Page 44 of The Wives of Hawthorne Lane
Maggie felt herself growing defensive. “I’m just asking you to give him another chance. I think if you two get to know each other—”
“I don’t think I want to know him.”
Maggie crossed her arms over her chest. She wasn’t ready to hear what Sam was trying to tell her. Not yet. At that time, Dean had still seemed like the answer to all her prayers, the thing that was going to save her from the grim outlook of her life. “Well, he makes me happy. I’mhappy,Sam. For the first time in God only knows how long. Dean is a part of my life now, and if you can’t accept that, if you’re telling me you’re not even going to make an effort because of one stupid comment, then…then I don’t know how this friendship is supposed to work.”
“Wow. Okay.” He kissed her on the cheek, his lips lingering a touch too long on her skin. “It was good to see you, Maggie.” And then he turned and walked away.
That was the last time Maggie had spoken to her closest friend. She tried calling him the next morning, feeling bad about the way they’d left things, but Sam didn’t answer. And he never called her back.
By the time Maggie realized that Sam had been right about Dean, far too much time had passed. She’d already lost him.
Now, finally, Maggie spots a familiar stretch of road, sees the abandoned gas station. She pulls into the lot, just as she’d done before, and sighs with relief. She never thought she’d be so happy to see a rusty dumpster.
She rushes out of the car, the engine clicking idly in the silent night, falls to her knees beside the dumpster, and shoves away the pile of fallen leaves that had accumulated behind it with both hands. But the only thing beneath is stained black asphalt, the lingering scent of decay. The drugs are gone.
28
Audrey
Hawthorne Lane
Buzz.
Audrey hears her phone vibrating, facedown on her desk, and the sound makes her jump.This has to stop.She’s been so on edge since Colin’s unexpected appearance at her front door that every little thing startles her these days. She hates that he has this type of control over her life, that one unannounced visit from him has sent her into a tailspin. After all, Audrey recognizes that this was exactly what he’d intended. Colin holds all the cards right now and he knows it. But as much as Audrey doesn’t want to play into his hand, she can’t help but feel like she’s unraveling. Things have been quiet since she slammed her door in his sneering, arrogant face. Of course it helps that she’d blocked his number, but she knows that she hasn’t heard the last of him yet. A man like Colin Pembrook won’t let her have the last word.
She flips over her phone, bracing herself for whatever might be waiting for her.
Still planning to be home on time tonight?
Audrey’s initial reaction is frustration. Seth is constantly checking on her whenever she’s out of the house these days. Her phone has become like a leash that he tugs on whenever she strays even slightly out of his sight. She already told him she’d be home at her regular time tonight, and this text is simply a reminder of how little he trusts her.But the frustration is quickly replaced by guilt and then resignation. She brought this on herself. She brought it on both of them.
Audrey pictures what Seth probably looks like right now: slouched on the couch, his unshaven face a ghostly white from the glare of the phone in his hands as he sits in their darkened living room, curtains drawn, his T-shirt rumpled, the collar loose and misshapen. His gloom seems to fill the house lately, seeping through the walls, curling under doorways like a dense fog. It’s suffocating them both.
Seth has had setbacks in his career before—every writer has—but Audrey has never seen him like this. He’s not writing, he barely leaves the house, and he’s angry all the time. So angry. At Audrey, at his publisher, at his fans, who he feels betrayed him. She doesn’t know how long he can go on like this. She’s afraid that he’s going to snap, that he’ll do something he won’t be able to take back.
He’d shown some signs of improvement when he was asked to give that lecture at the University of Rhode Island, but after he got back, he seemed worse. What’s most concerning to Audrey is his refusal to talk about what happened there.
She’d suggested that he see a therapist, that he talk to someone if he wasn’t going to talk to her, but he rejected that idea as well.
“What’s the point?” he’d said, his eyes narrowing on Audrey. “It’s not like sitting in a room and talking about my feelings is going to bring back what I lost.”
Audrey wasn’t sure if they were talking about his career or their marriage. The two things have blended and merged for Seth, the collective loss of the life he once had, the whole of it greater than the sum of its parts.
She picks up her phone; her plum-colored nails tap at the screen.
Yes, I’ll be home at my regular time. And I’ll pick up the pasta dish you like from Gino’s on my way.
She pauses, and then she sends another message.
Love you.
It’s how they’ve always ended their conversations. Even after the words started to lose their meaning. Seth seems to be typing a response, three little dots appearing on the screen, but then they disappear.
Audrey hadn’t expected him to say it back. He hasn’t since the day Colin’s roses landed unceremoniously on their doorstep. Seth is hurting, she knows that. And if he were to find out about her affair with Colin now, it would only make things worse. It’sColin Pembrook.Colin, with his high-powered career and enviable good looks. Colin, whom Seth already thought of as insufferably arrogant. For some reason (it feels inexplicable to her now), Audrey had chosenthatman. And that might be enough to push Seth over the edge.
Audrey collects her things and drops her phone into her bag before looping it over her shoulder. She’s going to have to hurry if she wants to make her usual train back to Sterling Valley. If she misses it, it’s going to raise Seth’s suspicions. She wonders how long it’s going to be like this, how many days in a row she’s going to have to prove herself, to show up exactly when and where she says she will, before Seth will start to trust her again. It’s amazing, she thinks, how easily trust can be broken but how difficult it is to mend the shattered pieces.
She steps into the elevator, directs it to the lobby. A part of her suspects that she and Seth won’t survive this, that even if Seth never finds out the truth about Colin, that the suggestion of infidelity, that whisper of distrust, is enough to break them beyond repair. But maybe they’d been broken long before that. So much so that there was room for Colin to squeeze himself between them.
