Chapter Fourteen He Used Me, I Used Him Back
Three months later, I’m sitting in my office reviewing the quarterly teller performance report when Linda knocks on my open door.
I have an office now. It’s small, just big enough for a desk and two chairs and a filing cabinet, but it has a door and a nameplate and a window that looks out onto the lobby.
Linda gave it to me last month when the old storage room next to her office was cleared out.
She said I’d earned it. I said I’d settle for a window that opened.
She laughed and told me to write a request to corporate.
"Got a minute?" Linda asks.
"Of course. Come in."
She sits in the chair across from my desk. She’s holding a piece of paper and she sets it on my desk.
"Travis submitted a transfer request. He’s asked to move to the Millbrook branch."
Millbrook is about forty minutes east of Sugar Ridge. It’s a larger town with a larger branch and a larger staff. It’s the kind of move that could be a promotion or a retreat depending on the reasons behind it.
"When does he want to go?" I ask.
"He asked for the end of the month. I’ve already spoken with the regional office and they’ve approved it. I just wanted you to know before it becomes official."
"Thank you for telling me."
"Kaitlyn, I want to be honest with you. I’ve heard the rumors.
I’ve heard what happened between Travis and your friend Kendra.
I didn’t say anything because it’s not my place to involve myself in employees’ personal lives.
But I want you to know that your conduct through all of this has been exemplary.
You’ve been professional and focused and you haven’t let any of it affect your work.
I noticed that. Other people noticed that too. "
"I appreciate you saying that, Linda."
"I’m saying it because it’s the truth and because you should hear it from someone who matters in your career." She stands up. "Travis is a talented banker. But he’s got some growing up to do. And I think he knows that."
She leaves and I sit at my desk and look at the transfer request. Travis’s handwriting. Travis’s signature. Travis’s decision to leave the town where he grew up and the branch where he built his career because he can’t face the consequences of his own choices.
I don’t feel triumphant. I thought I might.
I thought that when this moment finally came I would feel a surge of satisfaction.
But sitting here in my office with the evidence of Travis’s retreat in front of me, all I feel is tired.
Tired of the story. Tired of the roles. Tired of being defined by the worst thing someone else did to me.
I’m ready for the next chapter. The one that doesn’t have Travis Miller in it.
The end of the month comes quickly. Travis works his last two weeks at the Sugar Ridge branch with a quiet professionalism that I have to respect, even if I don’t respect much else about him.
He completes his handoff memos. He transfers his client files.
He cleans out his office and packs his personal items into two cardboard boxes.
On his last day, he doesn’t make a spectacle. He doesn’t give a farewell speech or bring donuts or do any of the things people usually do when they leave a job. He just finishes his work, puts on his jacket, and walks to the exit.
He stops at my office on the way out. My door is open and he stands in the doorway with his coat over his arm.
"Goodbye, Kaitlyn."
"Goodbye, Travis."
He stands there for a moment and I can see him wanting to say more. Wanting one last conversation. One last chance to explain himself or apologize or make his case. But he doesn’t. He just nods once and walks away and I hear the employee entrance door close behind him.
I wait until the sound of his car fades from the parking lot. Then I close the quarterly report I was pretending to read and I lean back in my chair and I let myself sit in the silence.
It’s over. The relationship. The deception. The revenge. The fallout. All of it. Over.
I think about the woman I was six months ago.
The one who arrived at this bank every morning believing her future was secure.
The one who thought her boyfriend loved her and her life was on track and nothing could possibly go wrong.
She was kind. She was trusting. She was hardworking.
She was also completely blind to the truth about the person sleeping beside her.
I don’t blame her. That woman wasn’t na?ve. She was loyal. And there’s nothing wrong with loyalty until you give it to someone who doesn’t return it.
The woman I am now is different. Not harder.
Not colder. Not less trusting. Just clearer.
I see people for who they are instead of who I want them to be.
I trust my own judgment instead of waiting for validation from someone else.
And I know with absolute certainty that my kindness is not a weakness.
It never was. It’s the thing that brought me every good thing in my life.
The job. The friends. The man who waited three years for me to be ready.
I close my office for the day and walk out to the parking lot. Kyle’s truck is waiting. He’s leaning against the hood with two cups of coffee from Tina’s and a paper bag that smells like blueberry muffins.
"Heard it was a big day," he says.
"Who told you?"
"Melissa texted me. She has my number now. There’s no stopping it."
I laugh and take the coffee. "Travis left."
"How do you feel?"
"I feel finished. In a good way."
He nods. He doesn’t ask for details. He doesn’t need them. He just hands me a muffin and opens the truck door for me.
"I was thinking," he says as he climbs into the driver’s side. "What if we got out of town this weekend? Nothing big. There’s a cabin up at Cedar Lake that my family owns. It’s quiet. There’s a porch. There’s a lake. There’s absolutely nothing to do."
"That sounds perfect."
"Yeah?"
"Kyle, I can’t think of anything I want more right now than a porch and a lake and nothing to do with you."
He smiles. "Then let’s go."
We drive to his farmhouse and I pack a bag while he loads a cooler with food and a box of firewood for the cabin’s stove.
We leave Sugar Ridge at five o’clock on Friday afternoon and drive an hour north through rolling farmland and small towns and stretches of forest that get thicker the farther we go.
Cedar Lake is small and quiet and surrounded by pine trees.
The Frederickson cabin sits on the south shore, set back from the water on a gentle slope.
It’s a simple building. One bedroom, one bathroom, a kitchen with a gas stove, and a living room with a stone fireplace.
The porch faces the lake and there are two Adirondack chairs positioned side by side at the railing.
Kyle carries our bags inside and I stand on the porch and look at the water. The lake is still. The sun is going down behind the trees on the far shore. A loon calls from somewhere out in the middle and the sound carries across the water and fills the silence without breaking it.
"My grandfather built this cabin," Kyle says, coming up behind me. "He and my grandmother used to come up here every summer. After she passed, he couldn’t bring himself to sell it. So he left it to my dad and my dad left it to me."
"It’s beautiful."
"It’s the quietest place I know."
We cook dinner together in the small kitchen. Pasta with garlic and olive oil and the last of the green beans from Nancy’s garden. We eat at a two-person table by the window and watch the last of the light disappear from the lake.
After dinner we sit on the porch with glasses of wine and a blanket across our laps because the evening air is cool at this elevation. Kyle puts his arm around me and I lean into him and we sit there and we don’t talk for a long time.
I think about everything that brought me here.
Every morning I showed up early. Every drawer I counted perfectly.
Every customer I treated with patience and respect.
Every difficult conversation I had with Travis.
Every decision I made to protect myself and my future.
Every step I took toward the life I deserved instead of the life I was settling for.
"Kyle."
"Yeah?"
"I love you."
I’ve been wanting to say it for weeks. Maybe longer. But I waited because I wanted to be sure and I wanted it to mean something and I wanted to say it in a moment that felt right. This moment, on this porch, at this lake, with this man, feels exactly right.
He turns to look at me. His eyes are soft in the low light. "I love you too. I’ve loved you for a long time."
"I know."
"I was trying to be cool about it."
"You were not cool about it at all. The man at the farmers market told me you’d been staring at me through the bank window for three years."
"That was confidential information."
I laugh and he pulls me closer and kisses me. His mouth is warm from the wine and his arms are strong around my shoulders and I feel something settle inside me that has been unsettled for a very long time.
We go inside. The cabin is warm from the fire he started earlier.
The bedroom is simple and clean with a quilted blanket on the bed and a window that looks out at the lake.
He closes the door and turns to me and the room is quiet except for the pop and hiss of the fire in the other room and the distant call of the loon on the water.
He takes my face in his hands. His palms are warm and rough and familiar now. I know these hands. I know the calluses on his fingers and the strength in his grip and the way he touches me with a carefulness that comes from genuine tenderness, not uncertainty.
"I want you to know something," he says. "Whatever happens after tonight, whatever comes next, I’m not going anywhere. This is it for me. You are it for me."
"I know," I say. "You’re it for me too."