Chapter 37
chapter
thirty-seven
MAREN
“You know when a car runs over an aluminum can? You think it can’t get any flatter, but then another car runs over it, followed by another car, until the can is flatter than a piece of paper—that’s what my life has turned into.”
Caroline and Addie share matching expressions of concern.
“Maybe I am cursed, after all.” I slump into the cushions of my couch and bury myself under my favorite fuzzy blanket. Pictures of pumpkin spice lattes decorate it, and it makes me smile when I retrieve it from my closet every fall.
But it has no effect on me now.
Not even the company of my two closest friends eases the stress from my body.
It’s been an hour since they answered my version of a Bat-Signal via text, and in that time, I’ve relayed how disastrous yesterday was, including my shitty afternoon with Dixie’s surprise visit.
I barely got through all the details when my throat closed up like I’m allergic to the entire predicament of the last twenty-four hours.
“Maybe I should’ve given Todd a chance,” I mumble.
“Who?” they ask in unison.
“Never mind.” I burrow even deeper into the comfort of the cushions.
Todd would’ve been boring enough for Dixie’s approval, but… he’s not Nate. No matter how out of my league I believe Nate to be, he’s still the one my heart wants.
“We’ve already talked about this—you are not cursed.” Caroline sits next to me, a glass of red wine nestled between her hands. “Didn’t you hear anything I said?”
“Hearing and believing are two different things.”
Caroline nods in understanding. “First things first—you will make up with Dixie. There’s no doubt that she’ll come to her senses.”
“You don’t think I should apologize to her?” I cringe. I’ve replayed the events of the last day in my head until my vision’s blurred.
“What? No,” Addie asserts. “You have nothing to apologize to her for. It sounded like she needed a stern kick in the pants.”
“But I know she’s going through a hard time.” I search my friends’ expressions for validation, but they’re firmly on my side—the saints.
“That does not give her the right to take it out on you,” Caroline says, enunciating every word like she’s trying to drill them into my head. “We all have shit going on. I don’t take it out on the people I love, and if I do, I apologize for it, like an adult.”
“You are so right.” I try to get pumped.
I like knowing I’m not entirely in the wrong here, but there’s so much metaphorical weight on me that I can’t even summon enough pride to make me feel lighter.
“When I tried to talk to her—when I brought up a single fucking ounce of disagreement with her—she blew up and called me immature. Ha! Because she’s so grown up and reasonable. ”
“Exactly.” Addie shares a look with Caroline. “As for you and Nate… you just need to figure out where you go from here. It’ll take some time, but what relationship doesn’t?” Addie’s rhetorical question turns the wheels in my head as we switch gears to the other problem flipping my life upside down.
“What if we take time—we take our relationship painfully slow, even—and he decides he misses traveling? Or worse.” I grab my wine and suck back a healthy dose.
“Worse?” Caroline studies me, and I recoil, wishing the couch would swallow me whole.
“What if he gives up everything he’s worked for, redirects his daughter’s life, and then realizes that I’m not worth it? Then he’ll just leave again, for something bigger and better.”
“Honey…” Addie rises from her spot on the floor as gracefully as a ballerina and eases onto the seat next to me, completing our friendship sandwich, and I almost wince.
“Come on.” I frown. “Nate is spontaneous and fun. He’s charming and good. A freaking wizard at making me feel… everything.”
They sigh in sync, the dreamy sound drifting between us.
“Then there’s me.” I hold up my fingers one by one.
“I’m sarcastic. I’m boring as hell. I hardly ever do anything outside of work.
I’ve completely given into the funk that has taken over my life the past few years.
I’ve never been in a serious relationship as an adult.
Who would want me? Nate will leave. He did once, and he’ll do it again.
Just like my father, except he didn’t even get to know me before he decided I wasn’t good enough, and he didn’t want me. ”
My exhale releases in unsteady waves, and tears sting the backs of my eyes as I lose myself to the circus of emotions in my stomach.
“That’s what this is really about.” Addie slips my glass from my hand as if she can sense that I’m barely hanging on enough to hold something breakable.
Then she places a coaster onto the coffee table and sets my drink on it.
“As someone whose father left too, I can assure you I know all about abandonment issues. I mean, my father didn’t completely disappear, but still, it was rough after the divorce. ”
I blink. My brain snags on “abandonment issues,” as if the words she stated are in another language. If I’d had more to drink, I’d wonder when Addie had the time to learn French.
Because abandonment issues? I can’t have heard her correctly.
“You and I are very different, for sure,” she continues. “I confronted my father last month, and it felt good to cuss him out.”
I scoff. “If I could even locate my father, I doubt he’d care if I cussed him out. I could probably punch him, and he’d act like it meant nothing. A guy who leaves his postpartum wife and baby doesn’t care about anything.”
But the thought of punching him—or renting a bulldozer just to run him over with—does have a nice ring to it. It’s been a long time since I inflicted physical pain on anyone. Not since my aggressive streak as a kid.
I sit up taller.
My gaze darts across the living room, bouncing over the furniture and pictures on the wall until I see spots. It’s like I’m mentally sifting through years of memories.
Except it all looks different with this fresh perspective.
The fights I’d get into in school.
How hard I avoided relationships over the years.
Even with Nate. When he and I got together, years of strictly friendship had passed between us. I’d wanted to be a couple only after I knew I could trust him.
But I ended things with any other guy since him, not because of Nate, but because of my…
“Abandonment issues,” I mutter under my breath and test the words on my tongue. “I don’t trust people. Not guys or anyone. Hell, I haven’t even made any new friends in the last ten years beyond you two.”
“Good—I don’t like sharing,” Addie jokes, but I’m not too far gone to miss the subtle seriousness in her tone.
“I can barely trust my own sister. I didn’t tell her about this. I actually stopped sharing much about my life with her here lately because I’m tired of her telling me I’m doing everything wrong. She would’ve had a field day had I told her about my fight with Nate.”
Caroline and Addie both grimace.
“But it’s more than that.” I throw the blanket off me and stand to pace.
The nervous energy invading my veins is too much.
I need a fucking outlet, so I tread back and forth until my socks gather enough static from the friction of the rug to power a car.
“She abandoned me too,” I whisper as all the pieces come together like I’m assembling an evidence board for the police, and the answers are finally presenting themselves as clear as day.
“Dixie got married and moved to Savannah. It’s still close, but she wanted to move to Charleston or farther.
If Barrett had gotten a job elsewhere, she would’ve left without a second thought.
She only stops by to check in with me and to make sure I don’t need her to reroute my life. Fuck.”
I bury my face in my hands, and the subsequent string of curses I mutter is far from ladylike.
Not that I’ve ever touched the word with a ten-foot pole, but still.
“Then there’s my mother.” A tear finally breaks free and slips down my cheek. “She left me.”
Caroline and Addie both rush up to me. They hold their arms up like they’re going to wrap me in a fierce hug, but at the last second, they pause.
And I’m thankful for the space, as I spiral into the mess that is my life.
“I did everything I could think of to give her more time.” I squeeze my eyes closed, my arms limp at my sides.
“I called doctors and asked about treatments we couldn’t afford.
Any trials that Mama might’ve qualified for.
I spent countless nights researching anything and everything about her cancer, but in the end, I couldn’t help her. ”
“Babe.” Caroline’s smooth, even voice does wonders for my rattled nerves. “You were there for her when she needed you most—that’s what matters. She had you and Dixie by her side.”
“Exactly.” Addie rubs my upper arm. “You can’t blame yourself for what happened with your mom. It was a shitty situation, but you did everything you could.”
“It wasn’t enough,” I whisper. “I’ve never been enough for the people in my life.”
Caroline grasps my forearm and guides me to sit back down, where I wobble in my seat.
I’m suddenly numb all over. They could nudge me with their pinkies, and I’d fall flat on my face.
“I know a little about how you feel, Mar.” Addie kneels in front of me. “I’ve blamed myself for a lot of things, but I’ve also come to learn that people bail because of their own issues. It has nothing to do with us.”
“If Nate decides to leave tomorrow—which I truly don’t believe he will—it wouldn’t be because of anything you did or didn’t do. It would be his own choice,” Caroline adds.
“His own mistake.” Addie squeezes my knee.
I slump forward. “What am I supposed to do now?”
Addie and Caroline exchange a look I can’t decipher.
Addie is the first to stand, bringing me along with her.
With Caroline next to me, we form a circle like we’re about to perform a ritual.
In fact, I’d be open to doing just that right about now.
If it means untwisting the pretzel-braided knot in my stomach, I’d pull out every candle in this house and chant my ass off.
“I have an idea.” Addie’s eyes shine with mischief. If I didn’t know her so well, I’d say this could either be brilliant or make everything worse.
But where Addie is concerned, I’m leaning toward brilliant.
“I’m all ears,” I say, and the desperation in my voice echoes off the walls.
Her grin is downright wicked. “We’re going to need some turkey merch first.”