4. Rae
RAE
I crouched under the wing at Ruben Cruz's shop on the field at Cibolo Heights and wiped my hands on a rag that was already filthy.
The familiar smell of avgas and old metal settled over me, and for the first time all day I could actually breathe.
Out here, with a wrench in my hand and a problem I knew how to solve, the tightness in my chest eased up just enough that I could pretend the morning hadn't happened.
Ruben stood a few feet away, arms crossed over his coveralls, watching me work.
He didn't hover. He never had, not even when I was nineteen and barely knew a torque wrench from a socket set.
This hangar had been my refuge back then, the only place where what I did mattered more than what I looked like or who I was supposed to marry someday.
That was before Nash bought his first plane, before I rebuilt the whole damn thing right here on this concrete floor with Ruben talking me through every step.
Before the fleet, before the airline, before Austin.
Before everything started moving too fast for me to keep up.
"You remember what I told you about these birds?" Ruben's voice was rough from too many years of cigarettes he'd quit a decade ago. He sounded like gravel in a tin can.
I glanced up at him from under the wing. "Which part?"
He tilted his head toward the Cessna, then out toward the field where two more planes sat waiting for their annuals. "What goes up comes down. One way or another."
The words landed flat, matter-of-fact, the kind of thing a mechanic says a thousand times without thinking about it. But they stuck in my chest anyway, heavier than they should've been.
I nodded and turned back to the hydraulic line.
The fitting was loose, not cracked, which meant I could fix it instead of ordering a part and waiting three weeks for it to ship.
Small blessings. My hands knew what to do even though my brain had been somewhere else all morning — in the penthouse with Nash's coffee mug in my hand, slamming cabinet doors I should've closed gently, or sitting in my truck in the driveway watching his taillights disappear toward Austin while I tried not to think about Adriana Moreau's face on that video call.
For you? Always.
God, I was still furious about it.
I pushed the thought down and focused on the wrench. The fitting had backed itself off just enough to let fluid seep past the threads, which meant someone had installed it without checking the torque. Sloppy work. I hated sloppy work.
"Hand me the nine-sixteenths," I said, holding my hand out.
Enid crouched down next to the toolbox at my feet and squinted at the wrenches lined up inside. "Which one?"
"Third from the left, the small one." I watched her hand hover, then grab the right tool and pass it over. "Thanks."
She settled back on her heels, close enough that I could feel her watching me work.
Enid. My neighbour from the street in Cibolo Heights, from the little house Nash kept saying we'd move back to.
We talked most days — she'd been on my screen just this week, telling me to stop staring at the same paint swatches — but this was the first time she'd been right here next to me in person since the wedding.
She'd driven out to Ruben's shop because she knew I'd be here, and because she knew, somehow, that I needed someone.
She didn't say anything while I worked. That was Enid — she waited, she watched, and then she asked the question you didn't want to answer.
I could feel her attention on me like a weight, patient and deliberate.
She was trying to figure out what was wrong, and I knew from experience that she'd get there eventually whether I helped her or not.
I tightened the fitting carefully, checking the torque twice to make sure it was seated right.
Then I grabbed a clean rag and wiped down the line, inspecting it for cracks I might've missed.
Nothing. Just the loose fitting. The repair had taken me maybe twenty minutes, but my shoulders ached like I'd been working for hours.
I stood up too fast. The blood rushed out of my head and the hangar tilted sideways.
"Whoa." Enid caught my elbow before I could stagger. "You okay?"
"Yeah." I steadied myself against the wing and waited for the world to stop spinning. "Just stood up too quick."
She didn't let go of my arm. Her grip was firm, deliberate, and when I looked at her I saw the expression I'd been dreading. Concerned. Knowing.
"Rae."
God, I hated the way she said my name. Like she already knew the answer and was just giving me the chance to say it first.
I pulled my arm free and started gathering the tools scattered around the toolbox. "I'm fine."
"You're not fine."
"Enid—"
"You drove forty minutes to fix a hydraulic line that didn't need you.
" She crouched down next to me and lowered her voice, even though Ruben had walked outside to take a call and we were alone in the hangar.
"You look like you haven't slept in a week.
And you've been staring at that fitting like it personally offended you.
So no, Rae, you're not fine. Something's wrong. "
I didn't look at her. My throat went tight and I focused on wiping down the wrench in my hand, even though it didn't need it and we both knew I was stalling.
I wasn't going to do this. I wasn't going to sit here in Ruben's hangar and spill my guts about my marriage like some ridiculous girl who couldn't handle her own life.
But Enid didn't move. She just sat there on her heels, waiting, the same way she used to wait when we were younger and I was trying to work up the nerve to tell her something I didn't want to admit.
The hangar was quiet. Outside, the wind rattled the tin roof and carried the sound of a plane taking off from the other end of the field. I could hear my own breathing, too fast, too shallow.
"It's nothing," I said finally. The words sounded hollow even to me.
"It's not nothing." She shifted her weight and tilted her head, catching my eye whether I wanted her to or not. "It's not nothing, and it's not just you. It's you and Nash."
My hands stopped moving.
I looked at her then, and whatever she saw on my face made her expression go soft in a way that was somehow worse than if she'd pushed. Like she felt sorry for me. Like I was already lost and she was just waiting for me to catch up to the fact.
"How bad is it?" she asked quietly.
I set the wrench down in the toolbox. My chest hurt and I realized I'd been holding my breath. When I let it out, the words came with it before I could stop them.
"He's never here."
My voice sounded flat even to my own ears. Defeated. I hated it.
"He promised we'd settle back into the house in Cibolo Heights," I continued.
"The one he bought back. But we're still in Austin.
Another penthouse, boxes we've never unpacked, and I don't even know which number floor we're on anymore because they all look the same.
He's always at the airline. Always. And when he's not there, he's thinking about it.
About the routes, the schedules, the planes, the inspections.
He looks at his phone when I'm talking to him.
He's late for everything. And he doesn't . . . he doesn't stay."
Enid's jaw tightened, but she didn't interrupt. She just listened.
"This morning I asked him to spend the afternoon here with me," I said, and God, it sounded so pathetic when I said it out loud.
Like I was begging for scraps. "Just one afternoon.
That's all I wanted. And he said no. He had an FAA inspection at the airline, all day, and he couldn't miss it.
I get that. I do. The airline's important, and the inspection matters, and I wasn't going to fight him on it. But then Adriana called him."
I stopped. My hands were shaking and I pressed them flat against my thighs to make them stop.
"She asked him to stay through the evening debrief," I said.
"And he told her he'd stay as long as she needed.
'For you? Always.' That's what he said to her, Enid.
He was sitting ten feet away from me when he said it.
He gave her the time he wouldn't give me, and he didn't even look at me while he did it.
Like I wasn't there. Like I didn't matter. "
The hangar was so quiet I could hear the clock ticking on the wall behind Ruben's desk. Tick. Tick. Tick. Each second stretching out longer than it should, filling up the space where Enid wasn't saying anything and I was sitting there feeling like an idiot for saying too much.
"How long has it been like this?" Enid asked.
"I don't know." I rubbed my face with both hands, pressing hard enough that I saw spots behind my eyelids. "A while. Maybe always. Maybe I just didn't notice before because I was busy, too, but now I can't stop noticing and it's like he's already gone even when he's standing right next to me."
I stopped before I said the rest. I wasn't going to tell her about the baby.
I wasn't going to tell her about the months I'd spent hoping Nash would notice something was different, that I needed him, that I was falling apart in slow motion while he built his empire and forgot I existed.
I wasn't going to say any of that because saying it out loud would make it real, and I wasn't ready for it to be real yet.
Enid was quiet for a long moment. Then she said, "What do you want me to tell you?"
I looked at her. She wasn't pitying me anymore. She was watching me like she was waiting for me to make a decision, like whatever I said next mattered.
"I want you to tell me how to fix it," I said.
"Okay." She stood up and brushed off her jeans. "Stop waiting."
"What?"
"Stop waiting for him to come to you." Her voice was steady, not unkind, but absolutely certain in a way that made my spine straighten without me meaning it to.
"Stop waiting for him to remember the house or keep his promises or notice you're falling apart.
You want him to see you? Go where he is.
Put yourself in his world instead of sitting around in yours hoping he'll remember it exists. "
I stared at her. The idea of showing up at the airline unannounced made my stomach flip, but not in a bad way. More like the moment right before you step off a ledge and hope the rope holds.
"You mean just . . . go there? Tonight?"
"Yeah, Rae. Go there. Walk into his office and remind him you exist." She crossed her arms and tilted her head, the same way she used to when we were teenagers and she was daring me to do something I was too scared to try.
"Unless you'd rather sit in the penthouse and wait for him to come home late again. Your choice."
I thought about this morning. Nash in the kitchen, scrolling through his phone while I asked him to stay.
The sound of the door closing behind him.
The coffee I'd poured down the sink because I couldn't stand to look at it anymore, because it reminded me that I'd made it for him and he hadn't even noticed.
I thought about the forty-third floor. The boxes. The empty rooms that never felt like home.
"Okay," I said.
Enid's eyebrows went up. "Okay?"
"Yeah. Okay." I closed the toolbox and stood up, brushing the dust off my jeans.
My hands were still shaking, but it wasn't from standing up too fast this time.
It was nerves. It was the feeling that I was about to do something that mattered, even if I didn't know whether it would work or blow up in my face. "I'll go."
She grinned at me then, the first real smile I'd seen from her all day. "Good. Now get out of here before you change your mind."
I grabbed my jacket off the workbench and headed for the door.
Outside, Ruben was still leaning against the fence, phone pressed to his ear, gesturing with his free hand the way he always did when he was explaining something technical to someone who didn't get it.
I caught his eye and waved. He nodded back, still deep in his conversation, and I kept walking.
My truck was parked in the gravel lot next to the hangar.
I climbed in, started the engine, and sat there for a minute with my hands on the wheel.
The field stretched out in front of me, flat and wide and empty under the late afternoon sun.
A Piper Cub taxied past, heading for the runway, and I watched it until it lifted off and disappeared into the sky.
What goes up comes down. One way or another.
The drive to Austin would take me forty minutes if the traffic wasn't bad.
I could be there by the time the inspection wrapped, maybe earlier if I pushed it.
I didn't have a plan beyond that — no speech prepared, no clear idea of what I'd say when I walked through the door of Nash's office and interrupted whatever he was doing. But Enid was right.
Waiting wasn't working. Waiting was killing me.
I put the truck in gear and pulled out onto the highway, heading north toward Austin. Toward Nash. Toward the airline and Adriana Moreau and the life he'd built without me. My heart was pounding hard enough that I could feel it in my throat, but I didn't slow down.
I was done waiting.