11. Callie
CALLIE
The sound of Wade's truck faded down the road, and I sat there on Jolene's couch like somebody had pulled every wire loose inside me. I was numb. Completely numb. My hands were in my lap, fingers locked together hard enough to hurt, and I couldn't remember how they'd gotten that way.
Jolene settled beside me with the quiet kind of patience that didn't ask for anything. She didn't push. She just sat there, warm and solid, and waited until I was ready.
I told her. The words came out flat and lifeless, like I was reading a grocery list instead of explaining what had happened.
"I went to the anniversary party," I said. "Saturday night."
She nodded once, her face carefully neutral. No judgment there. No pity either. Just listening.
"I was in the yard. Late-afternoon light. I wore my green dress. The whole family was there. The ranch hands. Everyone."
"Okay," Jolene said quietly.
My throat tightened. I made myself keep going.
"I stood at the edge of the yard with a glass of wine in my hand, and I watched the party happen around me like I was looking through glass," I said. The memory felt distant and too close all at once. "Then the musicians started up."
I stopped. Jolene waited.
"Wade led her into the clearing," I said. The image was burned into the back of my eyelids. I saw it every time I blinked. "He danced with Shelby."
Jolene went completely still.
Her whole body locked up like someone had yanked a cord tight inside her.
Her jaw clenched. Her hands curled into fists on her knees, knuckles standing out white against her skin.
She didn't say the name. She didn't say anything.
But I felt the fury rolling off her in waves, hot and sharp enough to cut.
"She was wearing white," I said.
The words landed between us like stones dropping into still water. Jolene's breath hissed out through her teeth, but she didn't speak. She just sat there, vibrating with a rage she was keeping locked down for my sake.
I loved her for that. For knowing when to be quiet and when to let me see exactly what she thought without saying a single word.
"I left," I said. My voice was steady. Calmer than I felt. Calmer than I had any right to be. "I walked back to the house. I took off my ring and left it on the pillow on his side of the bed. Then I got in my truck and drove here, and I haven't been back."
Jolene let out a slow breath. Her hands relaxed, just a little.
"Okay," she said again. She wasn't asking why. Wasn't pressing me to explain what it meant or what I was going to do next. She was just there, holding the space for me to say what I needed to say and leave the rest alone.
The bare facts. That was all I had. I wasn't going to explain why I couldn't stay in that yard one more second.
I rubbed my thumb across the bare place on my left hand where my wedding ring used to sit. The skin there felt wrong. Too light. Too empty. Wade would have it now. He would have found it on the pillow by now, and I couldn't stop wondering what he'd thought when he did.
The phone buzzed against the cushion beside me. I didn't look at it. Jolene's eyes went to it and came back to my face, and neither of us said a word.
Jolene sat with her shoulder pressed against mine, letting me talk or not talk, whatever I needed. The clock ticked on the wall. The furnace hummed.
"Callie." Her voice was soft. Careful. "What do you want?"
I looked at her. She wasn't asking what I wanted from Wade. She was asking what I wanted from a marriage. What I thought a real one looked like, if I ever got the chance to have it.
I didn't know how to put it into words. I had never said it out loud to anyone.
But sitting there on Jolene's couch with my wedding ring gone and my husband's messages piling up unanswered, I thought maybe I finally knew.
"I want a marriage," I said slowly. The words felt strange in my mouth. New. Like I was trying them on for the first time and wasn't sure if they fit. "A real one."
Jolene waited.
I took a breath. Let it out.
"It's somebody turning around in a crowded room to check you're still there," I said. "It's knowing that when you come through a door, somebody's glad it's you."
The words came easier now, like something inside me was finally unlocking after years of being jammed shut.
My voice cracked. I cleared my throat and kept going.
"I want a husband who sees me when I walk into a room and stands beside me."
The words hung in the air between us, too simple and too enormous all at once. They sounded so small when I said them out loud. So plain.
"Yeah," Jolene said quietly. "I don't think you were asking for too much."
Her hand found mine and squeezed, and I held on tighter than I should have. My throat felt like it was closing up. My eyes burned.
I wasn't going to cry. I never did, and I wasn't going to start on this couch. But my eyes burned anyway, and my chest felt like something was sitting on it, heavy and unrelenting.
I wanted the man who used to meet me at midnight in the bed of his truck at the rodeo grounds, the one who'd stay up talking and watching the stars with me until the sky started to lighten. The one who used to look at me like I mattered more than anything else in the world.
But wanting wasn't enough. Love wasn't enough.
I rubbed my thumb over the bare place on my finger again. The habit was already there, like my hand was looking for something it knew was missing and couldn't figure out why it was gone.
Ten years of marriage, and Wade still made my stomach flip. I hated that. Hated that I could sit here with a dozen unanswered messages on my phone and my ring gone from my hand and my whole life upended, and I still loved him.
I loved Wade Rutledge with every stupid, stubborn corner of my heart, and I didn't know how to stop.
The phone buzzed again on the cushion.
I didn't pick it up right away. I knew who it was. I'd known he wouldn't stop. Not tonight. Maybe not ever. I looked at it lying there, lit up and shivering against the fabric, until the screen went dark, and then it lit up again.
"He keeps texting," I said. My voice came out thinner than I wanted. "He doesn't know when to quit."
Jolene's mouth tightened, but she didn't say anything. She just reached over and squeezed my hand once, hard, and then let go.
I picked up the phone.
A dozen messages were stacked up on the screen, one after another, all from Wade. I scrolled through them with my stomach twisting tighter with every line.
Callie, please. Just talk to me.
I don't understand what I did wrong.
Tell me what's happening. I can't fix this if you won't explain.
Just tell me what to do and I'll do it.
I know you're upset. I get that. But we can work this out. We always do.
I'm not giving up on us. I won't.
Please come home.
I stared at the screen until the words blurred together. My throat ached. My chest ached. Everything ached.
Every single message was about him. What he wanted. What he needed. What he thought I should do to make this easier for him to handle.
Not one of them said he was sorry. Not one of them asked what I needed.
I set the phone face down on the couch and pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes.
The phone buzzed once more. I let it sit a moment, then turned it over in my hand, and another message lit up the screen.
Are you okay? Just tell me you're safe.
Something twisted hard in my chest. It was the first message that sounded like it might actually be about me instead of about him. But if he'd wanted to know if I was safe, he could have asked me that at the door.
I didn't answer. I just set the phone down and watched the screen go dark.
"You should get some sleep," Jolene said. She stood up and pulled one of her quilts off the back of the couch. "I'll get you some pillows."
"Jolene—"
"You can stay here as long as you need," she said. She wasn't asking. She was telling me. "I mean it, Callie. However long it takes."
"I know."
She disappeared down the hall, and I sat there alone in her living room with the furnace humming and the clock ticking on the wall and my phone sitting silent on the couch beside me.
I knew where the spare key was hidden and which step on the porch creaked and how the furnace always kicked on too loud at night. This was mine. The rescue had been mine. Jolene was mine.
My phone buzzed again. And again. The messages kept coming, one after another, like Wade thought if he just sent enough of them eventually one would be the right thing to say and I'd come home.
He was still reaching for me.
I picked up the phone one more time. My thumb was cold against the glass, and the furnace clicked on somewhere behind the wall. I scrolled through the new messages.
I'm sorry. I don't know what I did but I'm sorry.
Please don't shut me out.
We can figure this out together. Just come home and we'll talk.
I love you.
I stared at the last message until my vision blurred. He did love me. I knew that. I'd never doubted it, not for one second in ten years.
Love wasn't enough.
Jolene came back with an armful of pillows and blankets. She set them down on the couch beside me and didn't say anything about my face or the phone in my hand or the way I was sitting there like a live wire, vibrating with something I didn't have a name for.
She just touched my shoulder once, light and steady, and then she left me alone.
The numbness was wearing off completely now.
Underneath the numbness was an ache so deep I didn't know if I'd ever find the bottom of it.
My throat felt tight. My chest hurt. I wanted to curl up on this couch and let Jolene cover me with one of her quilts and pretend the rest of the world didn't exist for a little while.
But I couldn't. Because the world did exist, and Wade was still out there reaching for me, and I was still here trying to figure out how to breathe through the ache of it.
I set the phone face down on the cushion beside me. Pulled the quilt over my lap. Rubbed my thumb across the bare place on my finger one more time.
The furnace kicked off. The house settled into silence. Outside, the wind picked up and rattled the window in its frame.
I sat there on Jolene's couch with my wedding ring gone and my husband's messages piling up unanswered and my whole chest turned toward a phone that wouldn't stop lighting up, and I ached.