7. Cal
Chapter seven
Cal
I dropped my hockey bag in the mud room beside the washer. “Ma, I’m home!” I called, shoving a load of sweaty clothing into the empty machine.
After adding the detergent and hitting start, I hurried into the main part of the house. It was quiet. Which wasn’t the oddest thing with only Juliet and me left at home since Dallas, Shane, and Brett were all married and Greyson had joined the Marines.
Mama sat at the kitchen table, an open Bible in front of her and a steaming mug of tea in hand.
It was a familiar picture and eased something in me.
Change might come calling and the world might go to pieces, but with Mama and her Bible, we were in good hands.
I dropped a kiss on her head before grabbing a glass of water.
“Cal—”
“I’m on my way to the shower, I promise. Cleanliness before hungriness.” I winked at her and guzzled the water. “Today was brutal. Not the worst but I’m starving. Did you make fried chicken?” I sniffed the air.
“Callan,” Mama said seriously, “are you and Noelle all right?”
I blinked at her. “Of course. Why wouldn’t we be?”
“She stopped by tonight and left something for you in your room. She . . . she wasn’t herself.”
“Elle was here?” I frowned, thinking back on my earlier conversations with my fiancée. She said she wasn’t feeling well—lady stuff probably—so I dropped some chocolate off before practice. “She said she was taking it easy.” Then Mama’s words caught up with me. “Wait, she left something?”
Woo-hoo! I loved surprises, and it wasn’t even my birthday.
Mama hollered after me, but I didn’t stop to listen. Just pelted up the stairs two at a time to the room Greyson and I used to share.
Now what did she leave?
My gaze landed on the bed. In the middle of my navy comforter was a small box. Curious. I popped the lid off, and folded paper lay on top. I grinned, pulling it out, eager for the love note. I wasn’t ashamed of being romantic.
Something shiny winked at me from the bottom of the box, and I froze. Noelle’s engagement ring. Icy chills licked down my spine, and my stomach heaved with a wave of nausea. What on earth?
Gripping the ring until it bit into my palm, I scanned the looping scrawl, bile rising in my throat with each sentence.
Cal,
I’m sorry. There’s a hundred things I want to say but can’t. There’s a hundred things I already said, but you weren’t listening. It’s not you, it’s me. I can’t go through with this. I need out. I can’t do this to you. Please let me go.
I loved you. More than you’ll ever know.
Noelle
A dozen tear marks smudged the paper. She’d cried writing this. Then why did she write it in the first place? I read it again. Then again. She . . . left?
Ring and note in hand, I stormed down the stairs. “Ma!”
“What’s wrong?” Her forehead creased with concern.
“How long ago was Noelle here?”
“Oh, I don’t—”
“Ma! I need to know!” I begged, panic clawing my chest.
“An hour maybe? What’s goin’ on?”
I couldn’t answer because I didn’t even know myself. Surely this was all a joke. A hoax. I darted outside and across the sunbaked brown lawn to the Shepherds’ next door. Noelle’s car wasn’t in the driveway.
I pounded on the front door. Maybe Olive took her car again. She has to be here. She has to. The door swung open on ten-year-old Quinn, her brown eyes wide—Noelle’s eyes.
“Quinnie, where’s Noelle?” I demanded.
“I thought she was with you.” Her bottom lip wobbled. “She left, and Phoebe said you eloped.”
Eloped. Anything other than the ugly truth.
Quinn offered me a scrap of paper. It held Noelle’s loopy handwriting. I’d always loved her penmanship. She promised to call in a few days.
Why didn’t she promise me that?
Because she was breaking up with me.
A month before our wedding.
“Why?” I rasped.
“They were fighting again,” Quinn whispered, hugging the note to her chest. A too-big azurite ring on her finger. Another ring of Noelle’s. She was leaving jewelry behind left and right.
I grimaced. Things had always been tense in the Shepherd house. They were harder on Noelle than the other girls. Noelle’s words scraped through my mind. I’ve already said things, you just weren’t listening. Surely she was being dramatic. Overreacting.
Quinn sniffed. “I wished she’d taken me, too.”
You and me both, squirt. I was a stinking mess so I didn’t pull her into a hug. Just ruffled her hair and stammered a goodbye before running back home. I punched in Noelle’s number as I ran. Straight to voicemail.
“Noelle, it’s me. Call me. We need to talk.”
I tried her again and left another message. I texted. Nothing.
Jumping into my truck, I started driving, pressure pulsing behind my eyes. Maybe she needed to get away for a few days. Clear her head.
I checked all our favourite spots, driving all night. But there was no sign of her curly hair or dancing eyes anywhere.
Finally, with an empty tank, I pulled back into the driveway as the sun peeked over the horizon. Anger and sadness clawed at my insides, and I smashed my hand against the steering wheel and roared.
Breathing hard, I slunk out of the truck, slamming the door to try and drown out the birdsong twittering in the breeze. I hated those birds.
“Cal,” Pops called, meeting me on the front porch, face lined with worry. Like he’d been up all night, too.
The words tangled in my throat, and all I could do was shove the crumpled note and ring at him.
He met my gaze with all the sympathy in the world.
“Pops,” I croaked, unsure of what to say or how to say it. How did you condense heartbreak into words when you were bleeding out on the inside?
That was all it took. He tugged me into a fierce hug as the full weight of the loss of the girl I loved crashed over me.
She was gone, taking my whole heart with her. She wasn’t coming back, and I couldn’t move on without her.
What did I do?