Page 128 of Fierce-Hyde

“Neither. Just a comment,” she said. She sat back down and he sat in the chair next to her. “He said he has cancer and it isn’t good. He’d like to see me, but he can’t get here.”

“You’re going to go there?” he asked. How could she be thinking that?

“I don’t know. I want to think about it. He’s starting treatment next week. I’m starting a new job. It’s only five hours so I could do a weekend. I don’t know. Then he told me he was married and his wife follows me on social media. That is how she knew where I lived.”

“You don’t know who is following you on social media?” he asked. “How is that possible?”

It didn’t seem like something she wouldn’t be aware of.

“She’s probably following me posting on my work accounts,” she said. “Those are public and my name is on them.”

“Oh,” he said. “I get it.”

“She doesn’t have to follow me to see them. And my agency is based in Durham, so it was a good guess is all.”

He nodded. That made more sense. “You knew nothing about him being married?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I even called him out on it. Then he said Shelly has been wanting him to talk to me for years.”

“I’m sorry, Tori. But I’m just pissed off that for five years he’s had someone else in his life telling him to reach out for more than a text and he hasn’t done it. Now that he’s what, dying? Now he wants to talk to you?”

She started to cry and that wasn’t the effect he was going for.

“I don’t know anything,” she said, putting her hands up in the air. “And your tone of voice is why I went to Raina. She’d besympathetic to things and see where I’m confused over it. You’re getting angry.”

He ran his hands through his hair. She was right.

“Sorry. I’m angryforyou. I’m angry that he’s making you feel like this.”

“I know,” she said, sniffling. “I didn’t mean to snap just now.”

“You didn’t snap,” he said. He handed her a tissue. “I’m just confused.”

“Join the crowd,” she said.

“What are you going to do?” he asked.

“I don’t know yet. I’m going to think about it for a day or so and then decide.”

“If you decide to go, I’d like to go with you. I don’t want you to be alone.”

“No,” she said. “This is one of those things I have to do alone.”

He wanted to argue but knew that wouldn’t get anything accomplished.

“I don’t like it,” he said.

“It’s not for you to like or not,” she said, straightening her back. “This is my life that he left in the balance for years.”

“That’s right, and now he just makes a call and you’re on your big toe up in the air waving your arms and other leg around trying to figure out who or what can soften your fall on the way down. I love you and not being there to catch you is wrong. You can get pissed at me all you want, but that is part of being in a relationship. You don’t have to do everything on your own anymore.”

“I’m not used to doing things any other way,” she argued.

“I get that,” he said. “But you don’thaveto anymore.”

“Hyde, I appreciate it. I do. But if I decide to go, it has to be on my own. Just your reaction to this is distracting to me and Ican’t be. There are things I’m going to want to do and say and it’s best to not have you around.”

He wouldn’t let his heart break hearing that he wasn’t needed.

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