. In herself. In their marriage. And when the first obstacle came, he was ready to duck out. Again. Well, she wasn’t going to let him get away with that disappearing act again. She deserved better. No, she demanded better. For herself and for their boys.

  She sat up, pulling the sheet around her body as she did. Adam let her go. Pain radiated around her heart, but Jenny forced herself to ignore the flashes to focus on Adam. She had to make him mad. Mad enough to fight, the way he’d started fighting after he saw her having lunch with Mike Harrison.

  Only what did she have to fight with?

  “I’m going to finish dinner,” she stated.

  He didn’t respond, just lay there in their bed, the bed he’d made for them, staring at the ceiling.

  Jenny grabbed a pillow from the chest at the foot and heaved it at his head. Adam blinked, like a baby owl seeing sunlight for the first time.

  “What was that for?” He rubbed his palm over his head and supported himself on his elbow.

  “Because you are the most obtuse, frustrating man on the face of this earth.”

  He blinked at her.

  “Well?” she said.

  “Well, what?”

  “Well, what do you have to say to that?”

  “That you’re right.”

  Jenny stomped her foot on the floor and winced as a shaft of pain shot up her leg. Well, at least it wasn’t only her heart that was hurting now. “No, I’m not right. I’m being just as obtuse and frustrating as you are. No one person is always this or that or the most of anything else.”

  “Sure they are. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known. You’re smart and kind and funny. You’re an amazing mother and a generous lover.” Adam sat up, and hope blossomed in Jenny’s chest. Maybe she’d gotten the signals wrong, God knew she’d done so before.

  “Then why aren’t—”

  Adam held up a hand, stopping her. “That’s why I have to leave.”

  The hope trying to find purchase in her heart plummeted to her feet. “You don’t have to leave.”

  “Yeah, I do.” Adam pulled his jeans over his hips, grabbed his shirt off the floor and pulled it on. “Because if I don’t, you never will, and you deserve better than me.”

  Jenny bit down on her lip to keep from crying out at his words. She deserved? What about what he deserved? What about what they deserved, together? What about the boys? And, goddammit, what did deserving have to do with anything?

  As far as Jenny was concerned, people deserved dessert after every meal, preferably of the darkest, richest chocolate variety. That didn’t mean they always got it.

  “So all of this, the coming to work, the dinners out, the new car. Those things were what? Devices to trick me into thinking you were changing? Things you were using to set me up so you could pull the rug out from under me?” Jenny reached for a pair of jeans, pulling them on before grabbing a top from the dresser. She let the sheet drop, then put her hands on her hips. “You are one colossal piece of work, you know that?”

  “I didn’t do any of this to hurt you.”

  “Sure you did. This was all a game to you, wasn’t it?”

  “It wasn’t a game. I wanted you back. I still want you back, Jen, but I can’t make you walk through this life with me, not now. Not when I don’t control it.”

  “News flash, Adam, no one controls life. It’s a combination of destiny and hard work and a lot of error. We make the best choices with the information we have at the time—”

  “Well, the information I have is that I’m broken. That not only don’t I have control of this life, but that there’s something inside me that is controlling me.” Adam picked up the pillow she’d tossed at his head, and squeezed it until she thought the little buttons might pop off. They didn’t.

  “Then we figure out how to control—”

  “We? What we? You and me? Me and the doctors? You and me and the doctors? And where does that leave Frankie and Garrett? Waiting at home while we go to doctor appointments and play with drug regimens and take ugly little pictures of my brain that we’ll
never show another living person because the scarring makes it look like some kind of monster has left claw marks on it?”

  “Stop.” Jenny took a step back. She’d wanted him to fight, but to fight with her, not just fight her.

  “Why? Why don’t we go even further. What happens when I’m not swimming in the lake because it’s too dangerous, but the boys are? What happens when a seizure puts me facedown in the sand, and they’re crying and screaming for it to end, but I can’t stop it? What happens then?”

  “Stop.”

  But Adam kept going. “Because I know what happens then. I’ve seen the horror wash over Frankie’s face, I’ve heard the terror when he calls out for me, and I’ve felt the helplessness as I try to keep the seizure from happening. And guess what? I can’t, Jenny. I can’t stop it. I didn’t ask for this, and I can’t stop it.” He threw the pillow to the floor, where it landed with a soft thud. “I can’t stop any of it, but I can stop it from affecting you. The boys. My family. I can stop that, and goddammit, I’m going to.”

  “Adam, don’t,” Jenny said, reaching out to him, but he was too far away. Adam shoved his hands into his pockets, as if her touch might brand him. “The doctor said—”

  “The doctor said? He said they’d found the right combination. He said a service dog would detect the seizure. He said do the physical therapy, strengthen the hip, get ready for surgery. And he said no surgery until the seizures were under control. And guess what? They’re not.”

  “It was just a setback.”

  “And there will be another. And another. I can’t do that to you, Jenny. I can’t put you through this over and over again. I won’t do it to the boys. I can’t control my body, but I can control who my body hurts. Right now, it’s hurting you. It’s hurting the boys.”

  He couldn’t mean that. If he meant that, then this was really over. The strides they’d been making, the feelings he’d awakened in her...it was all for nothing. She was a twenty-six-year-old, single mother who had failed at the only thing she’d ever wanted to do in her life. She had failed at loving another person.

  “Then why this?” She waved her hands at the room, at the bed. Why hadn’t he just walked away? Why get a sitter for the boys? Why plan the whole dinner and sex thing? “Why not just let me go?”

  Adam swallowed. “Because I’m a selfish bastard in addition to being a colossal piece of work. I wanted one more memory of you to take with me.”

  She wouldn’t cry. Jenny refused to cry, not now. Not when he was already gone. Tears would only make things worse, though how things could feel worse than they did right now, she wasn’t sure. She only knew she wouldn’t cry in front of Adam Buchanan. She wouldn’t cry for him.

  She’d done enough crying over the past three months.

  “Then take your memory and get out.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ADAM DRAGGED A duffel down the narrow, retractable steps from the attic. Jenny had left a few minutes ago for work, and for the first time in several weeks, she’d taken the boys to school on her way. Because he’d hidden in the RV like a scared little boy instead of facing his family.

  Instead of facing her.

  Adam knew what he had to do, but he also knew the more he was around Jenny, the more he would waffle. He’d talk himself into staying, just like he’d talked himself into fighting for her after spotting her having lunch with the developer. If he did that, if he stayed, she would be the one to be hurt by it. After a seizure, he was left with a bit of a headache and a feeling that things weren’t quite right.

  For the people he loved, it was a hundred times worse. Frankie had avoided being in the same room as him since the seizure at the school. Garrett was back to drawing ominous clouds in his pictures. Jenny was exhausted and pretending everything was fine.

  At least, she’d been pretending before last night. Since their fight, she’d simply ignored him. Which was fine. If he didn’t exist, he couldn’t hurt her.

  The last person Adam wanted to hurt was Jenny. That was why he had to leave. No question about that. He’d find some other place to live, somewhere he didn’t know anyone. Somewhere he could be anonymous and alone.

  Inside the RV, Adam stuffed the duffel with his clothes. The bag was nowhere near full, but he didn’t have anything else to take with him. He took the keys from the visor and started the engine. Pulled carefully onto the street, ignoring the soft whine of Sheba. Probably he should release her back to her trainer. Maybe there was a person she could actually help somewhere in the world. It was comforting not being alone in the RV, though, so Adam kept driving until he reached the ranch house where his parents lived. They would be at work by now, which was good, because he didn’t know how to tell them he was leaving.

  Adam parked the oversize vehicle, hefted the duffel over his shoulder, then wrapped Sheba’s leash around his palm a couple times. He could call them once he was settled, and in the meantime, he’d keep himself too busy to become a burden or a bother. To anyone. Before he actually left town, there were a few things he needed to do to make sure Jenny was cared for.

  He walked to the B and B, tapped his hand on the bell and waited for the desk clerk to come out of the office. The clerk handed an oversize gold key to him, and didn’t seem to recognize him. A weird feeling, when everybody knew everybody else in this town.

  Out the side window, he could see the bulk of Buchanan’s. Jenny would be inside, finalizing some sale or contract. Aiden would be overseeing the workers building Adam’s furniture designs. His father would be loading a truck, with a handful of other workers. His mother would be answering the phones.

  Everyone at Buchanan’s had a place. Everyone except him.

  He called a number from the phone book, waiting until a pleasant female voice answered the phone. “Dilgaard Law, how may I direct your call?”

  Adam cleared his throat. “I need to talk to someone about dissolving a partnership.”

  “I’ll connect you,” she said, and then Muzak filled the phone line.

  Step one—find a way to leave the business in Jenny’s hands, completely. Adam didn’t want her to buy him out, and he didn’t want to leave enough room for anyone else to get into the company ownership. Jenny knew what to do; Aiden had decided to stay in town so he could hold down that portion of the business. If Jenny decided she needed a new partner, Adam’s brother could fill those shoes. If she didn’t want another partner, Adam would ensure she didn’t have to take one on.

  A series of clicks sounded over the line, then the receptionist’s voice came back. “It will be a few minutes, unless you’d like to leave a call back number?”

  “No, I’ll hold.” Because if he didn’t do this now, he might not do it.

  Step one—give Jenny the business.

  Step two—walk away.

  * * *

  “HE WALKED OUT?” Mara’s eyes widened across the table. Her arm paused, the glass of tea she’d been drinking frozen halfway to her mouth.

  It had been a week since Jenny had made love with Adam, and he’d walked out of her life. Seven days that felt like seven years. Or maybe seventy.

  “More or less.” Minus the pillow squeezing and throwing, but Jenny didn’t want to get into exactly how childish she—and Adam—had been the other night. It was hard enough telling her friends that he’d gone. If either Mara or Savannah realized how ridiculous the fight had been, they might jump to the conclusion that things between Jenny and Adam weren’t really over. And they were. This time, she was well and truly done.

  She’d been afraid of being alone. Now she realized alone wasn’t the worst feeling in the world. The worst feeling in the world was the one she’d been carrying around for the past week: the feeling that she would never be enough.

  She should have been used to it. Adam wasn’t the self-absorbed person her mother was, or at le
ast, if he was self-absorbed, it hadn’t been in a selfish way. Adam simply hadn’t considered that his way of doing things wasn’t always the best.

  Then the tornado trapped him in the rubble of that church. She had thought he was finally learning that lesson.

  “Jenny, what can we do?” Savannah reached across the table and squeezed her hand.

  She offered a thin smile. “Nothing. He doesn’t want to burden anyone with his problems. He doesn’t want to feel powerless in any situation. I could fight if he were simply afraid. I can’t fight against what he sees as his inadequacies.” Not when she had plenty of those on her own. “He moved into the B and B.” It had taken all of an afternoon for that news to spread through the warehouse, and most likely through the rest of the town. Somehow, everyone had missed that Adam had been living in his parents’ RV for a few weeks. But as soon as he took a room at the Slippery Rock B and B it was front-page news.

  “Wow.” Mara leaned back in the booth. “You’re way too calm for this to be the whole story.”

  Jenny shrugged. “Calm or not, this is the whole story. After that whole flower debacle, he started to pay attention to the things I like. He traded in the Mustang, he sent me potted plants. He was there. In the house, with the boys, at work. I had him back. Then that seizure hit, and now I have to face the fact that he was never really back. I’d projected all of that onto him. Made him feel guilty or something.”

  “It wasn’t wrong for you to demand that he wake up. I barely knew Adam, but even I could see that he was not himself after the tornado,” Savannah said.

  “I don’t know.” Jenny sipped her tea, wondering. In theory, she knew that it was not wrong to demand to be heard, to want to be understood. In reality, though, weren’t demanding and wanting selfish motivations?

  No, it had to matter that she’d demanded to be heard for his sake as much as her own. So that he could take his life back. So that they could find some kind of balance as a couple, as a family.

  “What will you do?”

  She had no idea. “Go to work, make sure our employees are cared for. Go home, show my boys that I’m still here, that they aren’t alone. Make sure my parents and his don’t place the blame solely on his shoulders. Adam might be the one walking away, but he’s also the one who is hurting. He’s walking away from a job he loved, friends he could depend on and a family who always encouraged him.” She finished her tea, but decided not to order another. She didn’t need the caffeine to stay awake. It had been impossible to sleep since he’d walked out, even the night she’d taken two over-the-counter sleeping pills, hoping to shut out the voices in her head.