Chapter 8 #2
“We’ve done homes up and down the coast,” Trevor added. His smile remained honeyed, gentle, as if he smelled my unease. “Historic homes are a soft spot for me. We can take a look, draw up an idea of what any changes might look like, and—”
“I don’t know,” I cut in with a tight smile. “No offense.”
“No pressure,” Ivan said, hand raising like he might placate a rabid dog. “We just wanted to give you the option.”
No pressure.
A gnarled, sore part of me reared.
No pressure, he’d promised, before backing me into a corner days later and whispering, Haven’t I waited long enough, Lan?
Ivan’s eyes met mine, and for a split second, I could have sworn I saw the memory there, too. Then that casual smile slipped back into place, and any indication of the frustration he might have felt toward my snippiness disappeared.
Emma gave a light clap. “How about you two go take a look around and Landry and I will talk options, yeah?” She leaned out the front door, closer to Trevor. “You can go through an inspection, too, if you’d like.”
I saw red.
I watched, stiff, as Ivan and Trevor nodded, then moseyed their way through the front yard, speaking in low voices, before rounding the side of the house.
I jerked to face Emma, my hands clenched. “What was that?” I snapped.
“What?” Emma’s expression faltered, only to turn incredulous.
“Why are they here?” I whispered. My voice shook.
“I had an appointment for today. Here. I made it with Ivan back when I ran into him.”
“Well, I didn’t make an appointment. For today. Here. When I ran into him,” I echoed, stark. Suddenly, I was at the base of a waterfall, mouth opened wide, and suffocating.
Her eyebrows touched her hairline, tongue poking at her bottom lip.
“You didn’t have to be so crass, you know.
It’s an inspection, so what? Besides, the contractor is cute.
” She raked over my hair, then my outfit, as if it only just now hit her what I looked like.
“Why didn’t you fix your hair before you came down? ”
My eyes widened. “Excuse me?”
“I’m trying to make a good impression?”
My arms fell to my sides. Was this really happening? I snorted. “Oh, please.”
“What?” Her voice rose. “Seriously. What’s wrong?”
“Did I tell you I needed an inspection?” I shot out. “Did you tell me about them coming by? Did you think I hadn’t covered this already?”
“Well, no, but it needs to be done anyway, right? I looked it up—”
“I had two inspections done before the funeral,” I snapped. I shook my head and crossed my arms over my chest like a barricade. “This is my house. I know what it needs.”
“I was just trying to help!” Emma shut the front door, as if they wouldn’t have heard us already. “You’ve been caught up in this huge to-do list of yours, tearing out stuff, and I thought we should get a move on.”
I balked. “It’s not your house,” I said, exasperated.
“I don’t need you calling people in here for the fun of it when I’m trying to get things done.
Have you seen that bathroom upstairs? It’s a wreck.
Any of the bedrooms? Not even started. The study?
Don’t even get me started on going through all those books.
And the attic?” I gave a pinched, hysterical laugh.
This was the last thing I needed. Another thing to stick on my plate.
“I don’t have time to entertain Trevor and—and—”
She blinked, flushed. “Who pissed in your cereal?”
I pressed the heel of my palm between my eyes. You did, I wanted to say.
“Ivan’s the best around,” she defended. She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “Have you looked at the reviews online? Have you seen his portfolio? He was featured in Lowcountry Living, for God’s sake.”
“I don’t give a flying—”
Emma’s hairline turned red. “You’re upset over a high school relationship that didn’t work out, Landry. Get a grip,” she barked back. “You can’t be bitter your whole life over a guy you lost that ended up being more successful than you.”
The entire room was sucked of oxygen. My teeth vibrated in my skull. Tears burned the backs of my eyes. More successful than me? Really?
Bits and pieces of that memory, the grimy feel of his hands, the pull to his mouth, ran like black-and-white film in front of my eyes.
I stalked off to the kitchen, vision splotchy. I found my purse and a discarded sweatshirt on the back of the couch and stalked right back to the front door. I flung it open. “I don’t need this,” I grumbled.
Emma’s entire face was red. Her shoulders were nearly at her ears. “Landry.”
I wrangled my keys out of my bag. “I’ll be back in an hour.” The front door ricocheted off the wall, I’d opened it so hard.
“Stop!”
I whirled halfway down the steps. “What?”
“I just—I can pay for the inspection.”
“That’s not the point, Emma!” I snapped. I might have been shouting. I didn’t care.
Why did she have to do this? This wasn’t her house, her project, her responsibility.
I hadn’t asked her to come. It was one thing to visit because of a funeral, but she hadn’t come to the funeral.
Instead, she’d rolled up two weeks after I’d told her about Aunt Cadence’s death while Sayer had been drifting around me like a hovering parent, making sure I didn’t run into a lamppost while my marbles rolled away.
“Then tell me the point!” she shouted back. Her hands were splayed like she was waiting for gold to fall from the sky. “What happened? Why are you—so—snappy. I feel like I need to walk on eggshells to keep you happy, just like your mom.”
The shards in my stomach crashed to the floor.
Just like Mom.
I stood there, taut with unsaid words, before I took a single, traitorous inhale. It rattled in my chest.
Then I said, “Don’t sign any papers. You don’t own this place.”
I stalked down the driveway, the sound of Ivan and Trevor’s distant voices nothing but a tangled suggestion in my wake. Emma stood on the porch, her body strung tight.
I didn’t know where I was going. But anywhere was better than here.
There was a serenity that came with a hardware store’s atmosphere. Professional-grade rubber, mulch and cement floors, and metal shelving all melded into a smell so distinct, so reverent, that I almost fell to my knees and wept when the double doors whooshed open.
The hardware store was a turning point—it was the bookend to a project or the start of something new.
I wandered for a few minutes through the gardening section before I beelined for the tools. My list was four items deep, but there was one thing I needed in particular.
A sledgehammer.
My eyes skipped over yellow tags and display signs.
I found myself hovering over items I knew I didn’t need—like a new rake—before I eased toward the far end of the aisle where the sledgehammers were.
I traced a handle, debating. I could use a hammer and body weight to pull the sheetrock off and away from the hidden door. I didn’t need this purchase.
You don’t need new clothes, Landry, Mom said.
I just bought you new notebooks last year for school. Why do you need more?
The anger from earlier and the hiss of memories fueled me into a sudden haze of justification. I needed it just because.
Without a second thought, I grabbed the sledgehammer, then went in search for spackling.
I scanned my email—mostly caught up, save for two tentative new client requests, ushered in from my renovation website—while I stood in line. Then paused when a thought occurred to me.
I’d never looked through Ivan’s social media. Maybe there was truth to Emma’s words. I was a little angry he was doing well, when for years I hadn’t. When I’d struggled to stand on my own two feet emotionally. To be dependent of my mother, my father. Even now … I didn’t feel like I could.
Had Ivan been with anyone after me? Had I been the only one? Were all these feelings warranted, or was Emma right, was it simple jealousy?
My curiosity got the best of me. I typed in his name and started scrolling.
By the time a self-serve register opened, I’d found two separate accounts, all recently updated.
A lot of the posts were about work, which I’d expected.
A few notes on his personal life (something about golf and a trip with his family out of the country), and then further down, dating three years ago, a relationship.
All his posts with her remained up. I scrolled down further, and sure enough—two pictures of us together.
One at the famed football game where we’d had an argument on the tailgate, and the second two months after, his arms around me from behind while we stood outside of Dosi-Do’s.
My heart bounced into my throat when I scrolled back up. To the relationship he’d had after me.
I zeroed in on her pictures, paying little attention to her handle.
She was local to Charleston. I scanned her profile, noting the dates of each post. For a couple weeks, she’d posted daily.
Then, during the same time frame they had been pictured together on Ivan’s timeline, there were absences.
A few updates here and there, otherwise—radio silence. As if she’d deleted things.
She also wasn’t friends with him online. Whereas he still followed her.
Just like he followed me.
“Thank you for shopping at Welsworth Hardware,” the register greeted me.
My thoughts whirled as I scanned my items and stuffed what I could into the bag.
I carried my finds out to my car in a daze.
I could message her. Just to see. But what if I was wrong? She might think I was creepy for even reaching out.
A sinking feeling enveloped me as I crawled into the driver’s seat. I didn’t even start the car, just cooked against the upholstery while staring at the steering wheel.
By messaging her, I would be putting myself out there. Unless I made a burner account.
But I needed to know—had it been just me? Was I really chalking everything that had happened up to nothing? Who was I really angry at? Was I mad at Ivan for what he’d done, for how he’d treated me, or was I mad at myself?
I knew Ivan hadn’t loved me. I knew what I’d felt hadn’t been love, either, but a desperation for something he couldn’t give me. And all he’d offered me in return was abuse.
That was what it was: abuse. Because if it wasn’t—all these years, wouldn’t I have healed a bit by now? Wouldn’t I have been able to reconcile with my choices instead of harboring this hatred for what had happened?
No, I couldn’t do it. If I messaged her, too many things could go wrong. What if she told him about me? What if I only ended up embarrassing myself and their relationship had simply ended, not festered like ours had?
I buckled my seatbelt with one broken realization. I was alone in this.
I was the tree that got felled by an ax. The ax might not remember the tree it cut down, but the tree did. And like that haggard stump, I would just keep bleeding from the same place, if only a trickle.