Chapter Twelve #2
Feeling panicked, she wandered back to the nondescript living room. It held nothing of his, but why would it? He’d been ready for this. He’d been ready to hit that door.
There was nothing left to show he’d ever been here.
Except…
She went still when she saw something on the floor beside the sofa. She took a step in that direction, her knees feeling wobbly. She knelt down, the sheet pooling in a white puddle against the carpeting.
“My boots.”
Her favorite ones. The ones she’d thought she’d ruined.
She gathered up the black leather stompers. Holding them carefully, she turned them this way and that. A sound left the back of her throat. They were polished and flawless. She ran her thumb over the heel. She couldn’t tell it had ever been broken.
He’d fixed it.
She took a shuddering breath and hugged the boots to her chest as she stood. It took a moment before she was able to move again. When she made her way back up to her apartment, she was on autopilot. Once inside, she sank onto her own sofa.
His words kept playing through her head. Painful words. Honest words. He’d stood by what he’d said. There’d been no apology.
But there had been a ring of truth, one she couldn’t ignore. Had she been the one who’d turned on him?
She stroked the boots she was still holding like a lifeline.
How was she supposed to process this? What was she supposed to do?
The bass line of the music playing at The Ruckus infused the room, thumping unendingly.
Her thoughts swirled, refusing to straighten out and move in a straight line.
She tried to pluck out pieces that made sense, but they were like scraps of paper in the wind.
Every time she thought she had one, it would switch directions and move out of her grasp.
When the phone rang unexpectedly, it blended with all the other noise in her head.
Once she recognized the sound, she stood so quickly the boots fell onto the floor.
She hurried to the bedroom to search through her clothes.
Her hands were clumsy as she pulled her phone out of the pocket of her jeans.
“Billy?”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “It’s Maxie.”
Roxie’s shoulders drooped. The momentary burst of energy disappeared, and she clutched the back of the counter stool.
“Is this a bad time?” her sister asked.
Roxie looked around the room. She didn’t have a clue what time it was. The room was darker than it had been, but the energy of The Ruckus gave her no clues. Was the night just getting started? Was it closing time? It was another of those thoughts that flitted away. “It’s fine. What’s up?”
The moment the question was out, she had the vague cognition that maybe she should be worried. Late night calls were rarely good.
“I don’t know.” There was the sound of a teakettle whistling in the background. “I just felt a really strong need to call you.”
Roxie moved back to the sofa and sank onto it. The triplet radar was running on full power.
That teakettle kept whistling. “Is something wrong? Are you okay?”
A lie jumped to her lips, ready to go, only the words got stuck.
It was what she always did, bucked up and pretended things didn’t affect her.
Pushed them away. Lexie had called her on that tough girl act, and now so had Billy.
She was feeling anything but invincible tonight.
She needed to talk to her sister, but she didn’t even know where to start. “I’ve had a really bad day.”
“Oh, honey. What happened?”
The empathy made her throat thicken. “The billboard was taken down.”
The teakettle choked off. “Our billboard? No!”
Her sister’s disappointment didn’t have nearly the panic that hers had, but the sadness was there. Roxie cuddled up in a tighter ball on the sofa. She hadn’t realized how invested she’d gotten in that stupid thing. “And there are no leads on our parents.”
She tried to push away the nagging feeling that the two were connected. The gut instinct. Billy was right. The billboard had been lucky—she wasn’t going to let go of that—but it wasn’t magical.
There was the sound of a chair sliding. Maxie must be in her kitchen. Roxie loved that homey kitchen with the herb garden in the window that overlooked the big backyard.
“That’s okay,” her sister said. “None of us has made much progress on the search. I hope you didn’t feel like we put it all on your shoulders.”
Funny, but that’s where all the weight seemed to be bearing. Roxie rolled her shoulders, but the tension wouldn’t go away. She wasn’t the patient type. Once they’d made the decision to look for the rest of their family, she’d wanted results.
“It’s been years,” Maxie said softly. “It could take a while.”
It could take forever. Roxie grabbed a throw pillow and squeezed it to her chest. She didn’t know if she could bear that.
“Billy left.”
The words just came out without any plan or forethought.
Maxie paused. “Because he had to get back to work?”
“We had a big fight tonight.” Although right now, it didn’t seem as much a fight as the two of them being brutally honest with each other.
“Oh, Roxie.”
Roxie wanted to wave it off—that damn self-preservation instinct again—but her hand was clenched too tightly in the pillow. “It was due. Overdue really. We managed to be around each other much longer this time.”
“No. You two aren’t meant to be apart. You belong together.”
Roxie’s stomach clenched. She’d thought that way once—and she’d slipped into that mindset too many times over the past week—but she knew better.
She knew how her story with Billy went. Her life had looped around time and time again, and their ending was always the same. A psychic had even confirmed it.
This was the last loop, though. This time, he wouldn’t be coming back.
Tears pooled in her eyes. “We’re both too messed up and damaged.”
“Well, who isn’t?”
Roxie blinked. “What?”
It wasn’t the response she’d expected.
There was the tinkle of a ceramic cup on the other end of the line.
“Please don’t take this the wrong way. You had a tough time of it, and my heart bleeds over that, but we were all affected by our past. Lexie is constantly trying to please others, and I’m terrified to step outside my comfort zone.
We’re messed up, too. The split affected us all, but that doesn’t mean we don’t deserve love. ”
Roxie went still. The verbal swat on the behind by her shy sister made the swirling thoughts in her head stop.
“You might have actually come out of it the best,” Maxie continued. “You’re so strong. You know what you want, and you go out and get it.”
Come out of it the best… For the best…
The words hit close to home, and Roxie’s fingers dug into the pillow. They’d all been affected by what had happened to them, but she wouldn’t have traded places with her sisters if they’d offered.
Her breaths came a bit more rapidly in her chest. Was that the reason she’d been the one left behind?
Because she was the one who’d been able to take being scared and alone?
The castoff? She was an identical triplet who’d been made a loner, but if one of them had to grow up in foster care, she was glad it was her.
Glad.
The insight was messed up, and it made her lightheaded.
Her sisters had needed their second families—and she’d needed Billy.
Oh, God. She rubbed a hand over her face, and her gaze landed on the boots on the floor in front of her. She still needed him. “What am I going to do?”
“Go find him.”
So much pain and frustration had filled that bedroom. “I don’t want to hurt him anymore.”
She’d never wanted to hurt him.
“I’d bet my flower shop that he doesn’t want to hurt you, either.”
It was for the best. Billy’s words stung, but had they been too close to the truth, too?
“Go after him, Roxie. That’s what you told me to do when I almost lost Zac.”
“I don’t know where he is.”
Maxie let out an unladylike snort. “Since when would that stop you?”
Never.
“I have faith in you,” her sister insisted. “You can make things right.”
But he’d made it so damn clear he was done.
Roxie leaned her head back against the sofa. She couldn’t destroy her sweet sister’s belief in happily-ever-afters. “I’m glad you called, Maximum.”
“I love you, Rox.”
The tightness in Roxie’s throat nearly choked her. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing to let people in. “I love you, too.”
When she hung up the phone, her hands were shaking. Those floating scraps of paper were coming together and the picture they formed was uncomfortably clear.
She wasn’t unlovable. She had Maxie and Lexie. They were three parts of a whole, but there were others who were close to her. Like Skeeter and Charlie. And Billy.
Looking back, there’d been ones who’d tried. The Hamiltons had been nice. They’d fostered her for over a year, but she’d been so guarded and untrusting. And then there was Mrs. Fisher in tenth grade. She’d always been willing to lend an ear.
But she’d pushed them all away before they could push her.
Roxie looked around the apartment, dark but for the moonlight starting to come through the window. Look at what she’d done with her life. She had her own place and her own business. Friends. She’d pulled herself up by her bootstraps, broken as they might be.
She’d had to fight for it all tooth and nail, but that made it all the more precious to her. She’d told herself that she’d wanted answers about her childhood, but deep down she admitted she wanted more than that. She’d wanted acceptance. She’d wanted love.
She’d had it all along.
Oh, damn.
A ragged breath hit her, and she waved her hands in front of her face to fight the sting in her eyes. She’d been so busy trying to protect herself, she’d pushed away what she wanted most. Why did she always have to do things the hard way?
Well, why not? She was good at it.
She was a fighter.
And, this time, she was going to have to fight for him.
She flipped back her hair, blinked her eyes dry, and rubbed her hands against her thighs. Okay, she had to do something. She couldn’t leave things the way they were.
Billy did deserve better.
So did she.
She let out a puff of air and focused. She had to find him. They had to talk.
But where had he gone?
Would he even listen to her?
She picked up her boots from where they’d fallen so carelessly onto the floor. Standing them upright on the coffee table, she ran her fingers over what had once been a broken heel. She didn’t know if their relationship could even be saved, but she had to try.
It was her turn to play the fixer.