Chapter 22
3 Years Ago
Isla sat at the kitchen table, staring at her phone. Nolan should have been home from work an hour ago. They had plans to go out for dinner, yet he wasn’t home, and he hadn’t even called. She’d texted him three times, but he hadn’t responded to those either. He never kept her waiting, always kept in touch, and she had no idea what the heck was going on lately.
Mom came into the kitchen and opened the fridge. “Have you heard from him yet?”
“No!” Isla snapped, then quickly changed her tone. It wasn’t Mom’s fault Nolan was MIA. “He hasn’t answered any of my texts yet.”
“Maybe he got stuck in a meeting. It wouldn’t be the first time.” Mom placed a head of lettuce on the counter and grabbed a knife. “Though he could have at least texted back. That phone is practically attached to him.”
That’s exactly what Isla was thinking. With the demand of his job, and his determination to get a promotion, he kept his phone with him at all times. He would never miss an email, so why was he not responding to her?
She let out a sigh and stood. “Do you need help?”
“If you want to grab the tomatoes and cucumbers and get to slicing, that would be great.”
Isla went into the fridge and retrieved the vegetables. She glanced at her phone again and still nothing. She got a knife and cutting board and got to work. Her eyes kept drifting to her phone then her mind wandered to the segment she heard on the radio that morning.
It was a segment she’d heard before. It was pretty popular in the tri-state area. If a person suspected their significant other was cheating, they’d call the radio station and the radio station would call the suspected cheater and tell them they won a dozen roses, and ask who they should send them to. If the suspected cheater gave a different name than their significant other, they were caught.
This morning’s episode featured a couple who had been together since middle school. The husband had been working a ton of overtime, and when he was home, he was on his phone constantly. Sure enough, when they called him about the flowers, he gave another woman’s name.
Isla couldn’t believe for a second that Nolan would cheat on her, but he checked all the boxes. On his phone constantly. Check. Working overtime. Check. Cancelling plans because he had to have drinks with clients. Check. Being more distant than usual. Check. Not answering her calls or texts. Double check.
A big ugly lump formed in her throat at the thought. She tried to swallow it down, but it wouldn’t budge. Tears filled her eyes, but she blinked them away.
Sharp slicing pain shot through her finger, and she let out a yelp. Mom spun from the sink, and her eyes widened in horror.
“Oh my God, Isla.” She grabbed a hand towel from the oven and wrapped it around her hand as she guided her to the sink. Blood dripped down her finger and pooled on the stainless steel. Mom turned the water on, and Isla brought her finger to the slow stream.
She hissed as blinding pain rushed through her. “Ouch! Ouch! Oh. My. God. Ow!”
“I’d say so.”
“Is it bad?” she asked too afraid to look. What if she cut her finger off?
“Still attached, but bad enough that we have to take a trip to the emergency room.”
The tears she blinked away fell. “I’m sorry. That was so stupid of me.”
“Don’t apologize for hurting yourself. Let me go get my bag. I’ll call your father from the car so he’s not confused when he comes home to an empty house.”
Isla nodded.
“Hold this tight.” Mom let go of her hand, and Isla wrapped the kitchen towel tighter around her hand. She returned to the kitchen table and looked down at her phone… still nothing from Nolan.
She put the phone on speaker and called Nolan’s house. His mom answered on the second ring. “Hi Mrs. Parker, I can’t get ahold of Nolan, and I just sliced my finger open. We had plans for tonight, so if you can just tell him I’m on the way to the hospital when he gets in.”
“Oh sweetie. Are you okay?”
“Just a cut. I mistook my finger for the cucumber.”
“I will tell him. Then I’ll give him a good swat for not answering his phone.”
“Thanks.”
“Keep me posted.”
“I will.”
Isla hung up, and Mom stood in the doorway. “Come on, before you bleed all over the carpet.”
Three hours later, Isla was home with two stitches and a bottle of pain pills. She got out of the car just as Nolan’s car pulled up to the house.
“I’ll leave you two to talk,” Mom said and headed inside.
“Isla!” He hurried up the lawn in his button-down shirt and tie, and she debated whether to go in the house and leave him outside. Let him know what it felt like to be ignored. She decided against it and waited for him. He grabbed her shoulders and looked in her eyes. “Are you okay? My mom said you were at the hospital.”
She held up her wrapped finger. “Two stitches. You would have known if you answered your phone. I had no idea what happened to you. For all I knew you were kidnapped and the next time my phone rang it would be the kidnapper asking for ransom.”
“Kidnapped? Really?” He laughed, but when he saw the serious expression on her face, he stopped. “My battery died, and I was out with a client. I didn’t have a charger.”
A light blinked in her head. The guy on the radio earlier had said the exact same thing when his wife accused him of missing a call.
“How could you let that happen?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t expect to be out so late, but the client had never been to the city before, and they were asking me a million questions. I didn’t want to be rude.”
“So instead you stood up your girlfriend.”
His eyebrows pinched together above the bridge of his nose. “Stood you up?” The wrinkles smoothed out as realization shined on his face. “That movie came out today you wanted to see.”
She nodded. “Yup.”
“I’m so sorry. My brain is being pulled in a million different directions. It completely slipped my mind.”
“If you were here, I wouldn’t have cut my finger.”
“Wait.” He stepped away. “You’re going to blame me for cutting yourself?”
“I was looking at my phone, waiting for you to get back to me.”
“I’m sorry, okay?” He tilted his head and smiled, giving her a little poke with his finger. “I’ll make it up to you now. Have you eaten?”
“No, I was too busy bleeding.”
He laughed. “Then come on. I’ll buy you a burger at McConnell’s, and you can tell me all about the hospital visit.”
Her stomach growled at the mention of food. “Okay, but I want a milkshake, too.”
“Deal.”
He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close, placing a kiss on the top of her head. “I love you.”
She wanted to believe him, but for some reason that damn radio segment kept slinking its way into her mind.