Chapter 30
“Of course you’re not answering,” Cherish muttered with a little more venom than she meant slipping past her clenched teeth. She hung up the phone, not bothering to leave yet another message for Stuart to call her back.
Cherish had always been okay with her own company. She preferred to have one of the dogs to listen to her as she contemplated her world, but she didn’t normally need actual advice either.
Part of her had already known he wouldn’t answer. She hadn’t even bothered to get up from her desk as she pressed the cool glass of her phone against the side of her face and sighed.
The migraines had become a daily problem over the last week. Cherish managed to do nothing else with her time besides work and stumble home to collapse on her bed surrounded by darkness. She would somehow manage to take more pills and finally slip into blessed oblivion only to wake and do it all over again.
The churning beneath her skin and pulsing in her muscles reminded her of the buildup to the summer storms on the farm when she was growing up. Everything closed in, making it hard to think, or breathe deeply.
Something was about to be rendered open, and Cherish trembled, knowing that it would be her if she couldn’t find a way to release this unwanted energy.
Haylee came in with a soft smile and darkness beneath her eyes. Cherish returned the smile quickly and opened her mouth. But as their eyes connected, she pressed her lips back together. She had to stop being so stupid.
Whatever she saw in Haylee’s eyes, pain and sadness maybe, was a true guilt punch straight to the gut. Cherish knew she had behaved abhorrently, and Haylee had forgiven her. But that didn’t mean the pain and reality of Haylee leaving wasn’t valid.
Cherish growled in the back of her throat as though she were some kind of animal as Haylee broke eye contact and headed to her desk.
She glared at her phone screen, as though Stuart would receive the scolding look next time he picked up.
Letting this much emotion into her heart about another person had been the dumbest move she had made in a very long time. She couldn’t risk screaming at Haylee again, and while Stuart remained AWOL, there really was only one other person she could talk to.
Swallowing the lump in her throat, Cherish looked over at Febe’s closed door. She couldn’t though, could she? The only person she had to talk to was the one person who reminded her on a daily basis why love was never worth it, not in the end. Because the end would always happen. One way or another.
“Cherish!” Haylee snapped and jerked Cherish’s head back toward the woman who was leaving her. The woman who Cherish lov—no. Cherish couldn’t, she wouldn’t continue to torment herself like this.
“Yes?” Cherish heard the edges of ice in her voice, but she couldn’t have it both ways, and this way would hurt less in the long run.
She would talk to Febe tonight. If Febe was still in her office when Haylee left, she would go and talk to her then.
“Are you all right?” Haylee’s voice sounded thinner than a champagne glass.
“Of course.” Cherish nodded, unable to stop the corners of her mouth flickering up for a fraction of a moment.
“Okay.” Haylee didn’t sound convinced, but she returned her attention to her computer, and Cherish broke a little more inside.
Throughout the day, Cherish wasn’t certain which she hoped for more—that Febe would leave and let her off the hook Cherish had put herself on, or that Febe would stay and Cherish could finally get Haylee out of her system once and for all.
“Cherish?” Haylee didn’t say anything else until Cherish looked up. Their eyes met, and for a moment, Cherish forgot how to breathe. Had Haylee always been that pale, with those dark streaks beneath her eyes all day? “Don’t stay too late, okay? It’s not good for your migraines.”
Cherish softened at the concern in Haylee’s tone. But she couldn’t allow herself to do that. So she gave Haylee her closemouthed professional smile as she nodded and faced her computer once more. Her eyes looked at the screen, but they saw nothing.
“Good night, Cherish.”
Cherish didn’t turn to look. Her fingers rested on the keys as though at any moment she would edit the report that remained open in front of her.
It took far too long for the elevator to arrive and the doors to open and then close again. Once the feeling of eyes on her disappeared, she waited a count of twenty before turning her head.
Of course it was empty. What had she really expected? Haylee to linger and stand there waiting for Cherish to look up? She was leaving, and Cherish had to deal with this incoming pressure before it blew her away.
For a moment, she stood in front of Febe’s closed door, trying to will her arm to lift and her fingers to curl into a fist and knock.
The door opened suddenly, Febe standing on the other side of it, only half a step away.
Febe yelped a little before she gasped out the words. Her hand at her chest, clutching to the silk shirt she wore. Her cheeks were flushed a bright pink as her widened eyes narrowed. “Holy shit, Cherish!” Febe breathed for a few seconds to calm down before her gaze narrowed even more as she focused on Cherish. Her tone sobered instantly. “What’s wrong?”
“I screwed up.” The words barely escaped before tears spilled over Cherish’s cheeks.
In a moment, Febe wrapped her up in her arms, and together they gently rocked side to side. Cherish allowed herself a few moments to weep, the release of all the pent-up emotions from the day rushing out of her. It would have been so easy to stay there, but she couldn’t. She didn’t deserve sympathy.
“No.” She wriggled out of Febe’s embrace and then pushed passed to Febe’s office.
“By all means, come in.” Febe’s wry humor followed Cherish, but she didn’t care. She had to get this out, all of it before it consumed her, before she truly became the tornado from the Wizard of Oz, picking up and shaking everyone in her path.
“I really, really screwed up.” Cherish paced back and forth in front of Febe who took her usual perch at the front of her desk, her long legs straight out at an obtuse angle, feet crossed at the ankles.
“Go on.” Febe nodded.
Seeing the serious expression on Febe’s face, a fresh wave of tears overcame Cherish.
But the pressure still churned inside of her, and she had to move. She walked back and forth, hitting her feet against the carpet so hard she felt the shock of hitting the cement beneath as it jarred up her calves. She would hurt tomorrow, but what did it matter?
“I lied to you.” She sucked in a deep breath because it was all about to tumble out. “I lied about there being nothing between me and Haylee.” Cherish kept walking, keeping her eyes on the carpet, on the space for the next step as tears continued to course over her cheeks. “There’s nothing now, but there was. There was something amazing. And I screwed up by falling for her, and now she’s leaving me, and I can’t get rid of this feeling.”
Cherish scrubbed ruthlessly at her eyes, hands finally curled into those fists she couldn’t force them into earlier.
“What feeling is that?”
“It hurts.” Cherish let the sob catch in her throat as she stopped in front of Febe and faced her.
“Love does that.” Febe’s smile was filled with a sadness that broke Cherish all over again.
“No, it’s not love. I know I screwed up, but I don’t love her. It’s not worth it. You of all people know that.”
“Me of all people?” Febe looked flabbergasted, perhaps even offended. “What exactly am I supposed to know?”
“That love—” Cherish swallowed audibly before she could continue. “That love is never worth the heartache in the end.”
“You think that I regret loving Bernie?”
“You’ve been miserable since she left. She broke you. You can’t tell me what happened since she died isn’t a direct response to that.”
“Of course it is.” Febe looked utterly bewildered.
The expression was enough for fresh tears to spill out of Cherish’s stinging eyes. Her head pounded, but for a moment, her confusion in the conversation and in Febe’s expression pushed almost everything else away.
“So then how can you say it’s worth it?” Cherish cringed as her voice rose higher, the throbbing in her temples beating in time to her words. It was so hard to focus.
“God, I love you. We’ve been friends for so many years, but sometimes I worry about those walls you’ve built around your heart.”
Cherish wished she had been able to stop the scoff from escaping, but just like everything else, her control over her body seemed nonexistent this evening. She was pure chaos.
“All right, yes.” Febe allowed a small self-deprecating laugh out. “That might have been uncalled for. But when you find someone who sees the walls and starts climbing instead of running away, building more isn’t the answer. And that’s all you’ve done.”
“But falling in love and being broken is the answer?” Cherish couldn’t believe this was the conversation they were having.
“Yes.” Febe laughed.
Cherish smiled, small and sad. The weight of it on her lips felt far too close to betrayal. A betrayal to herself and all the emotions she pushed behind the wall, all the moments she stopped herself from falling into.
The silence stretched for a moment, and Cherish paced back and forth again, though the soles of her feet weren’t being bruised by these footfalls.
“Loving Bernie sometimes feels like the only right thing I’ve ever done in my life.” Febe’s voice was soft and caressed the air around them.
Cherish’s feet stalled in her steps for just a moment before she kept walking, back and forth. Her steps were slower now, not as frantic as when she’d first walked into the room. But she couldn’t stand still. Her mind still held that pressure of the storm. Despite the buckets worth of tears and the words she’d already spewed out to Febe, to both of their surprise it seemed.
“You want to be broken forever?” Cherish asked.
“I’m not broken.” Febe frowned. Her stillness was the counterpoint to Cherish’s movement, and Cherish longed for the calm. “If you’ve been hurt, and yes, love hurts sometimes, then it’s time to heal.”
Cherish wondered if all the fissures she carried around on her heart had ever considered healing. She’d lost so much, but she’d never told anyone about it. No one. Not even Stuart.
“Look, I know I’ll never be the person I was when I still had Bernie. But if I hadn’t had her in my life, who knows where I would be now. I am a better person for having loved her and lost her.” Febe gave Cherish a direct look, all the seriousness packed in there with compassion.
“I miss her.” Cherish hadn’t meant to say it, but now that it was out, a small weight lifted from her shoulders.
“Bernie?” Febe waited until Cherish met her eyes. “Or Haylee?”
Cherish instantly thought to say Bernie, because that’s who they were discussing. She had even opened her mouth with Bernie’s name on her tongue but closed it again before it escaped.
“Both,” Cherish admitted.
“I’ll always love Bernie.” Febe smiled, and Cherish watched as her shoulders rounded slightly, the sharp edges of Ms. Aarts disappearing with the conversation. “And I’ll never regret our time together. How could I? I found love, true love. And that’s so rare.”
Cherish nodded. She felt like the younger sibling all over again. She was waiting for her sister to tell her what to do, what move to make next, how to fix the mistakes she’d made.
“Is it love?” Febe asked.
“What?”
“With Haylee, is it love?” Febe crossed her arms, her gaze never wavering.
Cherish froze. Not just her steps, or her hands that kept balling in and out of fists. Everything froze from her head to her toes. Her blood halted in her veins, and the air solidified in her lungs.
“Cherry?” Febe pushed off from the desk, hands on Cherish’s elbows, nails digging tightly into Cherish’s skin. “Cherry.”
With the last ounce of strength she had, Cherish forced her head to move, her eyes raising to meet Febe’s. As they connected, the storm finally broke through the last pocket of air pressure, and Cherish, having thought she had no more tears left in her, burst into a new wave of heartbreaking sobs.
“I’ve screwed everything up, Febe. Absolutely everything.”
“No, you haven’t. We can fix this.”
“I love her.”