Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
MIA
An emptiness settles over me, a coldness seeping into my bones as I stare down at my phone, reading over the message Caleb sent me the day after the accident.
Caleb
Hey. I know none of this was your fault and I’m glad that you’re going to be okay. You should take the time to recover. Andi and Nova offered to watch Tella, so it’s probably best if you just focus on yourself getting better right now.
Rolling my lips between my teeth, I clamp down on them, my jaw hurting as my eyes grow wet.
I’m such a stupid, stupid girl. I knew better than to let him in.
I knew better than to trust that he wouldn’t hurt me.
I knew that Caleb’s heart was fragile and that he still had a lot of healing to do on his own.
Yet I handed him my own heart, thinking he would be able to keep it safe.
I never wanted him to hand it back and that’s exactly what he did. He shut me out, without giving me a chance to even rebut it. He brushed it off, as if everything was transactional. As if I were just his nanny and nothing more.
I should have expected it, especially after the way he acted when he brought Tella to check on me in the emergency room . . .
My chest expands as I suck in a deep breath, ignoring the throbbing in my knee as I adjust on the thin mattress. I’m ready to get out of the emergency room and go home where I can rest without the sounds of beeping monitors echoing down the hall.
A soft knock on the ajar door has me sitting up straighter, forcing my eyes to open as I see Tella’s small frame lingering in the doorway. “Can I come in?”
“Of course,” I breathe, relief washing over me to see her in one piece. She was fine when I last saw her before I passed out, but this confirmation that she’s okay sends a wave of comfort through me.
“Hi Mia,” Tella says, her hand clutching onto Caleb’s as they stand just inside the doorway.
“Hi Tella,” I smile as the corners of my eyes burn from the tears I’m holding back. “Caleb.”
His eyes don’t meet mine and he dips his chin. “We wanted to come make sure you were okay.”
“I’m fine,” I say, my eyes searching Caleb’s ashen colored face in an attempt to will his gaze to meet mine. He stares at the end of the bed, his eyebrows knitted close together. “Just a little headache and some soreness in my knees.”
“My daddy is taking me home. Can you come with us?”
My heart constricts. “Not right now, babe. The doctors said I’ll be able to leave in a few hours.”
“But you get to come home?”
“Where did your father go?” Caleb asks, his voice low and hoarse as he interjects before I get the chance to answer Tella.
“He had to step out to make a phone call. Did you need him for something?”
Caleb shakes his head, the muscle in his jaw tightening. “Is he taking you home?”
He still refuses to look at me. A heaviness settles on my chest, anxiety rolling in the pit of my stomach. Why won’t he just look at me?
“Yes,” I say, my voice barely audible. “I’m sorry for what happened.”
Caleb’s eyes flicker to mine. His eyebrows momentarily relax, his nostrils widening as he shakes his head. “It wasn’t your fault,” he says softly. “I don’t blame you.” His eyes are filled with so many emotions, I can’t decipher a single one.
His forehead creases again and in a haste, he pulls his gaze away from mine, glancing back down at Tella.
“I’m glad you’re okay, Tella.”
Tella looks at me, a tender smile drifting across her lips. “I’m glad you’re okay, too. Even though your head hurts.”
I return her smile, although mine barely lifts my cheeks. “I’ll be okay.”
“We should let Mia rest, okay?” Caleb murmurs to his daughter.
“I don’t want to leave her,” Tella says to him. My throat constricts as emotion stacks on my chest.
“We’ll see her after she’s all better.”
Caleb releases Tella’s hand and she strides across the room toward me. She pauses at the side of my bed, her hands reaching for mine as she gives me a gentle squeeze.
“Feel better soon, Mia. I love you.”
My vision blurs as tears fill my eyes. My heart easily grows three sizes as I squeeze her hands back.
“I love you too, T.”
She releases her grip on me and I bend down, ignoring the pounding in my head as I open my arms wide to her. She steps into them, wrapping herself around my torso as I hug her tightly.
Lifting my eyes, I find Caleb standing even closer by the door, almost as if he has one foot through the doorway as he watches the two of us. His gaze is cold and distant as it meets mine and it feels like miles stretch between us.
His throat bobs, that muscle ticking again as he drops his eyes down to Tella’s back. “Come on, T,” he calls to her. “Get some rest, Mia.”
Tella untangles herself from me, smiling at me once more before she walks back to her father. Caleb doesn’t look at me again as he reaches for Tella’s hand and the two of them step out into the hallway, leaving me by myself.
It felt like they were stepping out of my life when they walked out of the hospital room and I think I knew it at the time, I just didn’t want it to be true.
He said I wasn’t to blame for the accident, although for some reason, it feels like maybe he does blame me. I was the one driving, I was the one who had his daughter in my care. Thankfully, she was perfectly fine, although that still doesn’t change the fact that she could have been injured.
If I would have just looked to the left a little sooner, I would have seen the car coming and we could have avoided the entire situation.
It’s been almost a week since he sent me those messages and I still haven’t said a single thing back to him. His words were bullshit. He’s putting as much distance as humanly possible between the two of us and I can’t help it but I want to know why. I need to know why.
However, that need isn’t great enough to put my heart back on the line after he just handed it back to me, bloodied and bruised.
My fear keeps me frozen in place, glued to the couch at our house at Sugar Hill Lake.
My father took me home from the hospital after the doctors cleared me with a concussion.
I asked him to bring me here instead and he agreed, but only on one condition.
I wasn’t to be here alone until I was healed.
A ragged breath escapes me. I don’t know if I’ll ever fully be healed . . .
“You’re up early,” Willow says softly as she steps out onto the back deck. She walks over to where I’m sitting by the railing, holding two mugs with steam rolling from the tops. She hands me one as she sits down in the seat next to me. “Did you watch the sunrise?”
“Yeah.” I lift the mug to my lips, the liquid burning my tongue as I take a small sip. “I couldn’t sleep.”
Willow frowns as she looks out at the shimmering surface of the lake. The sun is nestled just above the horizon, the hues of pink and yellow and orange melting in the morning sky. “You haven’t been sleeping well this whole week. How are you feeling?”
Mentally drained. Emotionally exhausted.
Willow came to stay with me for a few days and has been hovering like a damn helicopter.
“I feel much better, actually. It seems like my headaches have gone away and everything’s pretty much back to normal.”
She looks at me. “Except for your sleep.”
“It’s hard to sleep when he’s all I can see when I close my eyes.”
“Shit,” she says softly, blowing out a breath. “He still hasn’t said anything else to you?”
I slowly shake my head at her. “Whatever it was, is clearly done.” I pause, my gaze dropping down to my coffee for a moment before I look back at her.
“I knew better than to get involved with him. I knew this was most likely what would happen in the end, but it still didn’t prepare me for how bad it would hurt. ”
“Because it’s not what you wanted to happen,” she tells me, her expression softening as she stares at me. “I doubt you were anticipating it actually happening.”
Tears burn my eyes and I quickly blink them away, directing my gaze back out to the water. “I think I just need to try and forget about him.”
“Do you think it’s worth trying to talk to him?”
I slowly shake my head from side to side.
“He was pretty clear in his messages.” Disappointment and hurt prick my skin as my brain wanders over the messages.
He didn’t come to me in the hospital, which I wasn’t fully expecting him to because of Tella.
But not once did he try to see me after the accident.
Not once did he actually check in on me except to send me a message to break my heart.
And the worst part? He couldn’t even be direct about that.
Instead, he leaned into our working relationship, claiming it was better if Andi and Nova watch Tella. I had a damn concussion, not a serious injury that would require months of rehab.
“Listen, this isn’t me sticking up for him at all, but maybe show him a little bit of grace,” Willow suggests, her voice quiet.
“Just think about it for a second. He lost his wife in a fatal car accident and then you and his daughter end up getting into an accident. That had to be triggering for him.”
Her words sink into my mind and I mull over them. It’s a thought that has already crossed my mind. Caleb has already shown what his fear can do to him, but at some point, you have to let that go, right?
“It is what it is,” I tell her, lifting my shoulders with indifference as I shrug it off. “Even if it were triggering, he could still be honest with me. He could have told me that, instead of making it seem like I’m no longer capable of watching Tella. He didn’t have to go and replace me.”
Willow blows out a deep breath. “I know,” she agrees, slowly bobbing her head.
“I don’t disagree with you at all. I’m just trying to look at it objectively and from both sides.
” She pauses, running her tongue over her teeth.
“I wish I had a solution. The only thing I can suggest is for you guys to have a real conversation.”
Emotion compounds in my chest. My resolve is wavering and the pain and the rejection roll over me in waves. I just want to see him. I want to feel him and hear his voice, but I can’t. His last message didn’t leave room for me to respond, really.
“I don’t think I can,” I admit, my voice cracking around my words. “Not right now at least.”
Willow turns her head to look at me. “You love him, don’t you?”
I swallow hard over the lump in my throat, tears burning the corners of my eyes. “I do.” I let out a shallow breath and allow the tears to fall while simultaneously wiping them away with haste. “I know I shouldn’t, but I do.”
“Fuck,” Willow swallows, a frown tugging down on her lips as her forehead creases. “We don’t get to choose who we love, babe,” she says. She reaches for my hand and gives it a squeeze. “And it has an uncanny way of happening when we least expect it.”
“I never should have let him in.”
Willow tilts her head to the side. “The time you had with him though, was it good?”
“Yes.”
“Did he make you feel loved, even if he didn’t say it?”
“Yes,” I say again, swallowing back my emotion. “No one has ever looked at me the way he does. No one has ever made me feel the way he does.”
“Then I think it was worth letting him in,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper. “Not all good things are always meant to last. He had a purpose in your life and I think that’s at least worth something.”
“Even if it ends with my heart in a tattered mess?”
A soft smile crests her lips. “There’s always beauty in the pain, babe.
Maybe the beauty of it was just having the opportunity to experience the love you both felt.
Maybe it was you opening up your heart to someone you knew was unavailable and for him to just feel something with someone after losing his wife.
You taught him love was worth experiencing.
It’s not your fault he chose to let his fear guide him after it became too strong to fight. ”
I stare at her for a moment, my mixed emotions coming in waves. Caleb Ford broke my damn heart and I’m not sure how to get past this. “If that’s all true, then what comes next?”
“Just give yourself some time, babe. You’re both hurting and instead of being honest with each other about how you’re feeling, you’re both fighting against it instead of fighting for one another.”
“How do you know what he’s doing or what he’s feeling?”
She cocks her head, laughing softly. “Oh, Mia, are you really that blind?”
I stare at her, waiting for her to continue.
“You don’t look at someone the way that man looked at you and not feel the pain of letting go.” A ghost of a smile dances across her lips. “The way he feels for you was written across his face. He loves you . . . he loves you so much that he’s pushing you away to protect himself.”
“I understand why he’s doing it, but I don’t agree with it. I don’t think you can love someone, at least not fully, from a place of fear.”
Willow purses her lips. “That’s a tough one. I think it’s natural to be afraid, but it comes down to whether or not you let that fear control you.”
“Maybe . . .” I say softly, not sure how to dissect and decipher all the emotions I’m feeling.
This has been nothing short of a mind fuck from Caleb and honestly, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.
I’m torn between giving him space and letting him breathe but also wanting to fight for this. For us.
Pulling my attention from my best friend, I let my gaze drift back out to the lake.
Back to the shimmering surface of the water and the quiet breeze that drifts from the trees.
The two of us sit in silence for a few more minutes before Willow retreats back inside to get ready to head back home, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
My thoughts continue to circle back to the man I knew would have the power to break my heart someday . . . and that’s exactly what he did.