Chapter 21 #2
It was covered in stickers and glued-on sequins. Keep Out was written in my sister’s sloping script.
I dropped the lid on the floor and began to rummage through the meaningless junk inside, not surprised to find more than a few items that had once belonged to me.
Bailey really was a pack rat.
But then something caught my eye. Something that nudged at a memory I had buried in the chaos of my mind.
Something that brought with it recollections from that night.
“You’re right. I shouldn’t love him. But I do,” Jenn gasped, her hand clutching her head. I noticed she wore three silver bangles on her right wrist. They sounded like windchimes as they clinked together on her arm. I watched, with some concern, as blood dripped down her face.
“Are you okay?” I found myself asking her.
I noticed the dark stains on the ground near her feet.
Jenn lifted her fingers away, staring at the red stain on her skin. “I don’t know.”
Then she started to cry. Deep, heaving sobs that racked her body. And despite my anger, I couldn’t help but be moved by her devastation.
I found a pack of tissues in my purse and held one out for her to take.
“Th-thanks,” she hiccupped, pressing it to her wound.
“Who did that to you?” I asked. “Was it Rhett?” I couldn’t believe I was contemplating that my fiancé could hurt someone like that, but there were a lot of things I would never have imagined him capable of.
“He didn’t mean to.” Jenn wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“What?” I asked, thinking about how he had put his hands on me just a few hours earlier. Had he done the same to Jenn?
“I pushed him to it. I told him I couldn’t be with him. It’s only because he loves me.” Jenn was all excuses. I recognized them well. They were the ones I had just been telling myself.
“Rhett Clark doesn’t love anyone but himself,” I spat out, feeling a fissure of rage on her behalf.
She shook her head. “I had to get away. He wouldn’t listen. Then he and Marty—”
“Marty was with you?”
Her eyes widened. “You know him? You know Marty?” She seemed terrified and concerned. “Lucy, you have to be careful. He’s not who you think he is. He’s dangerous.”
Marty? Dangerous? That didn’t surprise me. There was something dark and sinister about him, but maybe that was what I liked.
“This isn’t about Marty. Tell me what happened with you and Rhett.” I took a step closer, annoyed and pissed off that she, too, had a connection to them both. It disturbed me that we were involved with the same two men. What did this girl have that I didn’t?
I swallowed my irritation, knowing I was being unreasonable.
Jenn shook her head, her face clouded with uncertainty. “We were fighting, Rhett and me. I told him I was leaving town.” She paused then looked at me, the tears drying on her face. “I told him I was leaving by myself.”
Thunder rumbled overhead, and rain soaked our clothes. “Not with Rhett?”
Jenn’s expression hardened. “He lied to me, Lucy. He lied to both of us. And he hurt me. So, as much as I …” She swallowed. “As much as I care about him, I can’t be with someone like that. I’ve spent my whole life loving the wrong people. That stops now.”
I regarded my romantic rival with something that felt a lot like respect.
“So you and Rhett—?”
The lightning flashed like a strobe effect.
Jenn pressed her lips together, a look of firm resolve on her pretty face.
“There is no Rhett and me, Lucy. I can promise you that.” Her confession seemed to take a lot out of her.
She winced. “I ran away, but when I circled back a while later, Rhett was gone. I have no idea where he went.”
I felt something loosen inside me. All my anger faded, washed away by the rainstorm. “I blamed you for all this. You humiliated me,” I told her.
I thought about my fight with Rhett earlier. The memory of my stinging cheek. The hateful words he flung at me.
Jenn hadn’t made him do, and say, those things. That was all on him.
Jenn flinched. “I understand. But I promise you, I had no idea he was engaged. He never said a word about you. If I had known, I would never …” Her voice broke and I saw that she was crying again. This time I let myself feel bad for her.
Because none of this was her fault.
Nor was it mine.
This lay entirely at Rhett’s feet. He had created this situation, and I would be damned if I’d get into a cat fight over a man who was playing us both. A man who would use his hands when things weren’t going his way.
“I believe you,” I said, and I meant it.
Jenn wiped her eyes and nodded. “I’m sorry, Lucy.”
We stared at each other for a few moments, not as two women who had been pitted against each other, but as people who understood what the other was feeling on a basic level.
We had both been deceived and betrayed.
“What I told Rhett is true. I am leaving town, so you don’t need to worry about me anymore,” Jenn assured me. “But maybe, you should think twice before marrying a man like that.”
I didn’t know what to say. Because she was right. But I had also come too far to back out now. There was more than my pride at stake. It was my freedom too. Because I knew that admitting Rhett and I were over would mean handing back control of my life to my parents. And I couldn’t do that.
But was I willing to relinquish one prison for another?
Did I really think my love for Rhett was enough to carry us both?
Was my vision for our future worth the inevitable heartache?
I felt paralyzed by indecision. “I’m not like you,” I told her. “I can’t just up and leave and see where the wind takes me. I have been working for years toward getting married and building a life with Rhett. People expect the wedding. My parents expect it.”
Jenn came toward me and put her hand on my arm, the lightning glinting off her bracelets. “You can be anyone you want to be, Lucy. Rhett doesn’t deserve your loyalty. Your parents wouldn’t want you to tie yourself to a man like that.”
She didn’t understand that the thought of admitting I was wrong to them would be worse than tying myself to someone who didn’t want me.
I pulled away from her, knowing she meant well, but also not wanting her judgment—or her sympathy.
My life was different from hers. “Thanks, Jenn. And good luck with everything.” I started to head toward the path that would lead me back to my car, but then I stopped.
“And let’s hope we’re both smarter next time. ”
Jenn smiled. “Oh, I think we will be.”
So I left behind the girl my fiancé had cheated on me with.
It was the last time I ever saw her.