Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Rhett
Brynlee didn’t fight. She just gave up and left with Darla. Not that fighting would have changed anything, but I can’t help feeling as though I was right when I said she didn’t know what she wanted. That she can’t possibly love me if she doesn’t know what love is. This is all just too much.
“You’re a damned fool,” Everett says, shaking his head at me.
I whip around and glare at him, my fist ready to finally hit someone. “Excuse me?”
“She stood there and told that asshat, who insulted not only you but everyone in this town, how we were better than his friends and family. Money doesn’t mean anythin’, but more than that, she said you were better than him in every way.”
“And what makes you think you get any say in my life after what you did?”
Punching my arm, he knocks me backwards a step before getting into my face. “Yeah, I drunkenly slept with your ex. But at the end of the day, I wasn’t the only one.”
“You were my friend!”
“Yeah, and as your friend, I told you. And I came to you when I developed feelin’s for her.
You said it was fine, and it wasn’t until after I fell in love with her that I realized it wasn’t fine.
That you’d lied to me, but by then, I’d lost my friend and my brother.
Trust me, I’m qualified to tell you when you’re bein’ stupid. ”
“I’m stupid?” I spit out, laughing without humor.
“She’s in love with you!” he shouts. “Everyone but you can see it because you’re all in your head with that bullshit every girl has ever told you before. The bullshit you believe, even though it’s wrong.”
I want to be mad, but I can’t. “You don’t understand—”
“I understand that you let the best thing to ever happen to you walk away because you told her things weren’t workin’ anymore. I mean, I totally hate it when my girl tells her ex I’m better in every way than he is, includin’ in bed. She’s just the worst, huh?”
“What?”
He just shakes his head and backs up with his hands in the air, and I notice Tim standing with him, just blinking at me. “You told that woman she wasn’t worth fightin’ for. That your relationship didn’t mean shit.”
“She didn’t disagree with me,” I say.
“You broke her heart!” Tim shouts. “She spent fifteen minutes tellin’ that city boy that you gave her everythin’ money can’t buy. The shit he can’t give her, and then you come out here and do that in front of everyone?”
“That’s not—”
“We all heard you tell her she’s not worth it to you. Of course, she’s not goin’ to fight you. She was cryin’ and embarrassed. Who are you, man? What happened to the nice guy?”
Carter glares at me, running his tongue over his teeth. “You screwed up. You screwed up worse than you ever have before, and you better get your ass in gear to fix this before you lose her completely.”
To hear Tim, Playboy of Copperwood, tell me I treated Brynlee terribly hits me hard, but it does little to dampen my frustration. Frustration that only grows when my best friend backs him up rather than defend me. “You don’t know the whole story,” I tell Tim.
“I know enough,” he says. “She had her pick of any man in town, includin’ some of the married ones, and she chose you. You’re goin’ to regret this. I can promise you that, and you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.”
I should go after Brynlee. I know I should, but I can’t.
Something inside stops my heart shouting at my head to console the woman I love more than I’ll love anything.
It’s what has me walking inside to order another beer at the bar rather than hopping into my truck.
And I know where everyone stands when no one, even Carter, sits beside me at the rail.
Everyone stares at me, and I hate knowing that this is what Brynlee must’ve felt everywhere in town since she arrived. Instead of being jealous like they were of her, I’m now a terrible person.
I wanted to shed the Nice Guy label for years, but I hadn’t expected this to be the reason why.
I’m three beers in when Darla storms into the bar, screaming at me.
“She told you she loves you, and you told her you don’t think she knows what love is?” Darla shouts and pushes me.
I’m nowhere near drunk, but I still stagger slightly at the unexpected physical violence. I don’t bother responding to her as I sit back onto my chair again.
“What?” Carter asks as the room once again falls quiet. Someone cuts the music, making it even worse.
“You’re the biggest fool I’ve ever met in my life,” she says. “You lost her. Because you’re… God, you’re stupid!”
I refuse to look at her, and I just shake my head, drinking from the mug. “I’ll talk to her when we both cool down.” I’ve already decided to check on how she’s doing when I leave here.
“She’s leavin’, Rhett.”
Whipping around, she finally has my full attention. “What?”
Pointing at the front door, Darla glares at me with hatred as her chest heaves. I haven’t seen her this pissed in a long while and never aimed at me. This is worse than when she was angry at the women talking about Brynlee in the grocery store.
“You stood out there and told her she wasn’t worth it.
In front of everyone. After everythin’ she’s told you, how she’s always felt like she wasn’t enough, you just told her the thing she feared the most is true.
The rest of this stupid town hasn’t exactly been welcomin’, and those who have are seen as your friends. ”
“Dar—”
“I couldn’t convince her that she has people here without you.”
How can she not see it? “She was always goin’ to leave, anyway. It was just a matter of time. She didn’t love me.”
“No, she wasn’t!” Tim shouts. “She told that dipshit she wanted to stay here. She doesn’t want any part of his fake life.”
“Then why the hell was the weddin’ countdown still active? Their friends were commentin’ the day before I saw it.”
The scream from Darla makes everyone flinch. “You are so stupid, and I can barely stand to look at you right now. I just… I want to smash your face on somethin’ really, really hard.”
“Excuse me?”
“None of those people in Chicago were her friends. And you really think she had any say in anythin’ to do with that weddin’?
Let alone left in charge?” she asks, breathing deeply.
“And if she was goin’ to leave, then why did we just sign a business agreement, huh?
People plannin’ to leave don’t usually start plantin’ roots. ”
“What?” Carter asks. “What are you talkin’ about?”
Turning to face him, she sighs. “Brynlee invested the money I needed to buy out Doris and has been helpin’ me get everythin’ together. She’s really smart with business stuff, and we decided to become partners. I don’t know where we stand, but come January, I own the Golden Comb.”
“This isn’t what we talked about,” Carter says, his voice matching Darla’s anger.
My mind reels. Brynlee planned to run a salon with Darla? She never said anything.
“Yeah, well, she actually believes in me. She says she’ll still help me even though she’ll be gone, but I don’t know if I have the right to ask her after Rhett humiliated her.”
I shake my head. “Why didn’t she press charges against Kevin?” I ask, grasping at any straw that proves I wasn’t completely and totally wrong. That I wasn’t the one solely responsible for screwing up everything.
“Um, maybe because she wanted him gone?” Everett offers, his chin in his hand as he shrugs. “If he was arrested, it meant he’d still be here as he waited for his bail hearing. Just an idea.”
Until now, my sister went unnoticed, and I wonder when she walked into the Town Hall. I pray she didn’t witness what happened, but the look she gives me as she walks over tells me she saw it all.
“Not to add on top of this whole Rhett’s a moron bandwagon, even though it’s totally true, Brynlee just found out about the weddin’ countdown website thing talkin’ to Mom at Thanksgiving.
She saw it when Mom asked to see a picture of her ex and his family, and Mom said she was really upset seein’ it.
Her ex purposely didn’t tell anyone the weddin’ was off. ”
Oh, God. What did I just do?
“Have you always been this stupid, or is this a recent change? Because you have a woman who loves you, and you humiliated her by dumpin’ her in front of the entire town,” Everett says. “And you’re still sittin’ here rather than tryin’ to stop her.”
“You said what you knew would hurt her, and you didn’t even care,” Darla says. “For what it’s worth, I found out the Monday after the fair that Brynlee’s in love with you and made me promise not to say anythin’. She was waitin’ for you to say it first.”
My eyes lock with hers. “Come again?”
“She’s been waitin’ for you to say it because she was worried you didn’t feel the same way. She was scared of losin’ you, and she couldn’t handle it if she said it and you didn’t say it back.”
“But congrats,” Tim says. “I don’t think you’ll have any more issues with the nice guy label you hate so much. Doubt there’s a single person in here who thinks you’re even remotely nice anymore.”
A sinking feeling weighs in my gut, and I replay the words. I didn’t mean Brynlee wasn’t enough. She has to know that, right? That’s not what I said. Or was it?
I wanted to hurt her the same way I was hurting, but she wasn’t the one who hurt me. I was the one who hurt me. She just ended up paying for it. When the hell did I become that guy? The guy who hurts someone he cares so much about because his love turned him into a crazy person?
Grabbing my wallet, I throw down whatever bills I have and take off to my pickup.
I don’t care about the speed limits. All I care about is making it to her house before she leaves.
I have to stop her. If she leaves, especially without knowing I’m in love with her, I will never forgive myself.
Hell, I may never forgive myself as it is.
Shifting into park in front of her house, I don’t even bother turning my pickup off and jump out, racing up the steps.
Pounding on the door, I knock an envelope taped there off.
The door’s locked, and I glance to the porch swing I put up for her to see my shirt folded up with the bear I won her on top of it.
My fingers shake as I pick up the envelope. My name is on the front, and I feel sick.
Rhett,
You never gave me the receipt for the items you purchased, so I hope this is enough to cover it. If it’s not, let Darla know. I’m keeping in touch with her because of an arrangement we have. If I need to, I can send more money.
I know you don’t believe me, but I do love you. I understand I’m not enough for you, and that’s okay. It would have been preferable to have the conversation in private rather than in front of the crowd, but I suspect you wanted it to hurt.
I don’t know what exactly it is that I did to make you so distant, but I’m sorry.
Even though I’m not the one for you, I think you might’ve been the one for me.
No matter how much it hurts right now, I won’t ever regret meeting you.
Once the pain subsides, I’ll be able to remember that, for a short while, I had it all.
I had someone I thought could love me one day, and it was for more than what meets the eye. For a little while, I felt seen and worthy. And I think until this past week, I was enough. I’m not sure what changed, but I’ll forever be sorry it did.
I don’t know how to live in the same town as you without being with you. Being only your friend isn’t something I think I’m capable of. Your friends and family are everywhere in this town, and without you, I don’t have anyone or anything. There’s not much here for me now that I’ve lost you.
I hope you find someone who fits you better, and I hope you find happiness.
It will forever haunt me that I fell short of what you want, but I hope you know you were everything to me.
If there’s any positive thing you take away from what we had, I hope it’s that you know that everyone who’s ever told you that you weren’t good enough was wrong. You’re everything and more.
I’ll miss you,
Brynlee
I push down the fear and race back to my pickup. If she’s leaving town, she’ll need to top off her tank with gas. That’s where I’ll intercept her.
“Randy!” I shout as I run inside. “Have you seen Brynlee tonight?”
The man in his mid-forties and gray hair starting at his temples nods. His mechanic’s shirt with his name embroidered on the left breast looks ridiculous now that it’s at least one size too small and nearly bursting at the buttons.
“She left about half an hour ago. She never came inside and paid at the pump. It looked like she was cryin’. Did I hear right? Danny called and said you broke up with her outside the bar. If it’s true, you’re not only an idiot, man, you’re also kind of an asshole.”
“Which way was she headed?” I ask, ignoring the rest of it. I’m more than aware of my jackass nature right now.
Pointing east, he says, “Probably towards the interstate.”
I damn near break the door as I slam it behind me and rush to my pickup. The interstate isn’t that far, but the speed limit gives her a hell of a head start.
My foot presses the accelerator to the floor, and I weave in and out of traffic, searching around as the sun sets for her Jeep. All I see are Wranglers or pickups.
Calling, I tap the steering wheel. It goes right to voicemail, and it means she either has me blocked or turned off her phone.
“No,” I say, calling her again. “No, no, no, no. You’re not gone, baby. You can’t be gone. I have to fix this.”
Hanging up when her voicemail beeps, I try at least twenty more times, and I drive for three hours. Every attempt I make, I get her voicemail, and her vehicle is nowhere in sight. She got away.
“She’s gone,” I say and pull off on an exit to turn back around. “She’s gone, and it’s all my fault. They’re right. I have no one to blame but myself.”
Where would she go? Back to Chicago? Atlanta?
She could be just about anywhere, and I have no way to find her.
I can’t fix this and make it up to her. I can’t tell her how wrong I was, and that I was stupid.
It was all a ridiculous misunderstanding, and if I’d just asked her about that stupid countdown, she would have told me the same thing she told Mom.
I need to tell her this. I need to tell her how much I want her to come back home, and that nothing I said was the truth. It was just my pride and anger talking, but pride means nothing if she’s not beside me.