Page 66 of Redeem

I wanted to but I didn’t.

I had no excuse for it, but I had no ability to stop, didn’t have the capacity to make myself not care.

So I did what I always did in these situations. When I wasn’t crying, I threw myself into work, determined to finish the shutters we had started together.

It was small, meaningless, really, but I threw myself into the project with gusto. At least doing so helped the moments tick by a little bit faster, gave me something like hope that things would eventually get better, that I’d be able to forget him.

I’d started in the morning, and the hours passed in an undifferentiated slide. I just moved from one task to the next, not stopping to eat or drink, not caring to. I just did all I could to keep myself from falling apart.

But, in the late afternoon, I broke down again.

The tears came, stronger than they had been before, more intense, and incapable of being denied.

I cried, cried for all that we had lost, all that we would never have. Cried for my husband, cried for myself.

Cried for Ciprian.

Over these weeks, a little voice had whispered that no matter what had happened, when Ciprian had walked away, so had my last chance at happiness. That voice got louder, told me that I should have fought and not just let him walk away.

But I hadn’t, and I would never see him again.

I looked at the partially finished shutters, knew that I would never be able to finish them, let alone hang them, see that reminder of him every day.

Then I looked at the house.

It looked like it always had, but everywhere I saw touches of him.

Saw the weathered siding, the crooked porch steps he promised to rebuild just as soon as he learned how.

There was no way I could stay here.

Could I do it again, start over, keep going?

I didn’t know.

The need to do something, anything, had me moving, and I went to the shed, found a container of gasoline.

For an insane moment, I thought about dousing the whole house. I resisted that urge and instead pulled all the shutters he and I had made into a pile and soaked them with gas. I stared at the wood, the acrid scent of the gasoline burning my nostrils. I dropped the can, heard the liquid slosh inside it.

Some reserve of common sense I didn’t know I had made me step back, but a moment later, I struck and tossed the match and watched the shutters burn until they were nothing but ash.

Twenty-Seven

Ciprian

I walked the familiar path from the hotel to the hardware store on muscle memory, my body moving without conscious direction from my brain.

It had been more than a month since I’d seen Dana last, two weeks since I’d started going back to the store.

Ioan and Clan Petran had been surprisingly merciful, but after they let me go, they hadn’t provided further transportation, and I hadn’t been interested in asking. So it had taken me nearly two weeks to make my way back here.

Part of me wondered why I bothered.

Dana hated me, as was more than her right, so there was nothing here for me. Yet I’d come back, for lack of anywhere else to go, for the need to be as close to her as I could.

As I entered the parking lot, I looked around, a habit I hadn’t been able to break yet. I doubted Dana would ever come here again, yet I still searched for her on automatic, ignored the little jab of pain in my heart when I didn’t see her. A glint caught my eye, and I followed it, my mind wanting to reject what I saw, but my eyes not allowing me.

I instantly recognized the vehicle, just as I recognized the woman who drove it. I kept my eyes on Dana as she parked, then got out. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her, kept them on her until she disappeared inside the store.

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