Chapter 3
Chapter three
MAGNOLIA
Iwas sprawled out on the floor when my phone buzzed. It was Sutton calling for the thirty-fifth time today—only this time, she wanted to FaceTime.
“What?” I growled while Pickle made biscuits on my head, purring madly.
“What the hell are you two doing? Are you day-drunk? God, is the cat drunk?”
“Pickle is pizza drunk,” I hiccupped, trying to untangle her from my hair so I could sit up. “I am… Yeah, I’m kinda drunk. Do you think Lee is going to come home for the party?”
Her eyes went as big as saucers, and then her face fell into a frown. “Good Lord, Magnolia. Why on earth are you worried about that? What would it matter?”
“I’m not worried. Okay. I’m not, not worried. I’m just… Don’t you think this whole thing is weird?” I grabbed both of Pickle’s little paws and yanked them from my head, ripping a few chunks of hair out of my scalp as I tried to escape her death grip.
“Pickle! Leave your momma alone!” Sutton half-laughed, half-yelled at the cat before letting out a long breath in anticipation of one of her infamous, long-winded “get Magnolia off the bridge she’s about to leap off” speeches.
“You’re seeing someone. He’s probably seeing someone because he’s a singer, and he lives in Nashville. There’s more cut-off denim shorts, titty shirts, and cowboy boots per capita than there are Starbucks. And let’s revisit that first statement. You. Are. Seeing. Someone.”
I nodded into the phone, padding across my room and sitting on the edge of my bed.
“And besides,” she added, her voice growing higher by the minute, “look at your life! You’re a business owner.
You have a hot boyfriend. You might still be sleeping in the same full-sized bed you had in high school, but you’ve got all these renovation plans!
” She paused, a grin spreading across her face.
“You little Joanna Gaines, you. And, not to mention,” she continued, leaning into her camera with a teasing tone, “you’re vice semi-quasi secretary of the Daughters of Savannah Civic Society. You’re basically Savannah royalty now.”
“They let me change out the sweet tea jugs last week, and I got to pass out the agendas. Shut up. Just listen.” My voice grew more animated.
“Lee has a Grammy! And he’s also super hot.
And yeah, I mean, did you see that girl he brought with him to the Country Music Awards?
She was like twenty-one.” I rolled my eyes, feeling the frustration creep in as I kept yapping.
“And then, oh Lord, have you been on his Instagram lately? He’s always got that stupid ass guitar and at least four blondes around him at all times.
” I sighed, shaking my head. “And then the comments, oof. How pathetic do I sound right now?” I lunged myself back down on my pillows dramatically, disturbing Pickle in her spot of slumber, and she dug her claws back into my scalp and screeched like a banshee.
“Listen. You don’t sound pathetic. Unhinged, maybe.
A little obsessed? Yes. Girl, why are you tormenting yourself like this?
He left. You’re here. Time and life don’t stop just because Leland Wilder went off to Nashville and never came home.
This isn’t a dollhouse where you can walk away and expect everything to stay just as you left it.
Life doesn’t work that way. When you come back, you have to be prepared for the pieces to have shifted, for nothing to be quite the same as it was before. ”
I rubbed my head and let my hands fall over my face, trying to fight mid-day bourbon-infused tears. I could feel the anxiety creeping through my bones, making my heart slam against my chest. “What would I even say to him? After all this time, honestly, what could I possibly say?”
“If I had to guess,” Sutton sighed, “an awful lot that was left unsaid.”
I thought I felt better when Sutton and I hung up after she talked me off the ledge, but I was still sitting on a hot-bed of nerves.
It had been years since Lee came home. On one hand, he was due to show his face back in Savannah, but on the other, he was probably busy banging half of the state of Tennessee, wooing them with his guitar and his stupid, baby blue eyes.
And she was right, I was seeing someone. But it was new, despite the fact that for the last few months everyone around us marveled about how “it was time” and “it just seems right” whenever we walked into a room together.
But that was just the thing. It was something fresh.
Full of all those awkward firsts every couple goes through.
I wanted to trust again, but I couldn’t.
I wanted to wear a relationship like an old, worn-out sweatshirt—full of holes but comfortable from years spent breaking it in.
I wanted to feel secure, but it wasn’t happening.
Because in the end, no matter how good it felt, it all ended up in a donation pile eventually.