Page 46 of The Scars I Bare
She smiled. “The awkwardness I’ve been looking for.”
“What?”
“You know, the awkwardness that is always around when two people break up. I’ve been looking for it with you and Molly, but you guys all play it off like it’s no big deal. But, right there”—she pointed in my direction—“when you spoke about the golf cart, I saw it.”
I let out a sigh and stopped. She stumbled a little after my abrupt halt but did the same, still keeping a watchful eye on Lizzie, who’d stopped to pick up a pebble.
“You’re misinterpreting my awkwardness.”
“I am? There are different types?”
I nodded. “Well, with you, there only seems to be one.”
Her eyebrow rose in curiosity.
“See, Molly, Jake, and I are fine. There’s never been any residual awkwardness between us since they got back together. What makes it weird is you.”
She seemed taken aback.
Honestly, I didn’t blame her.
“Me? But why?”
“Because it’s you,” I blurted out. “Everything about you turns me into a blithering idiot. I used to be a cool guy. Or at least, a guy who could form legitimate sentences in front of a woman. But you waltz in, and I can’t seem to talk about anything, let alone string two words together.”
She pressed her lips together, her eyebrows rising in what appeared to be amusement. “Seems to me like you just did,” she replied with a shrug.
“What?”
“Strung two words together. Or rather, more than two actually.”
She continued on down the path, following Lizzie, who’d now moved on to another rock, leaving me in the dust. I looked at both of them strolling along like neither had a care in the world.
Jesus, these two females were going to drive me insane.
Catching up to Cora, who’d made no attempt to wait for me, I noticed a marked change in her expression. The happy-go-lucky smile she’d left me with was gone, replaced with something more contemplative. The phone call with her father was still eating at her, and it showed in her gaze.
“My dad thinks Blake and I are still married. He doesn’t know about the divorce.”
I nodded. “I gathered that from the phone call.”
She ignored me and kept speaking, as if I wasn’t even there, “Honestly, I don’t even know how it started, the lying I mean. I guess maybe it was a tiny thing. No, that’s not true. I know exactly what it was, but I don’t want to say.”
“That’s okay. You don’t—”
She cut me off, “And that’s my problem. It always has been. No matter what, I always try to make excuses for the bad stuff, you know?”
I opened my mouth to respond, but once again, I realized, this wasn’t for me. This conversation was for her, and I was the silent listener, receiving her confession. So, I softly and slowly walked next to her and let her speak as much and for as long as she needed, hoping the dusty road to the inn would be enough for her to bare her soul.
Or at least, the parts she was willing to show me.
“It was a little thing,” she finally said. “I mean, I thought it was at the time. My parents were going to come visit for the weekend—it wasn’t that long before I met you. Anyway, I could do that, you know—just fly them in whenever I wanted. We had the money, and Blake didn’t care what I did as long as it didn’t conflict with any of his work functions.”
She was rambling now as Lizzie skipped ahead of us as I tried to come to terms with what she’d just told me. She’d been lying to her family for three solid years. Maybe more.
That nurse I’d met in the hospital, the one I thought was happy and full of life. Was that all a lie?
“It was my mother’s birthday, and I’d planned every moment of the weekend. Cirque du Soleil was in town, and I’d gotten us front row tickets and reservations to the best restaurant in town, plus beach time with Lizzie and a trip to the Children’s Museum. I’d checked Blake’s schedule, I had, but I guess it changed, and we were suddenly hosting a dinner for twenty. I tried to convince him that my parents wouldn’t be an imposition, but he refused.”
