Chapter 22 Jenny
JENNY
My plans to ignore Lucas entirely are going great this time around.
All I had to do was get my heart ripped to shreds.
It was bad enough thinking he didn’t care at all, but overhearing him with Wayne only made it worse.
Even after the spiel he gave my brother, he still didn’t come after me.
It shouldn’t surprise me that he’s all talk, but I can’t pretend it’s not a knife to the gut.
Whatever, add it to the rest he’s left there.
It’s been two days since I stumbled in on them in the barn, and he hasn’t said a fucking word to me.
I’m eagerly awaiting another day of avoiding eye contact and fighting back tears every time I see him in the fields, which is why I’ve been sipping on my coffee for the better part of an hour instead of getting a start on my day.
I like incredibly bitter room temperature coffee. Swear. I’m not hiding from anything.
Thankfully, Dad and Mary are too wrapped up in their usual morning routine of being sickeningly in love to pay much attention to the way I’m brooding.
They move around each other in the kitchen like they’ve been at it their entire lives.
Soft touches linger on arms and hips, softer kisses shared as Mary gets cups down and Dad fries them up a few eggs.
He glances over at me and nods toward the pan, silently asking if I want one, too, but I just grunt and shake my head.
I’m not in the mood to talk, and I’m certainly not in the mood to eat.
He and Mary start up a quiet conversation, nothing particularly important, and I zone out, watching a few bubbles float around the surface of my coffee.
I fall into an endless spiral of hurt and anger, my brain torturously reminding me of every moment I’ve spent with Lucas since he got back.
It’s not until they’ve finished their breakfast and are cleaning up that I come back to reality.
“I’ll see you for lunch, sweetheart,” Dad says, kissing Mary on the cheek as she’s rinsing dishes off. “Have to go make sure the kid’s not getting up to too much trouble. He’s picking things up fast, might actually be a good addition to the team if he keeps it up.”
The kid.
It’s how Dad refers to Lucas, how he’s referred to him since we were in high school.
I stiffen at the mention of him, biting back a bitter laugh at the thought of him sticking around.
Guess he hasn’t told Dad yet, then. Is he planning on pulling the same shit with him?
Ditching his responsibilities here to go chase whatever’s caught his attention elsewhere?
Wouldn’t be the first time.
Maybe I should tell Dad, pull the rug out from under Lucas. I’m certainly angry enough to, but I don’t have the energy to get into it with Dad right now. I don’t want to explain how I found out and face Dad’s pity. Worse, I don’t want to run the risk that he’d actually support Lucas’s decision.
A heavy sigh rips out of my mouth the second the door closes behind Dad, and I slump down with my head on the table, utterly miserable.
“That bad, huh?” Mary asks.
I shoot up immediately, straightening my back and blinking at her. God, I completely forgot she was still here. My head’s such a mess right now.
“Just didn’t sleep well,” I say.
It’s not a lie. I haven’t slept for shit since that night in Lucas’s trailer, and it only got worse after hearing him with Wayne.
Mary hums curiously, nudging the dishwasher closed and wiping her hands off on a dish towel before turning to face me properly. She rakes her pale blue eyes over me consideringly, but I refuse to shrink away from the look.
“Lucas hasn’t been sleeping well either,” she says blandly.
I grit my teeth, glaring at her. “Couldn’t care less.”
She snorts, raising a disbelieving brow as she comes to join me at the table. If I was a dog, I’d be bristling and baring my teeth, but I content myself with crossing my arms over my chest.
“Of course not.” She manages to sound reasonable and sarcastic at the same time, and if I hadn’t grown to respect her so much, I’d be tempted to blow up at her. “He doesn’t matter to you at all, right?”
“Not even a little,” I lie shamelessly.
Mary nods, leaning back in her seat and tilting her head as she looks at me. “Got it.”
The silence drags out between us, oppressive and growing heavier by the second.
I level her with an exasperated look, knowing exactly what she’s trying to do.
Any other day, I could wait her out and keep my thoughts close to my chest, but I’ve been running myself ragged. She knows it. She’s counting on it.
I roll my eyes and decide to just get it over with. It’ll be easier if I just spit it out and tell her to leave me alone and let me deal with it.
“I know you want me to tell you what’s going on, but there’s nothing to tell,” I say, the harshness in my tone directed more at myself than at her.
“He dropped me like it was nothing after four years together because he wanted to go to college on a football scholarship. Didn’t make any attempt to stay together, never got in touch with me after he left.
And then I was stupid enough to fall into bed with him when he came back, and I got my feelings hurt. ”
Lucas and Jenny, abridged version. The details don’t matter anymore.
“You sure you got your own feelings hurt? He didn’t hurt you?”
There’s a protective glint in her eyes that I’d appreciate if I wasn’t so fucking tired of it all.
“Who cares?” I ask with a sigh. “He got a job. He’s leaving, same as last time. Fucked me, told me I was his, and then dropped the news that he was leaving. He’s going, and I’m an idiot, and I’ll get over it. Seriously, Mary, I don’t want to talk about this.”
Mary frowns, but there’s no pity on her face. Sympathy, sure, but she mostly just looks frustrated.
“He’s not acting like he’s leaving. Or like he wants to leave,” she points out. “He’s been working himself to the bone, staying out late with Everett for the past few days. He looks like he’s seriously interested in learning about the ranch.”
I wave her words off, getting up to dump the last few dregs of my coffee out in the sink.
“He’s just keeping himself busy. He’s waiting on a start date at the new job, and I laid into him pretty hard. I’m sure he’s just avoiding me.”
Which is good. Things will be better if we avoid each other. I never want to see his fucking face again. The sooner he leaves, the better.
“What aren’t you telling me, Jenny? You’re saying all this like you don’t care, but there’s still hope in your eyes.
You still look for him every time you go out to the barn.
If you hated him so much, you’d ice him out completely.
You’re obsessed with controlling everything, even when it pushes people away.
I don’t believe for a second that you wouldn’t forget about him entirely if you really wanted to. ”
Since when does she know me so well?
The thought of being so obvious makes me want to hide, so I do what I always do when I’m uncomfortable—I get mad. I sneer at her, glaring at her down the bridge of my nose, only more annoyed when she doesn’t waver.
“I’m in love with him,” I spit out, the words bitter and barbed on every syllable.
“He ruined me the first time, and this time it’s doubled.
Thought he just didn’t care, but then I heard him talking to Wayne in the barn, saying he didn’t know how I felt back then, that he loves me too.
He saw me there. He didn’t come after me.
” I tear my eyes away from her, too vulnerable with the way she’s looking at me, and fix my gaze on the wall behind her head.
“I’m not playing games with him anymore.
I’m not listening to a single thing he has to say until he actually backs it up with actions. I’m not getting left behind again.”
My voice breaks over those last words, and I hate myself for it. I bite down onto the inside of my cheek to stem the tears that threaten to overflow, unwilling to cry for him again.
“So you thought he didn’t care because he didn’t tell you he loved you, and it sounds like he thought you didn’t care because you didn’t say it either.
” Her voice is firm, but not sharp, so reasonable that I kind of want to throw something at her.
Hearing it in so few words makes it all sound so ridiculous, but she just doesn’t get it.
“Sounds to me like you’re both in the same place, Jenny. ”
I scoff, bitter and unrepentant. She can try to boil it down to the bare bones as much as she wants, but the fact is that Lucas just doesn’t care enough to actually give me what I need. He doesn’t even care enough to listen when I try to tell him.
“What might that place be, Mary?” I ask caustically, shaking my head with a vicious grin on my lips.
Mary doesn’t flinch, simply arching a thin brow at me and standing from her seat.
She pushes the chairs back under the table, taking her time before responding.
It makes my skin crawl with impatience, and I’m tempted to just storm out before she even says anything.
I didn’t want to have this conversation in the first place.
“From what I’m hearing, neither of you are communicating.
You’re both split between blaming each other and blaming yourselves, but both of you are too scared to actually talk to each other and admit what you want out loud.
” She shrugs like she couldn’t care less, but there’s a challenging glint in her eyes when she turns to face me again.
“I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather talk to someone I love than have both of us hurting. What’s the harm in trying?”
What’s the harm? Jesus fuck, just look at me. I’m like this because I believed that Lucas would try. I can’t open myself up again. Either he puts effort in to fix things between us, or I wipe my mind clean of him entirely.
I laugh, dry and angry, and roll my eyes. “You sound like a fucking therapist. Be realistic.”
She purses her lips and sighs through her nose like I’m a particularly stubborn child, and then her eyes go hard and testing, daring me to look away.
“Didn’t take you for such a coward,” she says plainly.
The words hit me like a punch to the jaw.
I gape at her in furious shock, but she just meets my eyes, unapologetic and unafraid.
“Fuck you.” I spit the words at her as I shove off the counter, but I’m mostly angry because there’s not a goddamn thing I can say to argue her point. “I’ll handle my own fucking life, thanks so much.”
I storm out of the room and down the hall toward my office, slamming the door behind me so hard that the walls shake.
I refuse to collapse against the door this time, instead carefully making my way to my chair and falling into it.
My teeth are clenched against the onslaught of emotion clawing its way up my throat, my eyes closed against the tears that threaten to burst free.
I struggle to calm my breathing, knowing that if I let myself fall apart, I’ll start screaming. I don’t know if I’ll ever stop.
Mary’s words echo in my skull, guilt and heartbreak setting them on a brutal loop.
Maybe she’s right. Maybe I am a coward.
I’d rather be a coward than a fool.
I’d rather be too scared to say anything than hear the brutal truth straight from Lucas’s mouth.
If that makes me a coward, fine. At least I’ll keep the last tattered remnants of my heart safe.