Chapter Thirty-One
“Space is one of the meanest things a woman can ask for. But I think it’s the most necessary.” - Archer
DEREK
I remember the first time I stood on this doormat, wishing that I was here to take the most amazing woman I ever met out on a date.
Now I stand here, after months of falling deeper and deeper in love with her, wondering if I still have her at all.
It’s a sobering thought, one that’s been plaguing me for the last twenty-four hours. I’ve called several times now, enough times that I lost track of the exact number.
I haven’t bothered with too many texts, because at least if I call, I can tell myself she lost her phone or it died, but if I text and get left on read, then I might actually combust into myself.
Finally, I knock on the door, wishing I could hear Rora’s little squeal of excitement as she races toward it, but I hear nothing. I stuff my hands into my coat pockets, wishing the morning wasn’t so bitterly cold.
I glance around the parking lot, noting that the place she normally parks is vacant of any cars, and my shoulders drop in defeat. I should have noticed that beforehand, but my feet and brain were too eager to just get to her. To talk to her. To find a way to fix what I broke.
Because I know I broke it. I know it was me who messed this all up.
It was quite humbling to know that I’ve been pushing and nagging my buddies all these years, calling them out for shitty behavior and making them man up with their girls, and now I was the one messing up.
I turn and take three steps when I hear the lock click in the door and spin around, hope and eagerness warring for top-billed emotion, only to come plummeting down when Hattie’s face greets me.
“Hey,” I start, taking a step back toward the door.
“Hey Derek.” She gives me a sad look, and I can tell by it that she knows every single detail of what went down yesterday.
“Is Birdie home?” I ask, some small sliver of hope still pulsing beneath the surface.
“No,” Hattie says, leaning against the doorjamb.
“Oh, right. Okay. Well, I’ll try again later today. Did they go shopping or…” I let the sentence hang, because my brain tells me if we hadn’t fought, if I hadn’t been a complete tool, the girls would be at the store helping me today.
As it is, Archer and Garrett were running the shop for me today so I could fix what I broke. At their insistence.
“No, they went away for a while.”
At her words, blasé as she speaks them, my heart drops somewhere down near my stomach, and I pull my hands from my pockets, staring at her like she must have said something different and my brain interpreted it wrong.
“Went away?”
Slowly, Hattie nods, her gaze full of sympathy. “Yeah, Birdie needed to get out of town, so they went on a girls’ trip.”
Emotions fight within me. Part anger, part fear, then this foreign part that feels like I’m missing something. That something being a fun trip with my girls.
“Oh,” I say, unsure what else to do. “Where?”
For a moment, Birdie’s sister watches me, her kind smile wavering, like she’s deciding if I’m trustworthy or not. “I don’t think I’m going to tell you that.”
Apparently, I’m not.
“Why?”
“Because, Derek, you screwed up here,” she says, laying it on the line, just like her sister did. “You messed up, and Elizabeth needs space to decide how to move forward. This will not be something that can be fixed with a simple sorry.”
I hang my head, panic working its way through my chest. I know she’s right, I couldn’t have messed up worse.
Well, I could have, but I did enough damage with what I did. Enough damage that I’m going to have to work my way back into Birdie’s good graces again. I’m going to have to build that trust—the trust I worked for months for—all over again.
Instead of filling me with dread or anger, it fills me with a sense of purpose.
I will and can do that. I will earn her trust back, earn her love again, because there is no way that I was losing the one person in this world that gets me, that loves me, that cares for me enough that she basically has worked two jobs for months, trying to make my dreams come true.
“Okay. You’re right. I’m sorry, it was rude of me to ask,” I say, stepping back. “Just tell her that I was here, please? She won’t answer my calls, and I don’t want to overstep, but I don’t want her to think I’m giving up.”
Hattie shrugs. “We’ll see, Derek. I really like you for her, but she’s my sister. Her wishes come before yours.”
I nod, understanding where she was coming from and grateful that Birdie has such a great sister who is backing her up.
She makes a face and says, “I’ve gotta get to work. I’ll see you around.”
“Yeah, okay,” I reply and turn back toward my car, making my way to it and sliding in. I close my door and let my head fall back to the headrest. My eyes slip shut at the realization that I haven’t accomplished anything.
Birdie is gone. Away to get some perspective and to get away from me. At least, that’s how it feels. I know better than to accuse her of that after what I did.
My eyes slide open and immediately land on my gear shift, where one of her hair ties rests, then slip to the back seat, where Rora’s car seat—one I bought so that I could always take care of her whenever it was needed—was sitting.
There is also a Barbie in the seat next to it, like wherever we were going was so exciting she didn’t even remember to grab it before she left.
I don’t touch any of the items, intent on leaving them there so when the girls got back and I worked for their love and trust again, it would be here waiting for them.