Chapter 7
ZANE
I rode away fast. Or more like ran away from her fast.
I rode and rode, only stopped for the red lights I absolutely had to stop for.
But my head didn’t stop spinning. And I found no clarity of purpose.
She must be on some sort of medication. The way all bored, rich housewives with nothing to do but spend money all day are. That’s the only explanation for her behavior when I approached her earlier.
And for what she said… that she might be crazy.
She always was wild. That’s one of the things I loved most about her.
She blew into my world like a tornado and left utter and total destruction behind.
Then she went on to live a perfect life with some other guy with his perfect cars in their perfect house.
I’m actually shocked she doesn’t have a few perfect children trailing behind her.
All my friends warned me that she’s no good for me. But I fell for her so hard. And I loved her from the moment she first smiled at me across the courtyard of our school. She was one of the popular kids, the head of her clique, everything revolved around her. And she smiled at me.
I’ll never forget that day. I can still hear the birds chirping in the trees and smell the flowers blooming. But the memory is as bitter as it is sweet.
Every memory I have of her is like that.
Why can’t they all just be bitter?
Why can’t there only be hate?
Why does she still have to look so good and kiss so well?
Why does seeing her smile at me still make me forget everything else but how much I want her?
I should head back south, get as far away from her as I can. Before she sucks me in again. Before she blows through my life like a tornado again.
She knows I am not her friend. She knows she destroyed my life. So why was she so happy to see me? Why did she want to go with me so willingly?
I’ll get none of the answers to those questions down south. I’ll only get them from her.
That’s why I circled back to her house and stood in the same copse of trees where I spent this morning.
She didn’t appear until after dark.
And she kept glancing at the trees that hid me as she drove past, as though she could see me there. But she couldn’t.
And an hour later, she sat in the front seat of her husband’s sports car, looking as pretty as those old-time Hollywood actresses in her gold dress, her long copper-colored hair glowing in the streetlights they’re driving under. I’ve still never seen a woman more beautiful than she is.
I followed their car.
She’s not coming back home with her husband tonight.
Because she was mine first.