4. Noelle
Chapter four
Noelle
Was it still breaking and entering if you had permission?
My hand hovered over the cardinal-red front door, weighing my options. Cal loved the summer breezes and rarely closed his window from April till October, which meant I could crawl through it without anyone knowing I’d come and gone. Spending so much time on the ice, the guy never got cold.
Lucky man. I was doomed to the always-freezing variety.
“Means I can warm you up,” Cal always said with a roguish grin, scooping me up in a hug.
Thinking of that smile—that perfectly wonderful hug—had me hesitating. Could I really do this? To him? To us?
But what else could I do? I’d done everything else, and I was out of options. Best face the music. So I knocked like I had a hundred—probably a thousand—times before and waited. Absently, I wiped my sweaty palm on my denim capris and gripped the small bag I held tightly in the other.
Was this the last time I’d actually knock on the Satterfield front door?
Usually, I blew through here like a tornado with one of the guys, tossing a hello to Mama D in our wake before we were off on our next adventure. I’m sorry, guys.
Speak of the woman and she appeared. Mama D’s welcome face beamed at me in the doorway. “You don’t need to knock, sugar. You’re family.”
Family. Because I was marrying her youngest son.
I plastered on a smile. As an eldest daughter, I was the queen of faking it till I made it. Grin and bear it until the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth from biting back all the words I never said. Lifting the bag, I waved it nonchalantly. “Just needed to drop something off for Cal.”
“Oh, he’s still at practice.”
Exactly. I’d timed my visit accordingly. Only one person could talk me out of what I was about to do. “I have plans tonight,” I half lied. “But I wanted to surprise him.”
“Young love,” Mama D cooed, hand pressed to her ample chest.
If only she knew.
“Head on up.” She waved me off. “I’ll be in the kitchen. Stop in for a piece of pie when you’re done. It’s huckleberry.” She winked at me, knowing my weakness.
“I will,” I promised before darting up the stairs.
Familiar pictures on the walls smiled at me, the worn blue carpet under my feet. This house was as much home to me as my own next door. Maybe even more so.
I set the small black box in the middle of Cal’s double bed and slipped off my engagement ring, tucking it inside with a note.
Turning in a circle, I soaked in Cal’s essence. He’d shared the room with Greyson, his twin, for years before Greyson left to join the Marines earlier this summer. Now it was all Cal. Clearly evident by the messy piles splattered across the room. Greyson was tidy; Cal was . . . organized chaos.
In the half-open closet, I spotted a Chargers T-shirt and snagged it. Bunching it to my nose, I committed the smell to memory. I loved his cologne. That’s why he’d bought it.
We’d been friends for ages, but that changed when we started high school. He’d taken me cologne shopping, asking which ones I liked best.
As kids, we’d been inseparable. Then we fell in love.
Mom’s bitter words echoed in my brain. They’d been seared there for weeks. You’ll never last. You think he loves you now. Just wait till the jersey chasers start drooling over him. Romance is a myth. Add a couple babies and he’ll forget all about you.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop the scalding monologue. The words spoken in anger when I’d found her cheating on my dad.
She was supposed to confess. She promised she’d handle it.
But she hadn’t. She threatened to deny it if I interfered and tried to fix it. And I believed her. I’d tried telling Cal something was wrong. That I was struggling. But he wasn’t listening. Again.
“It’ll blow over,” he’d said with a shrug last night. “Your family always sorts itself out.”
No. I sort them out. But I can’t this time.
I stuffed the tee into my purse. One of his hoodies had already made its way to my wardrobe, but I wore it too often for it to smell like him. Guilt twinged my stomach as I took one final glance around the room.
This is for the best.
I stopped in the kitchen as promised, and Mama D slid a thick slice of huckleberry pie topped with fluffy whipped cream across the counter to me.
“Are you okay, honey?” Her kind concern was so tender I wanted to burst into tears and fall into her arms.
But I didn’t. I was stronger than that.
Besides, talking didn’t change anything. I’d tried it, and no one listened. I was shouting into a void. Everyone expected me to handle it.
Mama D isn’t like that. Maybe she could help.
I forced a carefully crafted, nonchalant smile. “Just tired.”
She offered a commiserating chuckle. “Wedding planning does that to a body.”
Bile burned my throat, but I willed it down alongside the pie.
If only it was that simple. “Yeah,” I choked.
The pie, usually so decadent, curdled in my stomach.
“I should run. Will you tell Cal . . .” Tell him what?
I was sorry? I loved him but not enough to stay?
I couldn’t take my family anymore and I was scared?
“Never mind.” There was nothing to add that I hadn’t already said. He just hadn’t been listening.
Mama D walked me to the front door, and I hesitated in the doorway of the warm, inviting house. It’d always been a refuge when I needed it. One more thing I was leaving behind.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Mama D pressed, forehead puckered. “You can talk to me, hon.”
Smile, don’t fail me now. “I’m fine.” Throwing my arms around the woman, I inhaled her comforting aroma—jasmine perfume and fresh bread. She was the best hugger, and that meant something coming from someone who wasn’t crazy about hugs. Cal took after his mama in that department.
“Thank you,” I whispered with a final squeeze, “for everything.” Slipping away, I hurried into the summer twilight. I’d timed everything perfectly. I’d get in my car and drive. Cal wouldn’t know. No one would until it was too late.
My suitcase was already stashed in the back of my trunk. This was it. My last goodbye.
Three hours later, I crossed the border from Idaho into Utah. Next stop: New York City.
Cal and my life in Serenity Springs were in my rearview; the future was ahead.
Tears streamed down my face. God, help me. But He was silent. Just like He had been ever since I’d found my mom in the arms of another man, and she’d flung the acerbic, poisoned barbs my way.
“You don’t have what it takes to last,” she’d sneered.
I’d left the man I loved best in the world because I was drowning without a life preserver.
The suffocating feeling in my lungs had lit a fire under me.
I was the family glue, the secret keeper, the fixer, the therapist. But I couldn’t hold on.
Not any more. If I couldn’t get help, I needed to get out. To breathe. Before it killed me.
Midlife crisis? Ha, I was nineteen and on the run.
How far would I have to go to forget him?