Chapter 41 - Hayden
HAYDEN
Amy answered the door on the third knock. She had her hair up in a bun, and her gold-flecked UGG slippers on her feet. Somewhere in the background, a television played.
“I know, I could’ve called,” I apologized quickly. “I should’ve called. But…”
“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” my friend smiled gently. Her arms spread open, and I flung myself into them. “Hayden, what’s wrong?”
The tears fell again, this time unchecked. I’d fought them back for so long tonight, I just couldn’t anymore.
Besides, if I could cry in front of anyone, it would be Amy.
“Everything is wrong,” I muttered into her ample chest. Amy certainly had a good amount of assets, but this was her best one. “I left the guys. And… and Cole…”
“Cole?”
“I just saw him. I just talked to him.” I swallowed hard, peering over her shoulder at the cozy, well-lit living room. “Can I—“
“Of course!”
She swung the door the rest of the way open, and ushered me aside. Her husband stood up from the couch, a half-full glass of wine in each hand. Immediately I felt embarrassed.
“Rick?” Amy said sweetly. “Pour one for our guest?”
Rick shot me a reassuring smile, then disappeared quickly into the kitchen. Amy led me to the couch, but not before grabbing the remote and pausing the reality show they’d been watching together.
“I’m so sorry,” I told her. “I just… I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
“Hayden, it’s okay.”
“No, no it isn’t. Nothing’s okay. And I—I was going to ask if…”
God, why was this so hard? It shouldn’t be. Not after all we’d been through together.
“I was going to ask if I could stay here tonight.”
I braced myself, expecting her to hug me again. To assure me that of course it was okay, and I could stay as long as I wanted.
Instead, Amy cleared her throat.
“Here?”
“Yes.”
“Tonight?”
I blinked a few times, wiping my cheeks clean with my coat sleeve. For some reason, Amy hadn’t yet taken my coat.
“Yes,” I repeated again. “If—If it’s okay with Rick, of course. I just can’t bear the thought of going home tonight. Shit, I don’t even know where ‘home’ is right now.”
“What happened with Cole,” she said quietly. “Tell me about that.”
I went into it briefly, without mentioning too much about what Cole had done in regards to the guys. I told her I’d left them for good, but that Cole wasn’t getting it through his head that we were over as well.
“What else did he say?” Amy was asking.
“I don’t know,” I sighed. “Some stupid crap about still being in love with me. After everything he put me through. After—”
“Well… maybe he is.”
I stopped crying altogether and looked up at her.
“What did you just say?”
Amy looked more nervous than I’d ever seen her in her life.
“I—I’m just saying,” she stammered, “if he told you he loved you, why wouldn’t you believe him?”
“Because he’s a fucking lunatic!” I snapped. “Cole doesn’t love anyone but himself! And even if he did, who cares if he still loves me? He lost any shot of—”
“You really wouldn’t give him a second chance?”
My shocked expression drove her eyes instantly downward. Not only couldn’t she meet my gaze, she actively avoided it.
“Amy, what the fuck?”
“I know, I know,” she relented. “It’s not that he hasn’t done things that were wrong, but you did date him before, and you did tell me you had good times with him.”
“A decade ago, yeah,” I balked. “Some. Not many.”
“Right. But he came when you called him, didn’t he?” she allowed. “He showed up at the pier thinking you wanted to talk. So maybe…”
“Wait, what?”
In a cataclysmic moment of bad timing, Rick showed up with my wine. I pushed it away.
“You just said I called him down to the pier…”
Amy’s eyes darted in every single direction, now. Every direction except mine.
“But I didn’t tell you that.”
“Y—Yes you did,” she countered awkwardly. “You said—”
“I said I just saw Cole — that I called him, and he came to meet me. But I didn’t say where.”
An icy feeling crawled its way slowly up my spine.
“No…” I murmured, tilting my head at her.
No longer able to keep it together, Amy began bawling her eyes out. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
“NO! AMY!”
It hit me all at once, like a bucket of cold water to the face. Suddenly it all made sense.
“You’ve been talking to him!?” I practically choked.
“No…”
“You’re in with COLE!”
“Hayden, please!” she cried hysterically. “Give me a chance to explain!”
“That’s how he found me…” I realized. “When he showed up at the clinic, that wasn’t random. That was you.”
I felt totally sick to my stomach. The revelations just kept coming, cascading over me in a never-ending series of lies and deceptions.
“That’s why you kept asking me where I was!” I shouted, my eyes going wide. “That’s how Cole showed up in Maine! It was you!”
Amy was beyond pleading now. She was a blubbering, tear-streaked wreck.
“You were my therapist!” I shouted angrily. “You were my FRIEND!”
She flung herself into her husband’s arms. Rick held her tightly, as she sobbed against his chest.
“There’s a reason for all this,” Rick said calmly. “If you’d just let her—”
“Explain!?” I barked coldly. “Is this the part where I just shut the fuck up, so she can tell me why she ruined my life?”
The look Rick gave me could’ve been angry or hurtful, but it wasn’t. His eyes were filled only with concern for his wife, who by now was a total disaster.
“I’m sorry Hayden,” he said, without ceremony. “I really am. But maybe you should go.”
I stared back at him banefully, since his wife was too cowardly to face me. What I saw there was recognition. Admission. Even guilt.
“You’re damn fucking right I should.”
I stormed out, feeling so angry I could wrestle a bear onto my shoulder and carry it up a mountain. The blast of outside air hit me with all the impact of a thunderclap. It burned my face and cracked my cheeks.
By the time I’d started my car, my frozen tears felt like tiny icicles stabbing into my skin.
But as painful as it was, nothing hurt worse than my heart.