WHAT AM I DOING?
ADDISON
I was a wreck. More miserable than when I’d left almost four years ago. And honestly, that was saying a lot. Leaving Patrick behind that first time had been devastating, but I’d had my schooling and classes to keep me busy and focused while I felt like I could barely breathe.
This time was different somehow. I was older now and supposedly wiser. Walking away from him a second time felt more permanent. Like I was burying our relationship six feet under with no way to revive it.
As I drove away from his house, the tears were falling nonstop, blurring my vision almost completely. I had to pull over on my way to wipe the water away, but it was no use. They wouldn’t stop pouring out of my eyes.
Patrick must have thought that I was absolutely insane. Probably assumed that he didn’t know me at all anymore when that couldn’t have been further from the truth. I knew that all the cruel things he’d said to me stemmed from his own pain. I also knew that I was the one who had caused it all, so in a way, I deserved to hear the words he tossed at me like knives. They’d still hurt like hell to hear though.
The man had built us a home. With his own bare hands. Who the hell did that kind of thing? The man who loved me—that was who. And that was exactly why my dad had told me to come over here. He knew that I had to see with my own eyes what was waiting for me. What Patrick had done. How much he still loved me and wanted a life with me.
Our love had always been bigger than we were. It wasn’t childish or something you got over. No. What Patrick and I had was the kind of thing that stood the test of time; it didn’t fade with the passing of it. How was I supposed to go back to New York and pretend like I could live without it?
When I could finally see again, I pulled onto the road and into my childhood home, wiping the stray tears from my face, knowing that my cheeks had to be stained from all the salt. Sarina flew through the front door and ran toward me, her voice loud and obnoxious.
“You’ve been gone for hours,” she complained, but I knew there was no way she’d even been awake for that long.
Glancing at the clock on the radio, I figured she’d been up for an hour at most.
She pulled open the driver’s door, her face contorting. “You’re crying. What happened?”
She looked so concerned before her demeanor changed completely.
She started sniffing the air around me like a dog searching for a treat.
Swatting her away as I moved to get out, I asked, “What are you doing?”
“Sex,” she said with a devious grin. “You had sex. I smell it on you.” Her jaw dropped open. “You little hussy.”
I could deny it, but there would be no point. She was right, and I was a crappy liar anyway.
“How do you expect me to resist him? Especially after I saw the house he freaking built for us. He built us a house, Sarina! A WHOLE HOUSE!”
“Was it amazing? The house, not the sex. I assumed it would be some little shack or a tiny bungalow.” She waved a hand. “You know, like a love shack for two.” She waggled her eyebrows, and I fought back a laugh as I wiped at my face once more.
“Oh, it’s definitely no shack. And it’s for far more than two,” I said, shaking my head. I still couldn’t believe what Patrick had done.
“Really? Did you take any pictures?” she asked, and I realized that I hadn’t. My phone had been the last thing on my mind.
“No. I didn’t even think about it.”
“Ugh. It’s like you don’t even have a social media influencer for a sister or something. Let’s go inside. I’m freezing.” She started shaking her shoulders before turning her back to me and running inside.
I slammed the car door shut a little too hard before walking slowly toward the house. The conflicting emotions warring inside me were almost too much to sort through. I wasn’t unsure about my feelings for Patrick. I’d never questioned those.
It was this stupid offer for the restaurant and all the people I’d let down if I said no. I hated that I felt so obligated to them when, logically, I owed no one, except myself, a damn thing. And of course, the offer was exciting and flattering, but was it what I even wanted anymore?
I finally stepped inside the threshold, and my dad shouted from his chair in the living room, “So? How was it?”
Making my way down the hallway, I passed the framed pictures on the wall without looking. I had them all memorized anyway. When I got into the living room, Sarina was sitting with her legs tucked up underneath her, a knowing smile on her face, and my dad was looking at me like he already knew how seeing that house had made me feel.
“Sit. Tell me everything,” he said.
Sarina started coughing before she slapped her chest with her palm. He whipped his head to look at her before his eyes met mine once more.
“Maybe not everything.” He dragged out the last word.
I shook my head at my little sister before plopping down on the couch next to her.
“Dad,” I breathed out, and the tears started to fall again. “I can’t stop crying,” I said, as if he couldn’t see that fact for himself.
“I noticed,” he quipped.
“I can’t believe he built that big, beautiful home.” I sniffed, but that wasn’t entirely the truth. “Actually, I can believe it because that’s who he is. It’s just so much more than I ever could have expected.”
“Patrick is one of a kind,” my dad said with a soft smile and a lift of his shoulder, as if he was delivering some sort of prophecy.
“I know.” My voice was snippier than I had intended, holding bite for no good reason. “Sorry, I’m just a mess right now. And you knew exactly what would happen if I saw that house.”
I pointed a finger at my dad, who shook his head like he was some innocent little boy instead of the instigator that he truly was. There was an ulterior motive lurking behind his eyes.
“I just wanted you to see what you were leaving behind. Patrick was never going to tell you about it. You would have never even known it existed. Which would be better? Not knowing or knowing?” he asked point-blank, and I felt my breath catch in my throat.
The answer was easy though. I didn’t even have to think about it. “I definitely wanted to know. Not knowing would have been worse somehow.”
“Okay then.” He raised his hands in the air like he’d done the right thing and I should get over it already. “So, are you staying or what?” He grinned like an alley cat who’d just caught his dinner, and I felt myself laugh. It was a hell of a lot better than crying.
“I can’t stay. At least not yet.”
Sarina reached her hand out and placed it on my leg. I turned to look at her.
“You can, you know? I’ll deal with mother.”
I shook my head. “This has nothing to do with her.”
My mother was the least of my concerns. To be honest, she hadn’t even factored into my mindset at all. Decisions about my future did not hinge on her opinion of me. I didn’t care what she wanted, thought I deserved, or what she believed I should have in my life. That was Sarina’s burden to bear, not mine.
“Then, what is it? Because the answer is pretty obvious,” Sarina announced. “Unless you’re the only one who can’t see it?”
I swallowed and held my breath. “I’m sure it seems obvious from the outside. Patrick pretty much said the same thing.”
“Would you expect him to say anything different? The boy is in love with you.” My dad shifted in the chair, moving the leg with the cast to try to get more comfortable. “I swear to God, I’m going to cut this thing off of me.”
“You will do no such thing,” I said forcefully.
“It might help sway your decision if I did,” he teased before growing serious. “But I won’t. I want you here because it’s where you want to be, not because I cut off my cast and broke my foot again to make you stay here and be my nursemaid.”
I smiled softly. “I know, Dad.”
The two most important men in my life were also the most selfless. They both respected me enough to let me go and make my own decisions, regardless of how much pain those decisions caused them. They gave me permission, without the guilt. At least, they tried. My guilt wasn’t really in their control.
“Listen, I don’t want to spend the rest of our time here focusing on my relationship with Patrick, okay? I need to make this decision on my own, and it’s hard enough as it is,” I said to my family, who nodded in agreement and quickly moved on.
“Let’s go decorate my room then!” Sarina shouted before running over to our dad and helping him up from his chair with a huge smile on her face.
My dad looked so damn happy as he stood up and reached for his crutches. “Can’t wait to give it some flair,” he teased as my sister giggled.
Watching them made my heart soar. They’d needed this time together. It was as if I could literally see their past hurts healing in front of my eyes. I refused to take that from them by making it all about me and Patrick.
But that didn’t stop me from checking my phone incessantly, waiting for a text or any sign of life from Patrick. One that never came. One that I never sent either, even though my finger hovered over the Messages app more times than I could count. I wanted to tell him I was sorry, that I loved him and we would make it through this in the end. But how could I do any of that when I couldn’t seem to make a damn decision to save my life?
Patrick deserved much more than hollow words. He deserved the action that defined them as well. And until I could give him that, I decided it was best to stay quiet.
Sarina and I left our dad’s house, tears streaming down all three of our faces as we said goodbye… for now . It had been such an amazing visit, and leaving felt bittersweet. I was so happy that Sarina had finally gotten to spend some quality time with our dad and see how amazing of a man he was. There was no doubt in my mind that she’d come back to Sugar Mountain to see him in the future, regardless of whether or not I was here.
As for me, well, I was feeling overwhelmed and more than a little frazzled. I’d always known how important this town was to me and how much I loved it, but it seemed easier to put all those feelings away when I was on the other side of the country with no set time frame of coming back.
Now that I’d been home, every single memory I’d locked away was crashing into me with full force. I couldn’t pretend like this wasn’t where I wanted to be anymore. Nostalgia raged like a river, turning me upside down and inside out, my emotions exposed and raw. I felt sick to my stomach whenever I thought about going back to New York. I’d never truly belonged there, even when I enjoyed it. And now, I wasn’t sure how I could return and pretend that it was where I was supposed to be.
Sarina and I walked toward the small airplane sitting on the runway, waiting to take us down the mountain, as I looked around, searching for any sign of him .
“He’s not here,” Sarina said, as if she knew what Patrick’s intentions were.
“I can see that,” I responded with a little more snark than necessary.
What did I expect?
“You wanted him to be here though?” she asked, and I found myself nodding my head.
“I think I did, yeah. But it’s not fair of me to want that. I expect too much from him and give nothing in return.”
It was an ugly truth. One I could no longer deny. I was selfish, and Patrick deserved better. He continually showed me how much he loved me, and all I did was hurt him. A man could only take having his heart broken so many times before he stopped putting himself out there for more.
Sarina looked at me, her eyebrows pinched together as she reached for my arm and pulled me to a stop. “I get it now, you know.”
“Get what?”
She smiled and blew out a soft breath, the wisps of air curling around her mouth like smoke. “You belong here, Addison. I’ve never seen you glow in the city the way you have here.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What do you mean, glow ?”
“You’re all lit up here. You’re dim in New York. It sounds shitty, I know, but it’s a compliment. You’re not the same person there that you are here,” she said so matter-of-factly, and even though I’d felt that way internally, I hadn’t realized that it came across to other people as well.
My body stiffened in response to her observation. “I do love it here. So much,” I admitted, and she wrapped an arm around me and pulled me into a side hug.
“So, why are you leaving?” she asked, and I felt my stomach drop with the question. I’d already heard it from Patrick. From Dad. But not Sarina.
My eyes instantly started to water. “I don’t know. I need to make a decision once and for all. I’ve never been wishy-washy in my life, and I feel like it’s all I am now. I’m annoying myself.”
She laughed and started walking toward the waiting plane. “I’ll help you figure it all out, okay?”
“Okay.”
I followed her onto the small plane, stopping only to take one more look around, just in case Patrick had decided to show up. But he wasn’t there. And honestly, I couldn’t blame him. If the roles had been reversed, I wouldn’t have shown up either.