Chapter 19 #2
She shrugs. “A winter wedding up here seems beautiful. On my run yesterday through those trails you showed me out back, it started to snow, and I swear I just stopped to watch it fall for like a whole hour. I was mesmerized by it. I’ve lived in Colorado my whole life but never really appreciated the mountains like this. ”
My chest swells with pride over how easily she’s adjusting to life up here. Like she was always meant to be here. And call
me delusional, but I love that she’s put some thought into this. This wedding means more to her than she’s ready to admit
and I will do whatever I have to to foster that feeling she’s embracing inside of her.
For so long, Roe has lived such a minimal and practical life. She loves the lumberyard and her work, but I’ve never seen her
really dream the way I’ve seen Trista and Dakota dream. Hearing her state so clearly something she simply wants just because
she wants it . . . feels good. Like maybe this whole marriage of convenience is healing her in unexpected ways.
“Plus, my dad is paying for this wedding, and I guess I feel guilty renting an expensive venue when this is all just for show.”
My eyes close and I pinch the bridge of my nose, really wishing she didn’t add that last part. But she’s Roe. She is nothing
if not practical.
“We could probably figure it out,” I reply with a frown and clear my throat, trying to hide my raging disappointment. “We’d
need a backup in case there’s a storm or something. The barn is bursting at the seams with all of Trista’s rescues and we’re
still a ways out from developing her new rescue center. But thirty people could probably fit in Wyatt’s house.” I glance out
the side window toward his house, and Addison sidles up next to me to look as well. Even if we got snowed in between my house,
Calder’s, Wyatt’s, and the apartment above the barn, we could probably make it work. “And Wyatt has that big angular window
that overlooks the mountain so if we stood in front of it, we could feel like we were outside still.”
“That sounds perfect.” She smiles brightly and grips my arms. “I mean, I’m never doing this again in my life, so I guess I want it to be kind of . . . memorable. And a mountaintop wedding could certainly be that.”
I nod and watch her thoughtfully, trying to discern what is more important to her, budget or beauty. Please God, let it be
beauty, because I’ll do anything to keep that smile on her face. I clear my throat and add, “I’ll talk to him but I’m sure
he’ll be fine with it.”
“Amazing. Now I just have to hope dress shopping goes this well tomorrow.” She cringes and takes a sip of her wine. “Cozy,
Trista, and Dakota are coming along, so that should help be a bit of a buffer with your mom at least.”
“Is my mom really that bad?” I ask, my face grave. “I can talk to her. Ask her to back off.”
Addison shakes her head and her shoulders lift slightly. “It’s not your mom. It’s me. I’m just . . . weird with moms. Ever
since my mom left, I just . . . can’t seem to connect with women. Edith, bless her heart, tries so hard with me and I’m just
such a bitch to her.”
“When was the last time you spoke to your mom?” I ask, venturing into new territory, but considering she spoke pretty freely
about her brother the other night, maybe that’s a sign she’s willing to share more.
“I was twenty, so it’s been eight years now.” She sets her fork down and steeples her hands in front of her. Her lips thin
when she adds, “She’d just got out of prison.”
I blink back my shock, trying not to let the first words stumble out of my mouth.
“She was the one driving the car when my brother died.” She expels the words with a shaky breath, like they’d been cooped
up inside of her for way too long.
“Oh God, Roe. I had no idea.”
She makes a strange noise in the back of her throat. “He was only eight and she was a grown-ass adult . . .” She takes a long pause as she holds up her glass of wine, staring at it like a wine expert before adding, “with a blood alcohol level of .21 at the time of the accident.”
My heart sinks at the last part of her statement and a sickness forms in my stomach. “I’m so sorry.”
She nods, her lips pursed tight before she takes a drink of her wine, savoring it like she didn’t just drop the biggest bomb
on me. “She was supposed to be sober at the time too, so that was a whole thing she lied to us about. I didn’t have my first
sip of alcohol until I was twenty-two, which I know is nothing to really brag about, but at the time, it felt like a big deal
because I thought I was never going to drink.”
“I can understand why you’d hesitate after a situation like that,” I say, my mind going back in time to clock all the times
I noticed Addison taking a cab even after only one or two drinks. She’d always manage my transportation too, sometimes making
me crash on her couch even when I’d only had a couple drinks. I didn’t really think much about it at the time, but now, it
all makes sense.
“For years I looked at alcohol like this big bad thing that took my brother from me. I was obsessed with it. Noticed what
everyone around me drank, noticed what my dad and his cronies drank. Counted every beer can they tossed out of their truck
windows driving down gravel roads and went back to pick them all up the next day.”
She laughs and shakes her head, pushing her plate of food away before turning in her seat to face me. “This is embarrassing,
but when I was a kid, I used to think the cops could find my dad’s beer cans on the side of the road and DNA test them and
trace it back to him. Then he’d go to jail too and I would be an orphan.”
“That’s not embarrassing.” I reach my hand out and rest it on her leg as a small sign of comfort. “That just shows what happened affected you. It should have affected you. It was tragic.”
“It clearly affected my dad, but not in a good way,” she huffs, rolling her eyes. “I love that man but when I think back to
my childhood after Aaron died, it was seriously fucked up.”
“I suppose he was just coping in his own way,” I offer, not really wanting to defend Addison’s dad, but the man lost his son.
His baby boy. I know loss firsthand now and can’t imagine how it would affect me if I’d lost one of my brothers. Or if Max
lost Everly or Ethan.
Fuck. How does a man ever come back from that?
“Yeah, he’s not as bad as he used to be, thank goodness. Which is maybe why as I got older, I realized it was crazy of me
to obsess over something I’d never even tasted before. So, one day I just started having beers with the guys after work. I
think I expected this big, heavy thing to overcome me. I thought I’d get addicted and instantly start craving it. But I didn’t.
It was just a drink. It wasn’t stronger than me and I took pride in that. I resented my mother for letting it be stronger
than her.”
I nod slowly, thinking back to when I first asked Roe to go out with me for beers. She would have been twenty-three at the
time so not drinking long. I bet her mind was fixating on every sip she took.
“Where is your mom now?” I ask, watching her thoughtfully.
“I have no idea,” she replies with a laugh. “She got out of jail, came home to get some of her stuff, and I never saw her
again. She didn’t even say goodbye.”
My eyes tighten as I watch Roe curl up into a ball on the chair, looking so young and childlike. I kind of sensed she had
some abandonment issues, but this goes even deeper than I realized.
“Ugh, I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this.” She shakes her hands out and stands up to start clearing the plates.
“Don’t do that,” I state, grabbing her wrist to stop her movement.
“Don’t do what?” She frowns down at me.
“Don’t open up and then shut down. You don’t have to do that with me. If you want to talk, I’m here to listen. Always.”
Her eyes hold mine captive for a long, silent moment and it feels like we’re having a full conversation with no words. She’s
always carried something dark and painful inside of her. I can see it when she’s around her dad. She loves him, but there’s
a pain they share that I’ve wanted to understand more. But if I pry too hard to open up, she’ll just push me away.
Her breath catches before she drops back down into her seat and leans back against the table, gazing into the kitchen with
a pensive look in her eye. “Apparently my mom had gotten out on parole for good behavior or something. We had no idea because
we never got to visit her in prison. She had to put us on a list to see her and no matter how many times my dad put in a request,
she always denied him.
“Anyways, I was still living at home with my dad, and we’d come home together after work one day to find her car, which was
stored in one of the machine sheds, parked out in front of the house with the trunk open. My mom appeared on the front step
with an armload of her stuff, and I swear it was like seeing a ghost.”
My heart lurches as her voice cracks, and I can’t help but notice the tremble in her chin as she fights away the emotion bubbling
up to the surface.
“It’s weird to have this twelve-year-old mental image of your mom and then suddenly you’re an adult and seeing her through more mature eyes.
I barely recognized her as I had a totally different image built up in my head.
My dad told me to stay in the truck and even though I was an adult at the time, I suddenly felt like a kid all over again, so I just listened and sat there totally mute, watching him follow her in and out of the house as she gathered her things.
They were fighting and shouting, and he looked so mad at one point, I thought he was going to hit her. ”
“Fuck,” I murmur under my breath, pressing my fist to my mouth as I swallow down the knot in my throat.
“Finally, he stopped following her and just stood on our front step while she got in her car and backed out of the lane. She
stopped beside my dad’s truck and looked at me through the closed window. It’s weird because it made me think of the prison
glass I’d always seen people talk to the inmates through on movies and stuff.”
Addison licks her lips and chews the bottom one, pointing to her chin as it begins to tremble. “Her chin trembled just like
mine does. It was like I was looking in a mirror that aged me twenty years. We have the same dark hair, same hazel eyes and
round cheeks. Same wobbly chin that shows all our emotions.”
She swipes at some errant tears that fall down her face before adding, “I held my breath, waiting for her to get out of the
car to hug me, to beg for forgiveness, to tell me how much she missed me and that she was sorry for lying to us. She wasn’t
a bad mom before the accident. I have good memories with her. Memories that now all feel like a lie, because if they were
real, how could she just drive away and not say anything to me? How could she go eight years without hugging me and still
not want to hug me before she left? Even just to say goodbye?”
Addison shudders a breath as she braces her hands on her knees. I stop myself from touching her, because I don’t want to pop
this bubble she’s in right now. She holds so much inside, she’s like a dam ready to break at any second. And if she’s going
to break, I’m right here to catch her.
She clears her throat and wrinkles her nose, steeling herself for the end of the story.
“But she didn’t get out. She drove off and I never heard from her again.
It’s been just me and my dad ever since.
” She pulls her leg up onto the bench and holds her knees to her chest, shaking her head, raw and spent from that emotional confession.
I reach over and wrap my arms around my friend, holding her to me, kissing her on her head as I say, “She missed out.” I swallow
the pain in my throat and repeat, “She missed out on a whole lot.”
Roe nods woodenly and rests her cheek on her knees, looking at me through watery eyes. “I like it here, Luke,” she says, pinning
me with a sobering look. “I like being with you and I need us to be good and not worry about this falling apart, okay?”
I frown and stare back at her, guilt settling in my gut over the magnitude of her request. It’s a simple request a friend
should be able to make to a friend.
It’s much more complicated when one of the friends is in love with the other. But ultimately, I’d do anything for this girl.
I half smile, reaching out to touch the curved nail wrapped around her finger. “For better or worse, Addison Monroe . . .
I got you.”