Page 80 of When Fate Breaks
My own thoughts are at battle with each other.That’s seriously what this has come to?
I put my phone down, looking up at the ceiling in thought, when something catches my attention in my peripheral vision. I turn my head sideways, surveying the flower vase on Leah’s bedside table. It’s full of pale pink roses and some other type of orange flower I don’t recognize…and baby’s breath.
I reach out, plucking a sprig from the vase and twirling it between my fingers. Without thinking, I pick up my phone and take a photo of the flower in my hand. I never took my bracelet off from last night, so it’s also showing in the frame.
I open up my and Blake’s message conversation. Even though I already know there’s no message from him this morning, seeing it makes my heart sink all over again. I open the photo I just took within our conversation, zooming in on my bracelet and seeing the flowers Blake picked out, hand pressed, and sealed in resin. Just for me.
God, I’m an idiot.
I’ve been so scared of something going wrong with Blake that I’ve refused to even attempt to let something go right. Have refused to let him in. Or at least I’ve pretended to refuse. The heavy feeling currently sitting in my chest tells me he's already been in there for a long long time.
I’ve been so against the feeling of missing him when we’re apart, but here I am, missing him anyways. Hurting anyways. Wouldn’t it make so much more sense to at least be able to steal moments of happiness when we are allowed rather than letting the sadness and longing last all the time?
Sure, I hadn’t factored the idea of a relationship into the next few years of my life, especially not a long distance one at that, but surely we could figure it out. I’m in college. Blake has a job. We’re adults. We could do this.Right?
The second I attach the photo to my message, all the alarms and second guessing buzzers go off in the back of my head at once. I push those along with my sudden feeling of nausea away, shoving them into a box and placing them in the far corner of my mind.
“Oh, what the hell?” I mutter to myself, hitting send. I realize one second after doing so that I should have added a message to the photo telling him I miss him too. I start to type it out but Leah distracts me, snapping my attention to her.
“What’s wrong?” Leah asks. “Can’t get ahold of your Dad? He was supposed to get you at noon, right?”
“Oh,” I blurt, hiding the baby’s breath from her view. “Yeah, he hasn’t said anything. I was just texting him to check up. I’m sure he just got busy at the store and lost track of time.”
I start to type a message to Dad asking where he is before Leah interrupts me again. “I drive right past y’all’s store on the way to work. Do you want me to just drop you off there?”
“Oh, yeah. That’d be great. Thank you,” I say, backspacing my current message to Dad and typing out a new one.
Me: Forget about me, old man? Haha. Leah’s gonna drop me off at the store. See you in a few!
“What are rats for?” Leah winks, both of us chuckling as I peel myself out of bed and start attempting to get my life together within the next three minutes.
* * *
Leah pullsto a stop across the street from the hardware store, hugging me goodbye over the center console of her truck and thanking me for the hundredth time for coming down to celebrate. I wave to her from the sidewalk, waiting for her to pull away before I cross the street.
The writing ofJacks Hardwareon our main store sign stands out in bright white letters against the dark green background. but, as I approach the building, I realize something is not quite right.
The inside is dark and the neon sign we have of our logo in the window is turned off. When I reach the door, I see theOpensign is turned over to readClosed. I shield one hand over the top of my eyes, peering inside and not seeing any signs of life. I try yanking on the door handle, but it’s firmly locked. I have my own set of keys, but, after walking around the side of the building, I see that neither of my parents' vehicles are here, nor is Ronnie’s.
I pull out my phone again, checking the date and time once more to make sure I’m not crazy.
Saturday, September 1st. 1:04 pm.
Nope, not crazy. We should definitely be open right now.
I check my messages, seeing my inbox is still empty. I try calling both Dad and Mom twice each and neither of them pick up.
Seriously, what the hell?
Even though it’s pushing ninety degrees outside right now, I take off walking. Our home is luckily only about a ten minute walk from the store, just down the street and around the corner. Dad has always said if it were any farther than that he’d never make it into work and would probably have to fire himself. I’m internally thanking him right now for our mutual lack of patience.
When I approach my family’s home, I quickly spot both my dad’s truck and mom’s SUV parked in the driveway. It’s extremely rare that only one of my parents are at the store at a time and literally unheard of in my entire life that theybotharen’tthere unless we are on vacation.
Why are they at home?
I wrack my brain, trying to figure out if there’s something I forgot. I unlock my phone, seeing I still have no new messages before I scroll back a few days on both of my conversations with my parents. Nothing. No reason why the store should be closed. I’m so confused.
I reach the side door of our house that we always use over the front door and peer through the glass. Dad is sitting on the couch with his head in one of his hands. I glance down to see he is scrolling on his phone with his other hand. How could he not have seen my text? Why hasn’t he messaged me?
