Chapter 41 Rachel
Currently playing: Someone”s Gonna Break Your Heart by Fountains Of Wayne
***
Adam was the other investor. The “out-of-state” one. That was the only explanation. The only reason Arthur would call him directly when the place flooded. It was why he suddenly had a key to the front entrance. Why he hadn’t heard from Poppi or her husband, I had no idea.
My arms wrapped around my abdomen. I was going to be sick, truly. My stomach cramped, twisting and turning at the thought of looking Adam in the eye right now. My vision was blurry as he opened the door, burning hot sensations pushing at the back of my throat in a lump that I refused to acknowledge. I wasn’t going to cry. Not here, not in front of him.
I had an overwhelming urge to throw something, specifically at Adam Wells’s face.
All of the memories came rushing through me as I stared at the ruined checkered floor that I loved so dearly, each one hurting more than the last. The night where I cried to him over the thought of losing the store. The slideshow I showed him, asking for his opinion of each sentence. The time I told him my feet hurt from being at the counter all day and then the following week, when a cushioned pad appeared right where I stand. The way he listened to me every time I talked about how much I loved the store. And never once did he decide to tell the truth.
I was not going to cry.
I walked through the entrance, ignoring Adam’s protests.
“It’s not safe, and you’re not wearing proper sho—”
My bunny slippers stomped on the floor, sloshing the muddy water. The pain in my feet from yesterday felt like nothing compared to this growing ache in my chest.
Betrayal, lies, deceit.Each word flung around in my brain as I searched for any reason for him to not tell me. Did I give him a reason not to? I shook my hair out, pulling at the hair tie in it. No. Even if I gave him a reason not to tell me, there was no excuse. This wasn’t on me, and I wasn’t taking the blame.
I turned to Adam, my gaze shooting daggers at him as my fists clenched at my sides. “You bought it.”
His eyes stayed on mine. “I just invested in i—”
“You bought it,” I corrected. Technicalities meant nothing here.
“I did.”
“Over a year ago?” My question came out almost whiny as I fought to hold myself together.
“Yes.”
I sucked in a shuddery breath and knew my tears weren’t going to stay in for much longer. I was an angry crier, no matter how badly I didn’t want to be. I wore my heart on my sleeve. Adam used to say he loved that about me. But even that memory felt burned too.
“Why, Adam?” I hated how upset I sounded. How weak. “Why couldn’t you just tell me?”
I wanted to ask how too. When, exactly? I wanted to ask every question that bounced around in my head, but the biggest one was why.
“I was going to.” He moved closer to me, reaching a single hand out, his forearm tattoo peeking out at me, then one with our initials on it with that stupid record. God, I was an idiot. I flinched back, and he winced, dropping his arm. “I had plans to tell you and to give you time, I just—”
“Had to wait over a year?”
“No, I just thought it would—I don’t know, Rachel. I thought it would ruin things. I’ve never exactly been open with how I feel, and it kind of backfired in a way I didn’t expect.”
A loud, booming, sarcastic laugh jumped out of me as I crossed my arms.
He continued. “I needed to help. I didn’t want to make things weird for you.”
“You lied to me for almost our entire friendship and our entire marriage because you thought telling me the truth would be…weird?”
“Not our entire friendship, just the last six months of it. And I didn’t lie. I —”
“Lying by omission is still lying,” I spat.
It was too late for me to stop them. Fat, heavy tears started falling down my cheeks, and even as I aggressively wiped them away, my hands shook in anger.
“These are angry tears.” I pointed at my face to clarify. “Not sad ones.”
“I know, hon—” He cut himself off abruptly, knowing his little honey trick was useless.
“So you are this out-of-state investor that I always heard little comments about?” I used my fingers to make quotation marks.
He dipped his chin. “I was technically out of state when I bought into it.”
“So when I came complaining to you about our out-of-date systems and then they magically got replaced a month later?”
He stayed silent, eyes laser focused on my collarbone.
I gasped as the next thought barreled into my head. “And my raise?” My voice was breaking, shattering into tiny pieces, too tiny to pick up and put together again. “The one I was so, so proud of. That was you?” My hand covered my mouth, my fingers shaking against it.
Adam stuck a hand out in defense, and a line formed between his brows. “No, I just—”
“What? Signed off on it?”
His eyes fell to the floor, and his lips formed a tight line. That was a yes, then.
I sniffled as my tears fell harder, my heart breaking again and again as I looked around the shell of the place I loved so dearly. The place that now just felt like…a facade. A movie set where nothing was ever real. It felt like a twisted version of The Truman Show.
I stuck a hand out to him. “My keys.”
I hated that I even had to ask him for them. It was my freaking car.
He stuck a hand into his sweatpants pocket and froze. “I don’t think you should drive while you’re upset.”
“And I don’t think anything of your opinion right now. Keys.”
He flinched back. A part of me wanted to take it back so badly, but the damage was done. Good. Maybe he’d feel an ounce of what I did.
He handed me my keys, and I walked right out of the door, only feeling slightly guilty that I was leaving him without a ride. He had siblings, family, friends. I’d lost all of that in an instant. Did they know too? Layla? No. There was no way. She would have told me. Someone, one of them, would have told me.
But wasn’t this what I knew was going to happen all along? I’d sat there, waiting and waiting for that shoe to drop with Adam. I only had myself to blame for letting that reminder go.
People leave you in life, and there was nothing you could do to prevent it. Adam was just another one of those people. So why did this hurt more than the rest?