Page 110 of Avenged

“Have you been drinking?” she asked.

“No, just took one of the pain pills from Dr. Price.” I took a step and weaved again. “Whoa. Do you think we could have Jada drive me to Truck’s?”

“No.”

“What?”

“First of all, she’s left for that stupid fundraiser in New York, and two, I’m not letting you go anywhere looking like that and without a plan.”

I nodded. She was right. I needed a plan. All good superheroes had a plan, especially when they were righting their own mistakes.

Truck

LET IT BE LOVE

“When you’re tired of the mistakes that you keep making,

When you feel your heart is done with all its breaking.

And all the second chances you keep taking,

Let it be love.”

Performed by Lady Antebellum

Written by Wadge / Scott / Reynolds

I gave up any attempt at sleep as the sun started to turn the night into day. I pulled on a pair of sweats and my lame The LEGO Movie T-shirt about good guys. It was one of the only clean shirts I had. I made coffee and caught sight of the flowers in the backyard. They looked sad and droopy. Like Jersey. Like me.

I set the coffee down and went outside, grabbing the hose from beside the porch and pulling it toward the vegetables, herbs, and flowers Jersey had planted. I stood by the empty fairy planter Dawson had picked up for me that I’d never had the chance to give her and sprayed the vegetation as if it were a summer storm. I had no idea if I was watering them too much or too little. I hadn’t paid very close attention to what Jersey was doing in the garden as much as to the way she was moving while she did it.

I didn’t know why the hell I was bothering with the watering. I would be leaving at the end of the month, and I seriously doubted Dawson would continue to keep the garden up. I wasn’t sure he’d continue to live at the cottage at all. But as pissed as I was at Jersey at the moment, I couldn’t stand the thought of her hard work shriveling into nothingness. She’d put her heart into it.

I wished she’d put her heart into me. Into us.

I was being a whiney bastard. Eli had already texted me that several times with other messages that said, “Kidnap her,” “Don’t take no sitting down,” and “Persuade her with sex.” Mac had then come back with a quip about how I really must not be good in the sack if she wasn’t already crumbling into my waiting arms.

But they didn’t really know Jersey. They didn’t know how stubborn and independent she was. They didn’t understand the guilt she was carrying around like a shield. It was a huge shield, and it rebounded love and gifts as if they were bullets.

My text tone signaled again, and I just ignored it. I was tired of debating it. I’d laid my heart out, and she’d walked away from it. At the moment, I needed time to digest that. To understand if a repeat advance would make any progress, or if it was time to retreat and call it a battle lost.

The back door creaked open and slammed shut. I didn’t bother to look. I wasn’t in the mood for Dawson’s continued pushing any more than I was in the mood for Eli’s and Mac’s. I recognized it for what it was—the same brotherly love that hadn’t allowed him to sit wallowing on the couch with a game controller in his hand. And I wouldn’t. I wasn’t going to wallow, but I also had to figure out what came next.

After a few seconds, the awareness started to sink in. The awareness of her that I always felt whenever she was near, but especially when she was watching me. I turned off the water and slowly turned to face her.

She’d made it to the bottom of the porch steps and stopped. She was wearing the dress she’d worn on the day we’d gotten married. Light blue. Tiny straps. Translucent, smooth skin showing everywhere. The fact that she was even there was enough to make my heart leap into my throat with hope, but the stab of her rejection was still there, too. The hurt that the woman I loved hadn’t loved me enough was still throbbing in my veins. I deserved the pain, because I’d done the same to her. I’d let her walk away thinking I loved Dawson more. It wasn’t more or less. It was just different. My past had been wrapped in his childhood, but I’d wanted my future to be wrapped in her.

She stepped off the last step and took a couple hesitant steps toward me. She had something in her hands that she was fidgeting with instead of her ring. In the early morning light, I couldn’t quite tell what it was. She took me in from head to toe, settling on my lips for a long time, and then back to my eyes.

“I like your shirt,” she said and then grimaced as if she hadn’t meant to say it, as if she’d not caught her words in time to stop them.

“You came over at the crack of dawn to tell me you liked my shirt?” I asked, as I tried to contain the hope flaring through me. I wouldn’t be able to prevent myself from cracking in half if she’d come just to explain again all the reasons we couldn’t—shouldn’t—be together.

She rubbed her forehead. “I forgot what I was supposed to say.”

I heard Vi’s voice whisper something to her from the screen door, and my lips quirked. If Vi was here, I had a better chance. I had a chance at her being here for real. For all the reasons I wanted.

“I bought you a lottery ticket,” she said, holding out the object in her hand. She stepped closer again. Close enough I could smell her minty toothpaste and the scent of apples and cinnamon that was all her. She pushed the ticket toward me. I took it with a frown. She’d never bought a lottery ticket before. She’d told me she couldn’t waste the dollar.

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