Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Magnolia
By the time Luke walked out, I no longer felt like celebrating.
Once he’d gone, I locked the door to the world so I wouldn’t be interrupted as I replayed both the conversation with him and the one with my mother.
Luke might’ve looked shaken by what I’d told him, but he hadn’t bothered to apologize for shutting me out in the past.
But I’d told him. Finally, after all these years, I’d gotten my side of the story out. I felt a little bit lighter, unburdened, even if disappointed.
What had I expected though?
His reaction was on him. I couldn’t control whether he was a jerk. Obviously I had been wrong about him in high school.
The rain continued to pound outside. I went to the closed blinds to peek out, feeling trapped. Alone. Overwhelmed by all the airing out of the past in the last two hours.
My mother… I’d thought not much could surprise me where she was concerned. I’d been wrong. Though I’d grown up in that cold household with no doubt that neither of my parents loved me, the hateful games between them still stunned me.
I could well imagine the explosion that would occur when Felix found out my mother had broken their agreement, but that was their problem. He’d lost any control over me the day he’d forced me out on my own.
That hadn’t seemed like a blessing when it happened, but now I could see how lucky I was to have him out of my life.
And my mother’s confessions? I’d felt sympathy for her regarding the forced marriage and the scumbag husband.
I knew all too well how it felt to be in that position.
I couldn’t judge her for that. She’d been nineteen or twenty when my grandfather had basically bribed her into marrying the bottom dweller.
I’d gone along with my forced engagement at first too.
For a few moments today, I’d felt a bond with her, a shared experience. But stealing my ring? I wasn’t sure if I could forgive or forget that one.
That one decision of hers had affected me and my life more than it ever could’ve hurt Felix James.
Sure, his weak little ego had probably been wounded when he’d figured out she’d gotten the ring in the end, but he’d turned it around, used it to hurt Luke’s mother, Luke, the rest of his family, and me, whether he’d known that or not.
What might have become of Luke and me if that hadn’t happened?
“Probably nothing,” I said out loud as I paced my cozy office. “Because obviously Luke is a jerk.”
The one thing I couldn’t make sense of was why Felix would lie about Luke’s mom. That underhanded man had a reason for everything he did, an underlying, destructive objective.
Thunder crashed out of nowhere again, this time so loud it had to be really close.
I jumped, then pressed my hand to my chest as my heart raced.
I hurried into my private bathroom, tucked behind my office, seeking the safety of a windowless room, and sat on the closed toilet lid, waiting for the next boom.
At least when I closed the door, I couldn’t see the lightning.
I took out my phone to check the weather app, wanting a heads-up if I was going to die in my dinky bathroom from a tornado.
The app told me there was a thunderstorm warning and that rain was expected for the next several hours with several storms coming and going. The radar didn’t show the rain letting up even a little for me to get home. I was stuck by myself to ride it out yet again.
With the next clap of thunder, the room went dark, and my stress level skyrocketed.
Within seconds, the electricity came back on, but not before I was thrown back in time to my childhood.
How many times had a storm freaked me out and had me running to my parents’ room, only for them to send me back to my room at the other end of the house all alone?
They’d offered me nothing but an empty reassurance that the storm would be over soon and insist we were fine.
I hadn’t felt fine. I’d ridden out so many storms terrified and alone, whether I was four years old or fourteen. Or thirty-five, it turned out.
My self-centered parents were still affecting me today, biological or not.
At that thought, I stood and whipped the bathroom door open with enough force it bounced back at me.
I was not Felix James’s daughter. I was no longer under his thumb.
I didn’t have to huddle up by myself and cower from thunderstorms. I didn’t have to be afraid.
That was the old me, the one he’d conditioned me into, but I didn’t have to remain the same for the rest of my life.
I went to the outer room and, through the glass door, watched the rain come down. It wasn’t as intense now, but the lightning show was nonstop, and thunder rumbled almost constantly. At least it was less loud for the most part.
I could sit there in my lonely office, huddled in the bathroom, and continue to be that traumatized little girl whose parents didn’t see fit to comfort her during a storm, or I could face up to this fear and hurry over to the Fly to be among people, probably lots of them.
Maybe I could even find a matchup for a game of pool.
After the day I’d had, I needed people and noise and a distraction—from the storm, my mother, and Luke.
With my heart pounding in my chest, I went back in the bathroom to grab my rain jacket.
Back at the outside door, I watched the light show, my eyes wide. There weren’t many people out and about, but there were some. They weren’t afraid of being struck by lightning or having a branch fall on them. Which, come to think of it, there weren’t any big trees between here and the Fly.
Screw it. I took in a deep, shaky breath, heart still racing, and with a mental eff off to Felix James, I went out into the wild weather, locked my door behind me, and ran toward the bar.