47. Chapter Forty Two #2
Ruby’s smile becomes poisonous. “I wasn’t gonna use these,” she says quietly. The erratic energy has gone again, replaced by something steady, which worries me more. “Figured maybe we could settle this nicely.”
“Ruby,” Wade warns, though it barely comes out as a sound.
“Oh, come on now.” She tilts the phone slightly, still keeping it out of my sight. “You really think I don’t still got eyes and ears around this town?”
“What do you want?” Wade asks, but under his words is something I never have heard from him before—he’s afraid. I’ve heard him angry, irritated, fed up, furious. But never, in all my life, have I heard him sound scared.
“Sixty percent,” Ruby says pleasantly. “Of everything you own. Whatever that's worth nowadays. You don't fight me in court. I keep my mouth shut.” She cocks her head. “Simple.”
“What are you talking about?” I close the distance between us, stepping into the space between them. “What's on the phone?”
Neither of them answers.
Wade’s widened eyes drift between me and Mom in rapid speed, panic behind them as though he is working out the best course of action.
Then suddenly, he looks tired; every ounce of fight has been wrung out of him.
His broad shoulders drop. His chest deflates.
The exhale that leaves him is long and ragged, and it takes something with it, carves something out of him, and when it's done, he looks the smallest I’ve ever seen him.
“Dad.”
He still doesn’t move. Not even a blink. He’s just standing there, looking like a man waiting for someone to take him out. Ruby’s grin is still plastered across her face, giving her a predatory look. Whatever she’s got, she knows it's working.
“Fine.”
“No.” The word is out of my mouth before I've decided to say it. All I know is that I can’t let him do this.
This woman, as much as it is killing me, is not the one I have loved all my life.
She is a shadow of her. An evil shadow, and she cannot come here and ruin things now that life is starting to feel good again.
“You don’t owe her another damn thing. She doesn’t get to disappear for eighteen years, walk back in here, and start making demands. ”
“Colt—”
“No.” I cut him off. “Whatever she has, I don’t care.”
For a moment, a stupidly hopeful moment, I think Ruby might back down. That she would see the pain she is causing me and decide to do the motherly thing and leave whatever this is alone.
Instead, she laughs.
It starts under her breath, small and barely audible, but it keeps going.
Her shoulders start to shake as she bends over, one hand braced against her stomach like this is the funniest thing she has ever heard.
When she straightens again, there is something wrong in her eyes.
The pupils are blown so large there is barely any colour left.
The laughter begins to fade, but her breathing is still erratic, very short and uneven. She switched from the calm control to this bizarre energy so quickly that it’s unsettling. There’s a slight disconnect between what her face is doing and the rest of her body.
She’s high. She came back here, after all this time, and she’s high.
“That's sweet,” she says, when the laughing finally runs dry. She wipes the corner of one eye. “Real sweet, Son. But you don't know what your father's been up to.”
Every word she says is laced with spite.
“Ruby—” Wade’s voice cuts through sharp as knives. “I just told you I’d give you what you want. Now leave and let us be.”
“Let you be.” She starts to move again, hands jerky in the air.
“What, so you can all play happy families while I've been scraping by, fighting for whatever life throws at me?
Do you know… Do you have any idea what it's been like?” Her hands go to her hair, fingers raking through it, gripping hard like the pull of it is the only thing keeping her tethered.
“You threw me out. You made me choose. You kept my son from me, and now you get to just… move on? Smile and be the good guy? No.” She shakes her head hard, still gripping her own hair. “No, you don't get that.”
The laugh comes again. This time it is thin and brittle.
“You know what?” Her thumb slides across the screen. “Fine. Fuck the money. Let’s stop pretending then, shall we?”
She turns the phone, and my stomach drops before my eyes have even finished processing what I’m looking at.
Wade.
Maeve.
Both of them—together.
Multiple photos put together to form a collage.
I take in the first couple of shots; my brain tries to explain them before I even realise I’m doing it.
Many of them look innocent enough at first glance.
Them, just standing together, talking, looking far more comfortable in each other’s company than I’ve ever seen with my own eyes.
But it’s the others that really hit.
Maeve’s hand tucked into his.
Wade kissing her, one hand pressed at the small of her back.
And one of her against the railing, head tipped back, his body close enough that my brain immediately tries to reject what I’m seeing.
No.
No, that can’t be right.
They don’t even like each other. Half the time they can barely get through a conversation without snapping at one another.
But pictures don’t lie…
The sound that comes out of me isn't a word. It's just air. All the air, leaving at once. I shake my head manically. The gravel shifts under my boots and I distantly realise that I've stepped backward, like some part of my body is trying to physically remove itself from what my eyes are seeing.
My father. My best friend… The girl I’ve spent months—
I can’t finish the thought.
No one speaks. And somehow the silence hurts worse than if they had.
Ruby lowers the phone slowly, and she's watching me the way you watch something you've been waiting a long time to see. There's a hunger in it that makes me feel sick. She looks almost excited to see me ready to break.
“Colt…” Maeve’s voice just about reaches.
I raise one hand without turning around. Because I know if I see her face right now, that's it. Whatever I'm still holding together, that's what finishes it.
“See, Son?” Ruby's voice is thick with satisfaction. “Your father isn't quite the man he makes himself out to be.”
“Ruby—” Wade starts.
I’m done.
Just empty. Standing here with the cold air on my face, and no idea what expression I’m wearing. Everything feels numb, my surroundings gone strange and distant.
I am aware that people are watching. I can feel it, that pressure of eyes, but I can't make myself care about it the way I normally would. The part of me that would’ve cared about that, forcing myself to pretend everything is ok, is gone.
I just want to go somewhere so deep inside my own head that nothing out here can reach me anymore.
But my brain won't stop. When does it ever?
It just keeps running the list. Every person who was supposed to love me and found a way to hurt me anyway.
There are more names on it than there should be for someone my age, and the worst part is they're all here tonight, standing in this parking lot, watching me hold it together with whatever I have left.
Colt Carter. Everyone's emotional punching bag.
I breathe in through my nose. Out slow.