Page 26 of Barbed Wire Fences
“No, I actually told her that you were my stepsister.”
I snort, my lips curving up at the edges into a smile.
“She hasn’t been around long enough to have the pleasure of knowing the great Jael.”
I chuckle. “Well, she’s lucky.”
“Hm…” he hums softly as he scoops another forkful of beans and shakes his head. “I wouldn’t say that.”
My cheeks flush again as I try to search for a way to change the subject. Why is it that when I’m around Rhett I feel like I’m sixteen again, searching for a boys’ approval? Except when I was sixteen hanging with Rhett, he didn’t have the magnetic, sexual energy that he’s radiating now, and I thought he was always annoyed with me.
Boy, was I wrong about that.
I clear my throat. “So, tell me more about the Marshall’s new restaurant. I haven’t had a chance to check it out yet.”
He forks some of the pork into his mouth. “Oh, you’ll have to see it for yourself. Breakfast there is the best. They use all the eggs from their farm and basically cook up the wildest combinations and concoctions all egg related. Egg sandwiches, benedicts, anything you can think of, they’ve got it. The pancakes and waffles are good too. Regan rewords the menu seasonally and has a little garden growing at the Mayberry Manor where she gets fresh fruit for the dishes. It’s their local version of the Charlotte chapter they opened a year ago but this one’s even better.”
“Sounds amazing. They were always serial entrepreneurs.”
He nods. “And good people. Molly will be excited to see you tonight.”
“I’m excited to see her. Pretty crazy how much everyone’s changed.”
He nods thoughtfully. “A lot’s changed but some things have stayed the same, haven’t they?”
We sit in silence for a few minutes, me thinking about whether he’s hinting at my date with Owen or something else.
“So, what do you have going on this week?” he asks changing the subject again.
I clear my throat. “Monday night I work, and Tuesday I have a meeting that I have to go to with my mom.”
His brows raise, strong throat bobbing as he swallows his food. “What is Meredith dragging you into now?”
I sigh. “My dad’s will which is the whole reason I came back here. She didn’t want to go to the lawyer without me.” I shake my head, already feeling the anxiety around seeing her again. “I don’t know why she’s acting like a grieving widow. She hated the man. Dad wasn’t around, and when he was, he treated her like shit, cheated on her, hit her and didn’t contribute much in the way of finances or love to our family.” I shrug as I keep eating while Rhett watches me silently.
I wonder what he sees when he looks at me now and if I look different to him. That thought sends a wave of anxiety rippling through my core.
“Sometimes the way people grieve someone they lost doesn’t look the way we’d expect it to,” he says. “And sometimes, despite being angry with someone and feeling mistreated, you still miss them because you know they were broken themselves, doing the best they could to survive.”
I take a slow sip of my sweet tea, peeking over the rim at him, trying to decipher what he really means by that. Is he talking about me? Is he saying I hurt him, that he was angry at me and grieved me, but he knows that I was just doing my best to survive?
Before I can even think about asking him to clarify, he moves on, leaving the questions hanging in the air heavily between us.
“Is that going to be difficult for you?” he asks.
“Is what?”
“You know, revisiting your father’s last words and all that shit,” he says, waving a forkful of beans in the air.
I knew exactly what Rhett was asking. He’d been my neighbor, the one who’d seen too much—witnessed the things I endured when my father’s temper flared at its worst, and I was on the receiving end of his cruelty. But I’m not in the mood to unpack all of that with him over pulled pork like this is normal.
I’d buried those memories deep inside of me, occasionally letting my therapist touch them, but mostly hoping I’d never have to confront the childhood wounds that have shaped my past.
I moved away. I moved on. I built a life for myself, one I’m damn proud of no thanks to parents who offered no support, not even the kind most twenty-somethings take for granted. And that’s the thing: I didn’t just survive my upbringing. I thrived despite it. I’ve become someone strong, someone capable, and I refuse to let my past define me any longer.
“It’s been ten years since I lived here and the same amount of time since I saw him last. I don't have any good memories of him. I feel nothing towards him anymore. I don’t think it’ll be too hard to sit down with a lawyer and hear that he had no money or anything nice to say to me before he died.”
He nods and thankfully doesn’t push forward.
