30. You’re Gonna Have to Get Over Her
You’re Gonna Have to Get Over Her
MATTHEW
Idon’t want to be around anyone but going home alone might kill me. So, I end up at Fat Fred’s in the corner of the bar, where it’s dark and I won’t be bothered. It’s the middle of the afternoon, and it’s more crowded in here than you’d think.
She’s done. That’s that.
I don’t want to be done. I don’t want to carry Lillian’s scar on my heart. This isn’t how it was supposed to go.
Fred replaces my beer without asking if I want another. He’s good like that. Clairvoyant or something. I don’t know. A mind reader.
“Thanks,” I mutter.
He gives me a half-smile. For what it’s worth, he hasn’t given me any impression he wants to fuck with me. But who knows, maybe I’ll keel over and die from arsenic poisoning in an hour. All bets are off.
I swig the beer and look down at my phone, trying to catch it off-guard as if that might somehow manifest a text from Lillian. Still nothing.
After she stormed out, I waited for what felt like an eternity for her to come back. I imagined her tearfully returning, admitting she didn’t want to walk away.
But she never did. So, I left.
I should have gone after her. Because now I’m left without knowing what comes next. Will she reach out? Do I reach out? Is it over? Over-over?
“For the best,” says a familiar, gruff voice, a hand landing on my shoulder.
My spine straightens. “What are you doing here, Dad?”
He sits heavily on the seat beside me and gives Fred a wave. “Fred gave me a call you were out here drowning your sorrows by your lonesome. Thought I should check on you.”
“I’m fine.” I spin the base of my glass slightly, unwilling to look at him.
“It was never going to be easy with a woman like her. Better you cut it off now. It’s for the best,” Dad says.
I stare at him as Fred comes over with a beer for my dad. “How do you know?”
Dad takes a sip of his beer. It sickens me how his body responds to the drink. Unwinds. Settles. “Know what?” he asks.
“About Lillian and me breaking it off. How do you know?”
Dad hesitates and then lets out a little laugh. “Well, I just assumed. After everything that’s gone on the past couple days?—”
“You mean, you intimidating her?”
“Aw, I didn’t intimidate her.”
“I bet you did,” I retort.
Dad lifts a hand to the bar. “We’re in public, Matty. Let’s be civil, huh?”
“Oh, now you want to be civil?” I laugh wryly. “Pathetic.”
His jaw hardens, but he doesn’t reply in his quick, angry way. “Matty, I’m looking out for you. You get that, right?”
“It doesn’t feel like you are,” I tell him. It feels like a scorched-earth policy. That this town is looking to destroy everything I have, simply for falling outside the purview of what’s acceptable to them.
“You’ll thank me one day,” Dad mutters. “I can wait for that.”
If you live that long.
My phone buzzes, and my whole body jumps. I see Lillian’s name flash on the screen, a text message. I scramble to pick up the phone, ignoring Dad’s groan.
It takes me a few seconds to comprehend the message. My eyes jump from sentence to sentence without reading.
“You’re gonna have to get over her, Matt.”
I grit my teeth to block out the rest of the world and read.
Fine. You all got what you wanted. I’m gone.
I . . . what?
I cut my trip short, and I’m on my way to Anchorage.
My eyes sting. So fast. So quick?
I was trying to protect you, Matt. I loved you.
Loved. Past tense.
But for you to destroy my cabin. My samples. When you knew how much my work meant to me . . . that just shows me the person you’ve always been. It’s easier to leave knowing I loved a man who never existed.
None of this makes sense. I don’t know what she’s saying. What is she talking about?
“She trying to sweet talk you?” Dad asks.
“No, I—there’s—this is a mistake,” I say. I type out a message hurriedly, telling her to call me, and that it wasn’t me. Then, I wait.
“I guess it’s only fair you get yourself twisted up over a girl now and then. Makes sense.”
I ignore him. A moment later, a few photos appear on my phone. Photos from Lillian’s cabin. Much different than the way I left it.
The table overturned. Vials smashed on the ground. Papers strewn about.
I shake my head. No . . . no, that wasn’t me.
I press Lillian’s contact and try to call her. Once, twice, three times. Each time it doesn’t go through. She’s either hanging up on me, or God forbid, she blocked me. “Fuck. Fuck, this is—I have to go.”
Dad grabs my arm, pulling me back onto the stool. “Hey, slow down, okay? She’s not worth all that.”
I rip my arm from his grip. “What do you know about worth?”
Dad holds up his hands in surrender, a rare sight for him.
My heart sinks as I look at him. He seems calm. Too calm to be angry at me or the situation. He knows something I don’t. “How did you know that things were over between Lillian and me?” I ask again. This time, knowing his answer is going to be a lie.
His mouth falls open, and he forces a laugh. “I told you, Matty. I heard you were sulking. I thought?—”
“Bullshit.” I turn my phone toward him to show him the photos. “Did you do this?”
Dad doesn’t look as affronted as he should be if he’s innocent “I’ve done a lot of stuff, but I don’t remember that one.”
“Tell me the truth.”
“Am.”
“Dad, tell me the truth, now.”
Dad picks up his pint glass and looks away. “You think I could do something like that? Sneak into the cabin and tear it apart in just a couple of minutes? Naw. I’m not spry enough for that anymore.”
I push myself up from the stool, disgust twisting in my chest. He’s not admitting guilt but isn’t not admitting it. And the thing is, I believe he isn’t capable of doing something like that. At least not so cleanly. But he knows too much. He’s the brains behind the operation. I’m sure of it.
And I’m pretty sure I know who the muscle was.
I tear into the parking lot by the docks, traveling fast enough to kick up gravel loudly and make everyone look.
Including Jesse, who looks to be shooting the shit with Tuma and a few others.
He’s the reason I’m here. I went up the highway looking for his car, and it didn’t take long to find him after I checked Lillian’s cabin. I thought maybe I could catch her. But her truck was gone, and when I looked in the window, so was all her stuff. I missed her. And I’m kicking myself for it.
But I’m done with this bullshit.
I’m not going to shoulder the guilt of doing something so unthinkable to Lillian. Even if we’re never together again—even if I never fucking see her—I will not live the rest of my life with her thinking I did something so abhorrent.
I’m getting to the bottom of this. Now.
I park my truck so the front is pointing right at the group. My eyes lock with my brother. And for once, Jesse isn’t his haughty self. He looks scared. He knows what his big brother is capable of when I’m being protective. I usually keep a cool head. It’s why I’m the boss.
Which means the times when I go off, I’m a fucking volcano.
I climb out of the cab and storm toward the group. “You’re a fucking piece of shit,” I growl, pointing a finger at my brother.
“What else is new?” he asks, attempting a smile for the onlooking fishermen.
He knows what he did. I know it, too. I’m not pulling any punches. Literally. I grab Jesse by the collar and punch him in the jaw.
Jesse’s head swings to the side, and he lets out a gasp of pain.
“Wait, Matt!” Tuma cries out.
I ignore him, and all the other fishermen crowd around. Before Jesse can reset, I bend him over and jab my knee into his belly, knocking the wind out of him. Hands grab at my jacket to stop me. I throw Jesse down on the ground. “Get off me,” I growl, shrugging off the hands.
Jesse coughs a few times and rubs his jaw. “What the hell?”
“Don’t play dumb,” I reply. “I know what you did to Lillian.”
“Not her again,” someone groans.
I send a seething glare in the direction of the voice. “You want to be next?” That gets them to back off.
Jesse is quiet. He won’t meet my eyes—just like Dad. “It was for your own good,” he says softly. “For all of us.”
“Fuck all of you,” I say.
Tuma appears in my periphery. “Matt, let’s calm down.”
“No, fuck all of you!” I shout, my voice echoing off the water. I don’t care who hears it. In fact, I want everyone to hear. “You’re all full of shit.”
Jesse glowers up at me. “You’ve been fucking brainwashed, man.”
“No, you’re all brainwashed! You’re all stuck in your echo chamber, telling each other what you want to hear, when the truth is we’re digging our own graves if we don’t admit things need to change.
And Lillian—” My chest singes knowing she’s gone.
Knowing she left thinking I’m the villain in this story.
That she believes I have a temper bad enough to destroy her work.
I would never, ever do something like that. “You’re my brother, Jesse,” I croak.
Nothing comes out after that.
“Yeah, I am,” Jesse says, pushing himself up from the ground, dusting dirt off his hands. Tuma goes to his side to help, but Jesse fends him off with a flat hand. “I’m fine.” Jesse approaches me, his boots crunching on the ground.
I don’t move a muscle. If he wants to square up, let’s square up.
“Yeah, I’m your brother. And that means, sometimes I have to do the things you don’t want to do . . . to protect you.”
“I don’t need protecting,” I say.
“Sure, you do. You let her get in the way. You got distracted. And it’s time you wake the fuck up.”
I tilt my head to the side, my nostrils flaring. “Do I need protection from Lillian? Or do I need it from you and all the rest of this damn town? Because she’s not the one who slashed my tires.”
Jesse’s jaw tics. That’s his tell.
And yet, I don’t move fast enough to avoid him socking me in the eye.
“Here.” Gwen shoves a bag of ice on my eye.
My whole body winces in pain. “Jeez, be careful.”
“Yeah, says the man who got knocked out from one jab to the eye,” she murmurs.
I try to argue, but she’s right. All it took was one punch from Jesse to lay me out on the gravel. Next thing I knew, I was shaken awake in the passenger seat of my truck by Gwen. Apparently, someone went to get her during the fight. She was my rescuer, and now she’s my nursemaid.
“Now, keep that on there. You need the swelling to go down,” Gwen murmurs before moving away to check on Winnie, who’s sitting in front of the television playing with some Hot Wheels, her new obsession.
Gwen’s back before I know it. “Take these.” She shoves a handful of Advil into my hand.
I throw them back, and Gwen brings a glass of water to my lips and tips it back for me. I side-eye her with my uncovered eye. “I can drink water on my own, Gwen.”
“Sure,” she says without much fuss.
A massive sigh pours out of me. “I can’t believe they’d do this,” I say softly.
From the carpet, Winnie makes an explosion sound and slams cars together. Ah, the innocence of childhood.
“And that she believes I would do that to her. How come this is so fucking dramatic? It’s just?—”
Gwen snickers. “What? Love?”
“I didn’t say love,” I grumble.
“Didn’t have to.”
I glance at my sister. She’s smiling sympathetically at me. Her eyes travel to Winnie, her smile fading slightly. “You know, sometimes we humans believe so much in one thing that we end up circling to its opposite.”
I glance at Winnie. She’s oblivious to our conversation, rolling a car across the carpet with her eyes glued to the animated show on the screen. “Is that how you feel about what happened with . . .”
We don’t say his name. He wasn’t a good guy, Winnie’s dad. At least, that’s how we saw it. All it took was one fishing season for Gwen to fall so deeply in love with him that she almost left Naknek. Until he found out she was pregnant with his baby, and then he left her.
“I mean, don’t tell me after all this time you regret me having Win?” she whispers with a knowing smile.
“Of course not. Winnie’s my whole heart. You know that, Gwen.”
“I know,” she says with a nod. “But there was a time when you and Jesse couldn’t fathom why I would want to have her on my own.”
I haven’t forgotten. My brother and I had planned out a whole trip to get her to a clinic so she could have an abortion.
We assumed she wouldn’t want to be a single mother.
Wouldn’t want the memory of a man who treated her so poorly.
We thought she was giving up so much to become a mother.
Her plans to become a pilot. All of her freedom.
And she did give those things up. For something so much greater.
“I’m sorry,” I say, regret spiraling through me for how we handled Gwen when she needed us most.
“I’m not looking for apologies. I’m just saying you understand where they’re coming from, more than you want to admit.”
A stab of frustration shoots through me. “So, what? You agree with them? I thought you liked Lillian?”
Gwen tsks. “Jumping to conclusions, as usual.” She places her hand on my arm. “We wouldn’t have Winnie if I didn’t tell you to fuck off,” she says in a low voice.
“You’re stronger than me, though,” I say.
She rolls her eyes, pursing her lips. “Men. You all define masculinity as the thing that makes you strong. But when you have to step up to do the actual strong thing, you freak out and run the other way.”
“Your point?” I ask.
Gwen pinches my arm, and I balk in pain.
“I’m injured! Go easy on me.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Gwen says. “I’m trying to get you to realize this might be a time when you have to tell everyone else to back off because only you know what’s good for you.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. “I didn’t push her away, though. She told me?—”
“You were wishy-washy,” Gwen says.
“I got my tires slashed for defending her.”
“You got your tires slashed because they all knew they could get a reaction out of you. They kept dangling their approval for you, and you kept running after it like a horse with a carrot. All you had to do was stop giving a shit about all of them, stop giving them a reaction, and?—”
“You know that wouldn’t have stopped them.”
Gwen’s gaze hardens on me. “But she’d still be here, wouldn’t she?”
I want to scream. Just scream. There’s no other way I know to express my feelings. It hurts so bad. I messed up so bad. “She was going to leave eventually.”
“Did you ever think of asking her to stay?”
“Of course, but she’s?—”
“What? Totally in love with you?” Gwen shakes her head. “You make it work when that comes around.” Her gaze travels back to Winnie. “I did.”
“She thinks I destroyed everything. She’s gone.”
“And you didn’t go after her? Lame, bro.”