Round Twenty-Nine #2
“Yeah.” I drop my gaze, smiling down at the floor.
“She was pretty amazing. If our situations had been reversed and some old lady kept dragging Aria down memory lane for a guy who wasn’t me, I wouldn’t have been nearly as compassionate.
” Licking my lips, I bring my focus up to hers.
“I lost you in the summer between second and third grade, Magnolia. I grieved for you for an unnaturally long time. I found a new version of happiness with Aria, the world’s most patient, kindhearted person who ever existed, and then I lost her, too.
I’ll grieve her for the rest of my life.
I figured that was it for me, since I’d already experienced my fair share of love, plus, I had Jeremy to take care of.
But then you came back to town, and instead of embracing your return, I could only focus on the fact that I was already barely surviving.
I couldn’t sustain these blows anymore, so instead of welcoming you in, I tried to piss you off.
Saturday was a moment of weakness for me, and because of it, I took something I’ve wanted for so, so long. ”
“You regret what we did?”
“No.” I lay my palm on her cheek and drag the moisture from her skin. “No, I don’t regret it. I’m a selfish man, after all, and if given half the chance, I’d do it a thousand times more.”
She laughs, the sound breathy and rough and crackling around her tears.
“But you ditched, Magnolia. As soon as I dropped you home on Saturday night, you left me again. You left my son. But now it feels worse, because I couldn’t find my anger anymore.
I didn’t stand on my porch plotting new ways to piss you off.
I didn’t stew in my hurt feelings and conjure ways to get back at you.
I just… sat,” I sigh. “I waited. I kept watch and made sure you were safe, and when Jeremy wished upon a star, I wished, too. Because he’s me, but better, so if he thought wishing upon a star was the right thing to do, then that’s what I would do, too. ”
She inches out from beneath his cheek, carefully pushing up and setting her elbow on the couch for support.
With moisture in her lashes and thick, trembling lips, she gifts me with a feather-soft kiss, swallowing my soul without even meaning to, and working overtime to convince that angry voice in the back of my head that everything could work out for us.
It won’t. It can’t.
But fuck, if there was anyone on the planet who could sway my beliefs, it’s Magnolia Sava.
Breaking our kiss on a soft whimper, she inches forward and rests her forehead on mine. “I’m sorry I ditched.”
“Where’d you go?”
She shrugs, dragging her bottom lip between her teeth.
“Work, mostly. I was having an existential crisis over what we’d done on Saturday night, while simultaneously grieving the little boy I was sure you’d take away from me the very next time we had an argument.
And we’re already so good at those. I’ve got back-to-back events coming up now that the holidays are almost here, but the economy is in the toilet and my job is, as you say, made up and dumb. ”
I’m such an asshole.
She snickers. “Made up jobs are typically the non-essential kind, especially to the average Joe, and non-essential expenses are the first to go when budgets tighten. Living in a town as small as Plainview makes self-employment a million times harder, which means my income is a leaky drip through freshly rusted pipes, as opposed to…” She wrinkles her nose.
“Ya know, a constant flow that could almost lull a woman into a sense of stability. I pick up work anywhere I can find it, and spend every other waking moment making sure my booked gigs are gonna be amazing. I guess I’m just…
” She brings her golden stare up to mine.
“Surviving. Barely. In a world where I control nothing.”
“Nothing?” Disbelief washes through my veins and comes out on a scoff. “Magnolia, you control everything.”
“No. I really don’t.” She glances toward the ceiling as thunder rumbles outside, then she looks to Jeremy next. When he remains deep asleep, she carefully extricates herself from underneath him, nudging his leg off hers, and peeling his arm off her belly.
It takes her a minute, with lots of stops and starts, but the instant she’s free, she charges out of the living room.
It’s what she does, isn’t it? She leaves.
Sighing, I climb sluggishly to my feet and run a hand through my hair. I scratch the section of scalp right where she touched me a moment ago, but it’s not the same when I do it. It’s not even close. Smoothing my shirt down, I dip my thumbs into my pockets and follow.
I told her I’ve loved her. My whole fucking life.
She didn’t say it back.
“My entire existence has been outside of my control.”
I come to a stop in the kitchen doorway and absorb the burn of her fiery glare.
“All of it, Billy. I couldn’t control losing my dad, and I couldn’t control moving, or not moving.
My mom worked more jobs than I could count, so I could never control or predict when I would see her or what kind of mood she’d be in after an eighteen hour-day of hard labor.
I couldn’t control the fact that I was just a little kid the last time I saw you, too young to verbalize my feelings, too shortsighted to think to write you a letter just like I wrote to my grandmother.
I didn’t get to control moving seven more times after the first, because my mom was always chasing what she had back here in Plainview, which means even if I had written you a letter, your replies might’ve gotten lost, since I moved faster than I could keep up.
I can’t control the economy now, or how many events I book, or how many hours I have to work to complete what was supposed to be an easy project. ”
Am I the easy project? Is my refusal to fall in love with these matches the reason she has shadows under her eyes all the damn time?
“I didn’t know my grandmother was sick, Billy, because I couldn’t control her or the letters she never wrote back. I kept sending mine, though… just in case. Maybe if she’d replied once in the last twenty-five years, she could’ve told me about the taxes she didn’t pay on her house.”
“She…” I stumble forward a step. “What?”
“I inherited a liability, not an asset. Her death left me with two options: sell the house, zero out her debt, and walk away knowing I sold the home my father grew up in. Or keep it, refinance the mortgage, work myself raw to pay back what she owed, and hope I don’t go crazy from stress.”
“Maggie—”