10. Rex
— ? —
Rex
I bribed my eight-year-old niece Isabel with ice cream, and she was already blowing my cover.
“Is that her?” Isabel whispered, except it wasn’t a whisper at all. It was that loud stage-whisper thing kids do when they think they’re being quiet but actually everyone in a fifty-foot radius can hear them perfectly. “The one you cry about?”
I shot her a look that said shut up but she just blinked at me with those big innocent eyes that fooled absolutely no one. Isabel was my brother’s kid, a tiny demon in pigtails who’d agreed to help me with this scheme in exchange for unlimited ice cream for a month and a new saddle for her pony.
Worth every penny, I’d thought at the time.
Now I was reconsidering.
The Ridgecrest lobby was bright and cheerful, decorated with photos of smiling kids on horses and ribbons from various competitions.
Parents milled around, checking their phones and making small talk while they waited for their children’s lessons to end.
I stood out like a sore thumb in my suit, but I hadn’t had time to change after my morning meetings.
Finding Freya had taken my security team nine days, and the moment they’d told me she was working here, I’d cleared my entire afternoon.
“Uncle Rex.” Isabel tugged on my sleeve. “You’re being too obvious with your eyes.”
I was staring. I couldn’t help it.
Freya stood in the arena doorway, clipboard in hand, wearing riding boots and jeans and a simple blue t-shirt that shouldn’t have made my chest ache but did anyway.
Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she was laughing at something one of the kids had said, her whole face lighting up in a way I hadn’t seen in months.
She looked happy. Happier than I’d seen her in our house, surrounded by expensive things and family members who treated her like dirt.
That realization hit me like a punch to the gut. My thumb found her wedding ring in my pocket, the way it had a hundred times since she left, and I rubbed it like a worry stone.
“She’s pretty,” Isabel said, still too loud. “Is she really your wife? Because you said she left you, and Grandma said she was never good enough for you anyway, but I think Grandma’s wrong because…”
“Isabel.” I crouched down to her level. “Remember what we talked about? You’re here to take riding lessons. That’s it. You don’t know me. You’ve never seen me before. I’m just a normal uncle enrolling his normal niece in a normal riding program.”
“But that’s lying.”
“It’s… strategic truth management.”
“What’s that?”
“That’s what politicians call lying.”
Freya looked up. Our eyes met across the lobby, and everything else faded away. The chattering parents, the excited kids, Isabel’s endless commentary, all of it disappeared until there was just her, staring at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read.
Then her face hardened, and she started walking toward us with purpose.
“Stay here,” I told Isabel.
“But…”
“Ice cream, Isabel. Remember the ice cream.”
She huffed but stayed put as I moved to intercept Freya. She grabbed my arm before I could say anything and pulled me into the hallway beside the lobby, out of sight of the other parents.
“You can’t be here.” Her voice was low and furious. “How did you even find me?”
“I have resources.”
“You hired people to track me down?”
“I hired people to make sure you were safe.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, and I tried not to notice how the movement pulled her shirt tight across her body. This wasn’t the time. “Rex, I blocked you for a reason. I left a note for a reason. What part of ‘leave me alone’ was unclear?”
“The part where I’m supposed to just accept that my wife walked out without giving me a chance to fix things.”
“There’s nothing to fix.” Her voice went flat. “You regretted marrying me, Rex. I heard you.”
I went still. “You heard that?”
“I heard enough.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I heard what came out of your mouth. You said you regret me. That’s all I needed to know.”
“Freya.” I reached for her arm, and she stepped back like my touch would burn her.
“I never got to finish. Max laughed and changed the subject, and I let him, and that’s on me.
What I meant was that I regret how I married you.
A contract with your father’s signature on it, instead of me choosing you. I have never once regretted you.”
“It doesn’t matter what you meant. The fact that those words came out of your mouth at all tells me everything.
” Her eyes were bright with tears she was refusing to let fall.
“I spent a year trying to make myself fit into your world. Trying to win over your mother, trying to impress your family, trying to be good enough. And the whole time, you regretted me.”
“That’s not true.”
“Then what is?”
The words were right there. Three words I’d been too scared to say for an entire year, sitting on my tongue, ready to finally be spoken.
“I love you, Freya.”
She flinched.
“I love you,” I said again, stepping closer.
“I’ve loved you for months. Maybe since the beginning, I don’t know.
I was too scared to admit it because I thought you couldn’t possibly feel the same way.
I thought if I said it and you didn’t say it back, I’d have to face the fact that the best thing in my life was one-sided. ”
“Rex…”
“I know I messed up. You needed me to defend you against my mother, and I didn’t.
I should have seen what Annie was doing instead of calling you silly.
I should have said these words a hundred times before now.
” I was close enough to touch her now, but I kept my hands at my sides.
“Please come home. Let me make this right.”
She was quiet for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper.
“I love you too.”
My heart soared.
“That’s why I left.”
And crashed right back down.
“I love you,” she continued, “and that’s exactly the problem.
Because I loved you for a year while you stayed silent.
I loved you while your mother tried to replace me.
” A tear slipped down her cheek, and she wiped it away angrily.
“Loving you broke my heart, Rex. And I can’t let you break it again. ”
“I won’t. I swear to you, I won’t.”
“You can’t promise that. You don’t even understand what you did wrong.
” She shook her head. “It wasn’t just about the words.
It was about your family treating me like garbage while you stood there and did nothing.
I felt invisible in my own home. And it was about asking you to see what was happening and being told I was silly and tired and overreacting. ”
“I know. I see that now.”
“Seeing it now doesn’t give me back the year I spent feeling like I wasn’t enough.”
I didn’t have an answer for that. She was right. Seeing my mistakes in hindsight didn’t undo the damage they’d caused, or give her back all the nights she’d felt alone, or erase the humiliation she’d felt at my aunt’s dinner.
“I’ll do anything,” I said. “Whatever it takes. However long it takes. Just tell me what you need.”
She looked at me for a long moment, and I saw something flicker in her eyes.
“I need you to leave,” she said quietly. “I have a job here, Rex. A life I’m building. I can’t do that with you showing up and confusing everything.”
“I can’t just walk away.”
“You walked away plenty when I needed you to stay.” The words were sharp, but her voice was tired. “Go home. Sign the divorce papers. Let me move on.”
She turned and started walking back toward the lobby. I watched her go, feeling like my chest was caving in.
“Freya.”
She stopped but didn’t turn around.
“I’m not signing anything. And I’m not giving up.” I kept my voice steady even though everything inside me was falling apart. “You needed me to fight for you, and I didn’t. I’m fighting now. I know it’s too late and I know I don’t deserve another chance, but I’m fighting anyway.”
She stood there for a moment, her back to me, her shoulders tense. Then she walked away without another word.
I found Isabel in the lobby, chatting animatedly with one of the other kids about ponies. She looked up when I approached.
“Did it work? Is she coming home with us?”
“Not yet.”
“Oh.” Isabel’s face fell. “So no ice cream?”
“You still get ice cream.” I pulled out my wallet and handed her a twenty. “But we’re coming back next week. And the week after that. And every week until she agrees to talk to me.”
“That sounds like a lot of ice cream.”
“Consider it hazard pay.”
I walked to the front desk and smiled at the woman behind the counter. She looked a little starstruck, which happened a lot, and which I was fully prepared to use to my advantage.
“I’d like to enroll my niece in riding lessons,” I said. “The full twelve-week package. Paid in advance.”
“Of course, Mr…?”
“Waller. Rex Waller.” I pulled out my credit card. “And I’ll be bringing her personally. Every single week.”