Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Waverly
Lukas leads me out of the bakery and into his car, where he turns up the heat to full blast. “Don’t know if you were paying attention, but you’re not wearing a coat. We’ll leave your car here and I’ll take you back to the shop.”
Amanda Chase's new song plays through the speakers. It’s not her best song, but it’s got one of her recurring characters in it—Kiki. A long lost love or friend or someone she’s been hoping would return. The song makes my heart hurt, and the wooden shelf cracks and splinters and my emotional baggage comes crashing down.
There’s an arm around my shoulder as Lukas pulls me closer to him. “Can you hold it together for a few more minutes?”
Of course. I can’t even have an existential breakdown on my own timetable. It has to be one on someone else’s. Like a good little girl, I fight the tears and frustration until he parks his car at the tattoo shop, throws his coat over me, and leads me again.
His office is dark, with a giant wood desk that takes up most of the space. Rich and regal. It doesn’t match anything I know about Lukas. How did they even get it in the room? There’s no way it could fit through the door.
He offers me a chair as he leans against the desk. “You can yell and scream and cry in here.” He checks his watch. “I have a client in forty-five minutes.”
“He’s cheating on me.” I state the fact, unemotional. “He treats me like shit.” Another fact. “He’s selfish and rude.” Facts with emotion. “He spends all my money.” The emotional dam breaks. “He said he loved me.” The tears break out of their prison. “I believed him.” My shoulders shake and the sobs erupt from deep inside my soul. “No one wants me. Angie only lets me tag around because I’ve been there for so long it feels wrong if I’m not there.”
I’m like a sock that got stuck behind a door. Every time you see it, you know it doesn’t belong there, but you don’t pick it up because something else has your attention. For years, the sock stays behind the door, dust builds, and you leave it there because it sort of feels wrong to move it. And, besides, it’s not hurting anything. Then, one day, you get a burst of energy and you clean everywhere. And without thinking, you move the sock and it’s forgotten. That’s what I am. A forgotten sock.
“Dad moved on and had a new kid with a new woman. Sure, Sheila’s wonderful and Shae’s great, but Mom and I were replaced so quickly.”
Lukas takes my hands and squeezes them. I can’t look at his face. Instead, I focus on the way his grip completely engulfs mine. I feel small while he holds me, like I can literally fit in the palm of his hand. His voice is low and sad. “I know exactly how you feel.”
“My family doesn’t want me around.”
Again he gives me another squeeze.
“I was never really satisfied with Adam.” The quiet admission changes to rage. “Anytime I would bring up what I wanted to try, he said I was a slut.” He made me feel small and worthless. The piece of shit had the nerve to cheat on me. Worst of all, he wasted my time.
Me.
I'm Waverly fucking Mcleod. I'm smart. Powerful. Connected. The fucking Olympians come to me for research. My family ruins people.
“No one wants me. I’m not good enough.” The bitter memories of my early twenties, the hopes and dreams I had… Poof. Gone.
“You know that’s not true,” Lukas interjects, crashing my pity party.
“No, I don’t know. Everyone bails on me, and you’re the biggest offender.” My eyes sting. “It wasn’t enough that I gave you my virginity or every summer of youth. No, the second you saw an opportunity, you ran away from your family and left me behind too.”
My pent up humiliation bubbles and boils over. My body shakes with frustration. And I’m not prepared for how quickly his face changes. One second, kindness and compassion, the next, dismay and rage. Every muscle in his body tenses, like he’s a rubber band stretched to its breaking point, ready to snap and take someone’s eye out.
Anger oozes from every word. “What the fuck? You ghosted me! You were the one who never called back.”
“Why the hell would I call you?” I snap, spitting as much venom in my words as he can with his eyes. I’m the one in emotional crisis right now, and he has no fucking right to be mad at me. He lifted my hopes, toyed with my feelings, and he expected me to call him back and tell him, “Baby, it’s fine. We’re all good.” No thanks.
I’m done. I’ll replay the moment one last time and then I’m going to bury it, pour concrete over it, and build a huge statue of a horse taking a shit on it. “I don’t owe you any explanation, but I’ve got to deal with this once and for all. You told me when you left, ‘Everything I feel about you is on my desk.’ It was empty. I checked the drawers, the floor, hell, I pulled the damn desk away from the wall. Nothing except a receipt from Walgreens for gum and a soda. Your message was loud and clear. I was cheap garbage to you. And apparently, I still am.”
I spare a quick glance at him. His brows are in a tight V formation. He’s biting his lower lip, but not in a sexy way, in a way he does when he’s anxious. He starts shaking his head vigorously. “Not true.” He’s pissed and confused. What the hell should he be confused about? His actions are what got us here. “I left my portfolio.” There’s a pleading ache to his voice, and I’m not falling for that shit.
“I literally have the receipt.” I reach past him and grab my purse off his desk. He blinks slowly, his brain is buffering. I've gone through three wallets since Lukas left, each time moving the receipt to a different hiding spot. The paper’s fragile now, and the ink faded, but I don’t need those details to remember how it makes me feel.
I thrust the paper at him. He doesn’t look at it, reaching for his laptop instead. I flick the paper around, and he ignores me. “Hold on,” he snaps, and taps away until he finally hands me the computer. He’s actually pretty gentle with it. I am not nearly as gentle snatching it from his hand.
Lukas brings the receipt to his face and squints his eyes. Anger is replaced by confusion.
The computer feels cold and heavy, the screen is a bunch of thumbnails of jpegs. Tapping on one, a watercolor of a beach pops up. No, it’s Angie’s beach house we all used to go to over the summer. Lukas and I would sneak out to get snow cones and walk on the beach and hold hands while watching families pack up for the day. The next picture is a charcoal picture of me, laughing. He even captured the happiness in my eyes. My chest tightens and my vision gets blurry.
No. This can’t be right.
Then, something I recognize instantly comes up on the screen. It’s my tattoo, the hydrangea from my grandmother’s garden. This one’s a little less refined than what’s on my back. He drew this six years ago and remembered it when he gave me suggestions for tattoos.
“These are beautiful,” I whisper. The care and detail, the precision and passion. It’s a visual embodiment of his personality, but the subject of the art connects to me. A location, a joke we made, I was in every picture.
But where was it? Where did he put his heartfelt confessions? It wasn’t on the desk. How could I miss it? Still, he admitted his feelings, and I never called him back. He didn’t know I never got the message.
I can’t be close to him right now. The hostility in the room vanishes. Both of us are woundedanimals, hiding away in our corners.
“I don’t understand,” he whispers back as he lifts the receipt. “Why would you keep it?”
Why did I hang onto it? For the first year, I searched for clues. Like maybe the numbers had a hidden meaning or the store’s address or something. I went on wild goose chases and down rabbit holes, always coming to the same conclusion—it meant nothing. I had been wrong about everything. Why would I hold onto it? Turn a mistake into something beautiful. Just because he didn’t feel anything, didn’t mean my feelings were wrong. I loved him, and maybe he didn’t love me because he couldn’t.
“It was all I had left of you.”
He puts his hands on his head and hunches over. “I spent years thinking I wasn’t good enough. I was all in my head.”
“Me too,” I confess.
“I don’t understand what happened. Where’s my journal?’
“I don’t know.” I scroll through the pictures. “But if I had gotten this, I would’ve returned your calls.”
“Don’t.” His voice carries the typical harshness, followed by a quieter admission. “I don’t want to think about what could’ve been.” He clears his throat. “Let’s focus on right now.” He pushes back his hair. “How can I help you now?”
“I’ve gone too long without a hug.”
And instantly, he moves his chair next to mine and his arms wrap around me. I forgot how good he smells. My head rests in the center of his chest. He’s taller than me, stronger, and his hug feels like protective armor and a fuzzy blanket all at once. I listen to his heartbeat, pounding like the bass at a club, as he rocks me back and forth.
My face feels stiff from the dried tears and my eyes still burn, however the moment is as perfect as it can be.
The alarm on his phone chimes. “I should get going, but I can stay if you need me.”
I shake my head. “No. I think I’m good.”
“You shouldn’t be alone,” he says in a hushed tone. “Can you call Angie?”
“She’s in India.”
“Oh, right. Can you call anyone?”
My brain buffers. “Yeah.”
He presses his lips to my forehead, comforting without being sexual. “I’ll have Jade drive you back to your car and then you can go find your friends. Text me when you’re ready and we can talk.”
I feel like ten thousand weighted blankets have been taken off of me at once. No more Adam, no more resentment or confusion. Maybe things are finally getting better.