Page 21 of Cold Foot Cash

Furious and shaking, Harley hung up the phone and sat there mortified for a few seconds before she laid back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Tears streamed from the corners of her eyes. She’d heard divorces could be hard, and messy, but this emotional roller coaster she’d been on for the past year was exhausting. It had drained her to just a shell of herself. And now she was so close, and Lance was sinking his claws into her again? How dare he.

She squeezed her eyes closed as she began to cry in earnest. Harley let herself curl up on the mattress and lose it. She hadn’tcried this hard in so long. She’d been numb, but here in this little motel room, after hearing that awful woman’s voice, she felt so hurt by it all. That woman had stepped on her marriage, and then was asking her to leave her own husband alone. That’s what was happening? And Harley would be classy. She had always been classy. She would allow people to embarrass her and hurt her and she would never make them pay or lash out or take any of this public. She wouldn’t post about it, or ask for sympathy. She just absorbed everything.

Her whole damn hometown knew. It was this huge scandal, and she’d just tried to keep her head up and act like all the whispers didn’t affect her, while her heart was breaking.

It was all so messed up.

Being away from it and having the clarity to see the absolute absurdity of it all just opened the floodgates of her emotions.

She hated what he’d done to her. Hated how bad she felt. Hated knowing she wasn’t enough.

And he was sending her damn wedding pictures! It was too much! She’d been so happy, so hopeful, so faithful, and what had he done? Hurt her and didn’t care. Not at all. He’d made Harley move out of their home, and while she was still sleeping on a damn futon in her tiny apartment, he had moved Alissa right in. He’d replaced Harley so easily, while she had been trying to figure out what had even happened.

She thought of calling Carolina, but she didn’t want to bother her. Not when she was going through a break up of sorts as well. Harley sat up and pulled the napkin from her pocket and looked at Cash’s phone number, scribbled across it.

She could call him, but mostly she would just want to ream him for texting Lance, and taking a picture. He’d been talking about how those guys shouldn’t take a picture of her without her permission, but he had done the same thing.

Why had he done that?

Lance was losing it on her, and Alissa was calling, and she felt so raw and angry and sad.

She crumpled the napkin and chucked it onto the floor, hugged the pillow close and curled around it again, sobbing.

She cried and cried until her tears ran dry, and her body was exhausted. She let it hurt. It needed to hurt. She’d kept everything inside for so long, trying to do the right and classy thing. Trying to make sure everyone around her was good, but she wasn’t good. She wasn’t okay.

Six more days. Six days and the emotional roller coaster and the should-I, shouldn’t-I debate that had been wrecking her heart for the last year would be dead in the water. Six more days and she could cut the dead weight out of her life, and finally feel lighter.

Tonight had been good for her. Sure, this part hurt, and it sucked, but she’d had fun tonight with strangers, and remembered how to laugh, and got flirted with. A handsome man bought her a drink. She wasn’t dead. She wasn’t unlikeable. She just wasn’t her old self anymore, and she was going to have to mourn that part of herself, because she couldn’t go back. She’d been through too much hardship. She’d learned too much and had too much life experience with something painful now.

But…she could grow into a new version of herself, and hopefully someday she would like herself again.

Tonight had been a good starting point. It had been a reminder that she was still alive at least.

She’d come to Darby thinking what she needed was to take care of her sister and find out if she was being catfished, but perhaps what she had really needed was time and distance from her life in Bozeman.

So okay.

Harley pushed up off the bed and looked around. The room was the same, but she felt so different now.

The general store next door was open for another forty-five minutes. She washed her face and grabbed her purse, and made her way out of the room. The store was a short walk away, and she was in her head so deep, thinking about those texts, she barely noted that she’d picked up a shopping basket.

Uh, what did she need?

Harley drifted to the aisle on the very right with the intention of moving aisle to aisle and getting whatever she needed. Usually she made lists, but tonight, she could barely think straight.

“Hey stranger,” a familiar voice said on aisle two, and Harley gasped as she turned to find Cash standing there.

“Are you following me?” she asked, averting her face. She wiped her cheeks just out of insecurity.

“No. I didn’t know you would be in here. We’re all here grabbing some stuff before we head…back…to…hey, are you okay?”

He was standing next to her now, and she could so easily smell his cologne. “I’m great. Have a good night.”

“Hey,” he said, following her.

“Leave me alone, Cash. Please.”

“But you’re crying.”

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