Chapter 30 #2
Just as well. I was glad I had tasks instead of a timeframe I was on the clock.
Went about it like a woman on a mission and finished everything in half the time, getting home by two and eating lunch in record time before my feet were possessed again and I was back out the door.
The community college was a quick drive from my place, and I walked through the halls until I found the nameplate for Linda Hale, Environmental Program Coordinator.
I knocked politely on the door, and I heard her voice sounding much more cheerful than it normally was.
Customer service voice got you everywhere, apparently.
“Come in.”
I pushed open the door, and Linda, sitting behind a desk stocked with photo frames and succulents, did a double take and scowled at me. “Hey,” I said, and she shut her laptop, turning her chair to glower at me. Well, look at me. A glower was just her default.
“Jade? What in the world are you doing here? Enrolled in classes?”
“Different kind of quarter-life crisis.” I shut the door and dropped unbidden into the chair opposite her, earning a scowl in the process. “I wanted to apologize.”
She stared at me a while longer before she said, “For barging into my office?”
“For a lot of things. That’s on the list too, but it’s at the bottom. We’ll see if we get to it.” I sighed. “Is now a good time to bother you for a few minutes?”
She stared at me, and then up at the clock on the wall, and then she sighed, dropping back in her chair. “What’s going on?”
“Do you know what happened to Alyssa?”
She frowned. “Not really? I had a conversation with her the other day about a potential job opening here, and she’s been AWOL ever since. She seemed a little antsy.”
“She left Vermont.”
“Oh, shit. What?” She sat forward, gaze sharpening.
“Went back to her mom’s. As a last-minute effort to keep herself from going back to her ex.”
She put a hand over her mouth. “She didn’t… say anything.”
“I know. So now I’m saying things for her.
She was in a bad place. And I’m worried she still is, but…
” I shrugged. “Don’t know. It made me think about things.
Truth is, we were… kind of seeing each other.
She was nervous what would happen if people found out, so we were being quiet about it, but… people found out. And it got messy.”
She pursed her lips. “So she left because of that?”
“Because of a lot of things. I’ve been planning on leaving, too.”
She stared wide-eyed. I’d apparently gotten her full attention now. How about that?
“She’s a really damn good person,” I said quietly, and that got through to her—her expression crumpled, and she looked down.
“Yeah… no kidding. Did she… say anything…”
“About you, yeah,” I said. “Said how much you love cooking shrimp.”
She scowled again. “I’m going to punch you both.”
I laughed, surprising myself with the sound.
“She told me I hurt you with the things I said and how I treated you. And she told me that the reason it was hurtful for you was because you cared enough about me to take stock of my opinion.” I looked down.
“I think you know I pulled away from the community because of everything that went down between Cat and Drew. But truth be told, I had one foot out the door a while before that already. I’d talked myself into thinking nobody cared about me, nobody wanted me around, I didn’t have a place in the community.
So I latched onto the opportunity to make myself a pariah for some morally just cause.
But I’ve been causing my own problems. And they’re going to follow me even if I go to Texas or anywhere else.
So I wanted to just… come by and tell you…
I’m sorry for how I acted with you and Charlie.
And for how I’ve acted in general. I’ve been a bit of a bitch. ”
She stared at me a while longer before a smile tugged at one corner of her lips, and she looked away. “Alyssa really did a number on you, huh?”
“Ah, yeah… I can’t deny it. Sat with the worst parts of me and still seemed to want me around. It’s hard to go down that self-sabotaging spiral when you have someone like that.”
She laughed thickly, shaking her head. “No kidding. She did the same to me. Patience of a saint. Or maybe masochism.” She spun her chair with a sigh, looking out the window as she fiddled with the frame. “I actually don’t know if Charlie and I are all that… happy. Together.”
I stopped, looking at her. She shrugged, sounding frustrated now.
“It’s some shit Alyssa and I had been talking through.
I feel like we rushed in together because of how things were good in the beginning and it felt right but we didn’t actually take long enough to feel out whether we were compatible.
But it’s nothing to do with her being older than me, and I feel like I’ve been on the defensive ever since, sticking up for a relationship I don’t know if I even want. ”
I swallowed. My natural reaction, every part of me wanted to push back, to argue that I’d been in my own bad spot and I’d been worried about her since the beginning, that I’d already been thinking they were rushing it and that even if the age gap itself wasn’t a problem then Charlie being older and wealthier and more established made a power imbalance that would make it hard for Linda to leave if she felt like she needed to, which, wasn’t that exactly what happened?
—but, no. What would be the point of that?
Even if I were right, what would be the point?
“I’m sorry for making you feel that way,” I said. “I was worried about you, and I should have shown that by being a friend and offering you help if you ever needed it, instead of fighting with you and Charlie.”
She softened, giving me a tired smile. I wondered how long she’d been waiting to have this conversation, wondering if she ever even would.
And we almost didn’t, too. “Thanks,” she said.
“Sorry for being a little bitch about you too. Should have just come and said something to you instead of whining about it to other people.” She sank back in her chair.
“So… Alyssa’s gone. And you’re leaving too. Shit.”
“I just hope to god she doesn’t wind up back with that Sawyer asshole.”
She smiled wryly, doing Cat’s name sign for Sawyer. I let out a laugh of surprise.
“Been hanging out with Cat, huh?”
“She’s a good one. Bit unhinged. It’s been nice reconnecting. Being friends again, I guess.”
“And Charlie?” I said, sitting forwards. “Charlie’s the one who had the grudge against her in the first place, the one who went around telling everyone about Cat the little bitch. How are you navigating that whole thing?”
“Navigating it pretty well, actually. Had Cat over for dinner the other night, everyone chatted, made friends. Cat and Charlie had never really had a proper discussion, Cat shared her side of the story, Charlie apologized for joining in the pile-on. So… still a bit loaded, I guess, but hey. Isn’t everything? ”
I gave her a pert frown. “That’s… nice to hear, but it rings a bit hollow when she’s turning around saying shit about Alyssa five minutes later.”
“About Alyssa?” She scrunched up her brow, looking at me intently. “When did she say anything about Alyssa?”
“From what I hear, she and Drew had been making the rounds telling everyone who would listen about how Alyssa isn’t welcome, doesn’t know how to mind her business. It’s a big catalyst for why she left.”
She looked horrified at me. “Charlie was? That can’t be right. She loves Alyssa. Despite her best efforts not to.”
I scoffed, standing up, leaning against the window with an antsy feeling making my body itch. “Alyssa wasn’t imagining things.”
“I’m not saying she was.” She stood up with me. “Look, I know you and Charlie have your differences, and—Christ, I know Charlie and I have our differences, but—she wanted Alyssa here as much as anyone. We talked about it all the time. She wouldn’t have done something like that.”
“Then who’s lying?” I snapped, and she shrugged.
“I don’t know. Drew?”
I scoffed again, shaking my head, but then I stopped, my thoughts scattered.
Alyssa had said it had been a conversation with him.
And she said it had been clear he didn’t want her around.
Given the situation already, would Alyssa have even doubted it for a second if he’d just made it up that people were talking about her like that?
Hell, it had already happened once. How much had Charlie even been ganging up on Cat before? And how much was it just Drew being pissed off that somebody challenged his authority and started telling people that other people had already taken his side?
Linda dropped her scowl, arms by her sides, as the same thing hit her too. “Shit, it was Drew, wasn’t it?”
I rubbed my forehead. “Can you tell Charlie I’m sorry for bitching about her?”
“I can’t believe Drew would…”
“Can you not?”
She stared at me a while before, slowly, she dropped her gaze to the floor. She was quiet a long time before, finally, she said, “I guess you were right, huh?”
“Let’s be honest, we’re all being stupid about something.”
“What are you going to do now?”
I pushed off from the wall, the superheated resolution from this morning bubbling up in my chest again. “I’ve got some more people to talk to. Things to make right. Maybe I’ll kick Drew’s ass.”
“Thanks,” she said quietly, sinking back into her seat, not looking at me. “For coming around and… talking. It’s good to see you again.”
I paused at her door, my hand on the handle, looking back at her, before I softened into a smile. “You’re a good friend, Linda. We’ll get in another hike together before I go.”
“That’d be nice. Yeah.”
It would be. The thought kept me moving, out the door, through my day in a whirlwind, not even stopping for breath.
It was Nayla first, to talk about some old business and clear the air, and then Kaitlyn, and then I got to hit up Charlie and talk it through directly.
Came out of it feeling winded—not the easiest conversation in my life, but I couldn’t stop now if I wanted to—and I went through the rest of everyone I knew like I was doing a press tour, visiting some people, calling some.
One constant across all of them: they didn’t want me to leave.
Said they’d miss me. Asked me when I’d visit.
I gave them all the same noncommittal answer, that I’d see—that Texas was a long way away—but when I trudged exhausted back in through my front door in the evening, I already knew the answer.
Dropped down at my candle-making station, and I moved everything for the order out of the way, opening the box of scent samples for Alyssa’s candle.
It wasn’t going to be quite the right scent. Wouldn’t be quite the right shade of blue for her eyes. But it was better to try. I’d thrown the flowers out the back window, those blue ones Alyssa loved, but I could go for a walk. Pick a couple of them back up.
It was late when I made the last call for the evening, to the person I wanted the least to talk to: Chad from San Antonio. He sounded enthusiastic when he picked up, and I hated to disappoint the guy.
“Hey, Jade,” he said. “Thanks for getting back to me. Figured out your availability?”
“I did.” I sat back in my chair, looking at the candle mold in front of me, still smelling sweet with that delicate blend of orchid and vanilla that made up the base of her scent. “Sorry to say, but my situation’s… changed. I won’t be able to move for the foreseeable future.”
Chad was a bit annoyed. But I could live with an annoyed Chad if it meant I didn’t have to go to fucking Texas.
When a knock came from my front door, I was in a better mood than I had been the last time—walked like I was floating between reality and not, into the entryway and opening the door.
Once again, I wasn’t really surprised to see Daniela and Cat there, but this time, I wasn’t planning on fighting them.
My hand was still a little tender from last time, anyway.
“Hey,” Daniela said. “Look, I know you’re probably pissed off and don’t—”
“I’m going to stay.”
She blinked, staring at me for a second, before she dropped her hands by her sides. “Damn, woman, I didn’t even ask yet.”
“And I want to see Alyssa again. Here, I mean. I just need to talk to her. I can explain it’s not like she thinks.
I don’t want to go anywhere. Especially not to waste my life away in Texas knowing Alyssa is out there somewhere and wondering what could have happened with her if I’d done things differently.
” I stood up taller, my heart racing so fast I felt lightheaded.
“I want to try. I know she’s your friend I met through you, so maybe it’s a little weird, but…
you won’t be mad if I want to date her, will you? ”
She laughed. “I heard you’d been weird today. I’m glad Cat managed to talk you back from the ledge.”
I scowled. “Oh, Cat told you all about her adventures breaking into my house, huh?”
Cat grinned, waving to me from the bottom of the stoop. I hadn’t even been signing. I guess she was just that invested in her trespassing.
“I was, uh… coming around to ask you the same thing,” Daniela said.
“I know it makes me look like a creep, but I went back through our old conversations and found her address from when she lived at her mom’s, and I’m planning to go see her and take her back here by force if I have to, so… do you want to come?”
I guess the three of us really were all on the same page. Always had been. We just got a bit interrupted for a little while. And now we were four on the same page.
“Yeah,” I said. “We can all take a page from Cat’s book and go creep on somebody else’s house. Just, uh… I’ve just got a candle that needs to set a bit more first.”