Chapter 28 – Juliette
TWENTY-EIGHT
JULIETTE
The first few weeks after I read Creed’s letter had been tough.
Every day was an exercise in waiting.
Waiting to hear his truck pull up. Waiting to hear someone else’s truck pull up.
If that would even happen. I mean, how would I get notified of his death? It wasn’t like he was still in the military.
By letter? His old boss showing up?
What if Tank heard he was dead and he came back?
Had Creed even thought of that possibility?!
Pulling my phone out, (my brand new phone I’d bought with Creed’s money), I added a note to the list of things I planned to point out to him, if he did come back. Things he hadn’t even considered.
Tonight, I’d decided it was time to leave the farm and all that waiting behind.
I parked the truck along the sidewalk in town.
About a block up from Pete’s bar. I was meeting April out tonight for some drinks as a final send off.
She was leaving for Montana State on Saturday.
I hopped out of the truck in a pair of jeans and a new top we’d found together at Retro Fits.
The jeans were a bit too tight and the top was a little too red.
Together, it felt like revenge.
My hair was blown out. I had blush on my cheek bones. And if a cowboy hit on me tonight I planned to tell Creed every excruciating detail.
If he ever came back.
April was already at the bar chatting it up with Jackson, who was bartending tonight.
“Oh good, you’re here,” she said. “Jackson’s only letting me have three beers so I wanted to wait until you got here.”
“Make mine a vodka and soda with a splash of cranberry,” I told Jackson.
His brows went up.
It’s what I heard Taylor Swift drank at the award shows and she always looked like she was having fun, so I was going with it.
“Twenty-one,” I reminded him. “You need to see ID?”
He sighed. “Why do I have a feeling Creed is going to want to have words with me when he gets back?”
“Well, we don’t know if he’s coming back now, do we?” I asked, with as much snark as I could muster.
I told myself I was getting over him every day. I told myself that if he did show up, the first thing we were doing was getting a divorce. I told Peasy not to get attached to me because when we did divorce we were going to have to sell the farm.
I told AP I was claiming full custody of him so he should get used to that, too.
I told myself a lot of things.
And each day passed and there was nothing. No word. No letter.
Nothing.
“You have my new number?” I asked April. Although of course she had to have it, that’s how we coordinated meeting up tonight.
“I do. And you have my address at school to send me care packages I can’t rely on my parents to send me.”
She meant booze. Legally, I could buy and send her booze, and I was pretty sure her parents wouldn’t do that for her.
“Are you excited or nervous?” I asked her, taking a sip of my fancy drink through the thin straw Jackson added, trying not to make a face. Wow, that was tart!
“Both. But more excited than nervous. Have you given any more thought to what I said about checking out some courses online?”
Enrolling in college wasn’t a serious option. I still needed to take care of the farm and the animals. Technically, other than having access to Creed’s money, nothing was mine to sell. Not that I was going to anyway, until I found out about Creed one way or the other.
But the second I found out that motherfucker was alive, I was out of here. At least, that’s what I told April when I showed her the letter.
So she thought taking some classes online might help me decide if college was something I even wanted to do.
“I have to get my GED first. So I sent in an application for that. Assuming I pass, I can think about taking some online classes in the spring.”
“That’s awesome. See? You’re not wallowing in heartbreak. You’re making plans. You’re moving forward. When he gets home, he’s going to have to beg you to forgive him and take him back.”
When.
I loved that April always said when. Never if. It was stupid because I was barely older than her, but in some ways I felt so much older.
She hadn’t seen Creed choke out a man. She hadn’t seen him operate like a badass when he was still completely asleep.
Whatever he was doing, where ever he was doing it, it was dangerous.
Like Navy Seal dangerous.
He’d gotten out for a reason, but because of me, he’d felt the need to take another job.
No, I told myself. It wasn’t about me. Or my farm. Or the crop failing.
If we’d had a conversation and I’d said, hey, I think you should take this job for a shit ton of money and that would save us from the failed season, then it would be about me.
But there had been no conversation. It had been his decision, and his alone.
Which, when I thought about it, probably made me the most mad. Because I thought we’d become partners.
I gulped down my drink and asked Jackson for another one.
I could tell he had opinions, but I didn’t think I cared.
Tonight, I was getting drunk for the first time.
Okay, getting drunk sucked.
The first big problem was that I couldn’t drive.
Jackson drove me and April back to the Talley residence, because he said it would be easier to take me back to get my truck in the morning.
That’s how I ended up sleeping on the Talleys’ couch.
“I’m so sssorrry, Mrss. Talley,” I slurred.
She sat on the edge of the couch and handed me a glass of water, which I gulped down.
April and Jackson had already gone to bed upstairs after Jackson had tried to explain to his mother he’d only served me three drinks.
He thought I was a lightweight, but what he hadn’t realized was that a bunch of cowboys had also been buying April beers which she kept handing off to me.
“You’re not the first drunk we’ve hosted on this couch,” she laughed.
I fell back against the couch cushions and lifted the glass up for her to take. She took it and pushed the hair off my face.
“That’s nice,” I said, without really thinking. “Feels like something a mom would do.”
“Hmm. Well, they teach you that in mom school,” she said.
“Did your mom teach you?” Because I was super curious about this mom school thing.
“No,” she said. “I didn’t really have a mom growing up.”
“Me either!” I said, a little too loudly.
“Yeah, but I had a really cool dad. Until he died.”
“My dad sucked,” I burped. “Then he died, too. How did you get so lucky then?”
“I have Jake,” she told me. “He was my friend. Then he was my husband. Then he wasn’t. Long story. Anyway, now he’s just…the love of my life.”
“I had Creed, but he left,” I whispered. Tears rushed to my eyes and I didn’t even have a chance to stop them. “And he was a jerk, but he also gave me a phone and a cat…huh, AP!”
I tried to sit up, but Mrs. Talley settled a hand on my shoulder.
“April said you left a bunch of dry food out for him.”
Right. I did. Still, it would be his first night alone. That wasn’t cool. Didn’t make me a very good mom, I suppose.
Figures.
“And is that all Creed gave you?”
I shook my head. “No, he said I could be a nurse if I wanted. And he gave me a debit card, which doesn’t sound like much, but it meant I was…free. And I could even leave if I wanted, but I didn’t want to.”
“Because you fell in love with him?” Mrs. Talley guessed.
“So much!” I confessed. “Like all the way. Because he isn’t really ugly and he takes care of me. And he’s super badass but also he takes care of me. And we really liked sex together…oh shit, I shouldn’t have said that. I’m ssoorry, Mrs. Talley.”
“It’s okay. I like sex with my husband, too.”
I burped again. “That’s gross.”
She laughed. “I suppose it is to you.”
“He left me, though.”
“Jackson said he took a job to help you make it through the winter.”
I shook my head and it was weird, but I could hear my hair. “He took a scary job. He didn’t want to. He wanted to be done, but he went back. He shouldn’t have gone back. He should have talked to me and I would have told him not to go. I would have told him there was another way.”
Mrs. Talley did the hair brushing thing again and nodded like I was making sense, even though I probably wasn’t.
“He definitely should have talked to you. Communication in marriage is key.”
“That’s what all the podcasts say!” I said. I closed my eyes because the room was spinning a little. “I didn’t tell him I loved him, though. Too scary because I’ve never really done it before. Loved someone. I should have done that. Said something. Maybe he wouldn’t have left.”
“You can tell him when he gets back.”
I heard the words, but I was already drifting off. I shouldn’t have had the vodka. Or the beers. Being drunk didn’t really make me feel better about anything.
I felt the couch cushions dip. Mrs. Talley was getting up. I reached for her hand, and felt her fingers clasp mine, even though my eyes were still closed.
“What if he doesn’t come back?”
“He will. I have a good feeling about him.”
Oh. Well. If Mrs. Talley thought so. I let her hand go and rolled into the couch cushions and promptly fell asleep.
The next morning Jackson drove me into town, not saying a word, but I could tell silently judging me the whole time.
I drove my truck home and apologized to AP and Peasy for being a jackass.
That Saturday, April left for college and I started getting the fields ready for winter.