15. Jenna
JENNA
“ T his is my house too.” My words sound small in the drizzly Seattle dark.
The lights are on in the town house bedroom.
For a second, I think about kicking off my heels and jumping the back fence so I can sneak in and surprise Nathan and Johanna. Just to punish myself, you know?
“I have paid half of this mortgage for the past year and a half,” I tell myself. “This is my house, too, and I will be living here.”
Except my key doesn’t work on the lock.
“Oh, hell no! I have tenant rights!” I yell, mashing the doorbell and banging on the glass pane of the door. “Nathan, I know you’re in there. Open the door. You can’t lock me out of my own goddamn—oof!”
I stumble into the foyer as the door flies open.
An angry Nathan looms over me.
“You have some nerve.” He grabs the strap of my purse, dragging me so I stumble forward, banging my knees on the floor as I fall.
“You have some gall to accuse me of ruining our relationship when you’re out there bending over for your ex.” The smell of beer is stale on his breath.
“How dare you accuse me of—”
He shoves his phone with its dirty screen in my face.
“Brock told me everything. That’s why you went to his funeral. That’s why you were crying and you wore that dress. You’re still in love with him. Hypocrite. Fake fucking bitch.”
I blink away angry tears, reading on the screen.
“That’s not true,” I gasp. “I’m not with him.”
“Really? Because your ex-fiancé ”—he draws out the word—“says that you’re in love with him and that you promised to move out to L.A. with him and start a production company.”
“I’m not moving anywhere with Brock, and stop trying to make yourself into the victim.” My chin trembles. “You got your coworker pregnant.” I’m crying now. I hate it. Why can’t I just act like an adult instead of crying like a little baby?
I force myself to say what I originally came here to say and not get sucked down into Nathan’s accusations.
“I am not leaving this house. I live here.”
“You can forget about taking care of my child if you’re sleeping with Brock, so you better get your shit and get the hell out.”
“You are not kicking me out of my own house.”
“Your name isn’t on the deed, Jenna.” I hate how calm he sounds while I’m sobbing and look deranged .
“I pay half the mortgage. I pay the utilities.” My voice cracks. “I bought furniture. I did home renovation projects. You can’t do this. You can’t push me out. I have a right to keep living here.”
Behind Nathan, a svelte woman appears, cradling her nonexistent baby bump, because apparently the fertility charms my mom continuously stuffs down my clothes work only on people in my immediate vicinity.
“Did she bring my dog back?”
“Your”—I choke it out—“ dog ?”
Johanna is going for Truman, who has the sense to run and hide under the couch and growl at her.
“Don’t you dare touch my dog.”
“He’s not your dog. He’s my baby,” the homewrecker coos. “Look, I have a treat.”
“I bought that dog, Jenna,” Nathan says nastily. “He’s not yours.”
“ As a gift, Nathan. You bought him for me as a gift. That’s after I found the rescue, picked the dog, and gave you the adoption fee and reserved him. So no, you can’t just have him.”
“Stop stalling and leave, Jenna. You don’t have any lease paperwork.”
“My stuff is here. I have mail here. It’s obvious I live here.”
“Tomorrow your things will be on the curb.”
“What happened to your grand plan?” I screech because I’m going to drag everyone down with me on this sinking ship. “The one where, once Miss Homewrecker is too pregnant and bloated, you were going to be sleeping with me.”
Nathan acts shocked and offended. “I’d never say that. Jenna, you’re jealous that I’ve found the love of my life and I’m having a family.” He reaches for Johanna’s hand and pulls her close, kissing her passionately, like he’s never, ever kissed me.
I’m reeling. I don’t understand how we went from planning our marriage to me being the villain and cast out on the street.
“Well…” The word comes out in a croak as I try to choke back my tears. “Well, I’m not leaving. I live here, and I’m not leaving.”
“ Yes, you are. ” Nathan advances on me.
I am not intimidated. I’ve had to deal with McCarthy all week, and Nathan is nothing compared to him.
“Call the police,” I shriek. “They’ll side with me. This is Seattle.”
Nathan’s tone immediately switches to sickly patronizing. “Now, Jelly Bean, you’re being childishly stubborn.” He sighs like he’s a father having to deal with a teenage daughter. “Do you really want to live here and be the third wheel in our happy relationship?”
I keep my mouth shut, glancing between him and his new baby momma in the dark living room that I decorated.
Do I want to live here with them? No, not really.
“Why don’t I rent you a hotel room? I have credit card points. You can stay there for a few weeks.”
I don’t say anything for a minute. Then, “A hotel does sound nice…” I hurry upstairs to the guest room and stuff the clothes I can find into a bag then call for Truman.
Nathan is waiting with his keys.
Truman seems apprehensive as I stash my bags in the back seat of my newly minted ex-fiancé’s car.
“Don’t you want to put him in his dog seat belt?” Nathan asks. Something about his smile has my skin prickling .
I ignore it, because it’s raining and my phone battery is low, and I’m cold and tired, and I bet I can order room service on Nathan’s credit card.
I plug in my phone into the charger as Nathan turns onto the street—and turns away from the downtown hotel district.
The city lights dim behind us as Nathan’s Mercedes roars down the road that runs along the ocean.
“Um…” I twist in my seat. “What hotel are we going to, exactly?”
Nathan works his jaw. “It’s a boutique hotel.”
“What’s the name?” I reach for my phone to look it up. “Damn it!” The phone goes black and starts updating. “Stupid thing.” I yank it off the charger to slap at it.
Upset by the loss of power, the phone freezes on the update screen.
While I’m trying to turn it off or force a restart, Nathan yanks the wheel of the car, and dirt and gravel spew under the wheels as the car skids to a stop on the side of the road.
Nathan’s unfastening my seat belt.
“Out.”
“What?”
“Get out.”
“No. You said you were driving me to a hotel.”
“You seriously believed that?” Nathan’s face is screwed up in disgust. “I’m not paying for your hotel, I’m not letting you stay in my house, and I’m not letting you keep that dog.”
Truman is howling in the back seat.
I scramble, reaching for him as Nathan lunges, pushing me against the passenger door, trying to force me out of the car.
“You can’t dump me here! Are you insane? ”
“You’re the insane one, thinking I’m just going to let you walk off with my dog after you were cheating on me.”
“You were the cheater!” I bang him with the bricked phone in my hands while he fumbles for the door handle.
Kicking at him, I lose my shoe. The seat belt strap burns my hand as I slip too quickly along it when I topple out of the now-open car door.
“Truman!” I scream as I splat in the mud and kick at Nathan, who is trying to shove me away.
I lose my other shoe.
The side of my foot scrapes the passenger seat as Nathan gives me one more shove.
There’s gravel under the waistband of my skirt and mud in my hair.
From where he’s tied up in the back seat, Truman’s barks are frantic.
“Don’t you dare drive away!” I scream, tears of shock and anger mixing with the rain. “Truman!”
Nathan slams the door.
“No, that’s my dog! You can’t take my dog!”
The car skids as Nathan makes an abrupt U-turn.
Tripping over my shoes, I race after him, feet scraping on the wet asphalt as the car disappears back toward the city. I run until I can’t run anymore, until my chest feels like it’s about to cave into itself and my feet bleed.
Then I collapse on the side of the road, chest aching from the sobs and the cold air.
“ Truman, no. Help!” I scream to the empty street. “Help! Someone, help! He took my dog!”
I don’t know how long I limp down the middle of the street, crying. My eyes swollen with tears, I slap at my mud-crusted phone, which is still stuck on the update screen .
“Oh my god.” My breath sounds ragged. I force myself to move, to head back toward Seattle glowing in the distance.
It’s—what? Fifteen miles? Maybe I’ll make it to work on time. I have to at least do that.
My fiancé already kicked me out of my town house. I can’t lose my job too.
Maybe if I wasn’t so sick with worry about Truman, I’d feel cold, I’d shiver. Truman’s never been away from me, not ever since I got him as an adolescent rescue puppy. He’s going to be so upset.
“Help!” The word croaks out through numb lips, my breath clouding around me in the icy cold.
How could I be so stupid? How did I not see that Nathan was secretly insane? How was I so blind?
I thought I was different from my mother, thought I’d learned from the mistakes she made choosing terrible men to bring into our home.
But I haven’t.
Willow would always say, “This man is different. This will be the one to save us, to fix the well, to finally build that tree house I wanted, to help with the garden, to be the knight in shining armor.” But none of them ever rescued us.
So I always stepped in to rescue us. To rescue myself.
But I wish desperately someone would rescue me.
My feet are starting to sting now as I limp along the side of the road. It’s late. I’m far outside of the city, and I don’t see any headlights.
Half-asleep, I stumble and jerk fully awake as the roar of a powerful engine splits the night. Finally. Is that a headlight?
It’s not a car; it’s a motorcycle .
The shadow of the bike and its rider follow the powerful roar of the engine as the bike speeds past.
Should I call out for help? Is it a good guy or a bad guy?
The figure on it is huge and sinister and male.
Definitely a bad guy.
I don’t even have to think. I crouch down into the tall grass on the side of the road, praying he passes me by.