Page 24 of Barbed Wire Fences
He rolls his eyes. “You know what, Della was right. You always were a bitch.”
My hand connects with his face before I can even think it through, the sound of the slap echoing in the small room. Ten years’ worth of anger and betrayal fueled behind it.
“Don’t call me that!” I shout, grabbing my purse that fell to the ground when he’d pushed me against the door and fumbling formy keys. “And why the hell are you and Della still talking about me? Why is anyone in this town still even thinking about me? I left for a reason!”
Owen walks to the fridge, grabs a can of beer and cracks it open as he points at a picture frame on a bookshelf, barely visible in the dim light. As my eyes adjust, I step closer to what he’s gesturing at, dreading what I know I’m about to see. The photograph shows a younger Owen and Della kissing, and they’re dressed in afucking tuxedo and wedding gown.
“Oh… oh, no,” I gasp, my hands flying to cover my mouth and then wipe at them aggressively as if I can wipe his kisses from my lips and his touch from my body.
“Don’t worry,” he says, “we’ve been separated for over six months now. Just have to make it to twelve before the divorce can be finalized.”
Any hesitation that I’d felt before about being with Owen has since flown out the fucking door and down the street. I knew this had been a mistake but therein lies the danger of getting too far away from your past. You begin to selectively recall only the good moments, conveniently forgetting all the bad ones that lead up to things ending in the first place.
It’s easy to romanticize situations that were never romantic to begin with, convincing yourself that you have more chemistry and positive history with someone than you did.
“This was a mistake. I don’t know what I was thinking, assuming you’d grown up and changed. But clearly, I’ve remembered our past relationship through rose-colored glasses. Thankfully, it’s all come back to me now. You never treated me right, and you’ve always been an asshole,” I declare, opening his front door and slamming it shut behind me as I storm back to my car.
Unfortunately for me, Owen decides I’m not allowed to get the final word this time. He opens the front door again, yelling through the screen after me, “Half the town saw us at the game tonight. Don’t think you’re getting off in the clear just because I didn’t unload a sack in you!”
Fucking pig.
Fuming, I jam the key into the ignition, throw the car into reverse, and peel out of Owen’s driveway with more speed than is probably safe. My hotel isn’t far, but right now, it feels like I can’t get there fast enough, and I half consider just driving straight back to Virginia.
“Fuck!” I yell, punching my fists against the steering wheel.
My voice echoes in the confined space of the car, but it does little to soothe the frustration that’s bubbling in my chest. My cheeks burn, humiliation settling deep as memories from a decade ago crash over me like an unforgiving tide. It’s like my brain is on autopilot, replaying every bad moment in vivid detail. Especially the ones that I’ve spent years trying to bury.
Not the good times or the ones that used to make me feel light and happy. No, of course not. My mind is focused on the cracks, the betrayals, the suffocating weight that pushed me to leave town in the first place and never come back.
Hot tears prick my eyes, and I swipe at them angrily, as if wiping them away could erase the emotions clawing their way to the surface.
There’s a reason I’d buried those memories down so deeply as soon as I arrived in Virginia, because thinking about them would mean this. This broken, wounded, weak version of Jael would reappear. And I’m on my own now. I have been for years. I can’t be broken and survive. I have to be stronger.
“Pull it together,” I mutter to myself, gripping the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles start to ache.
No, I’m not going to go back to Virginia just yet. I won’t let Owen and the past run me out of town this easily. The past is the past, and I’ve worked too damn hard to escape it. I won’t cry over this town, over Owen, or over that chapter of my life ever again.
Chapter 9 – Jael
“One barbeque platter with collards and mac ’n cheese, please,” I say, tapping my foot impatiently. It’s already three o’clock in the afternoon, and after another grueling, twelve-hour shift working at the hospital last night, this will be my first meal of the day.
Frank’s Smokehouse Express has the best barbeque south of the Mason-Dixon line, and I’ve been craving their collards since I arrived in town over a week ago but haven’t had the time to make a trip here until today.
My mouth waters as I steal a look into the back of the kitchen where hot food sizzles. If there was any reason to return to town over the past decade, it wouldn’t have been to visit my fucked-up family. It would have been for this.
“Jael?” a voice calls from behind me, cautious but familiar, just as the cashier slides my food across the counter.
I turn, and there he is—Rhett. He looks good, annoyingly good. A little dirty, like he’s just come off a long shift, work pants worn thin in all the right places and boots scuffed from use. My eyes betray me, flicking down to the muscles in his forearms, taut and corded, then up to the way his chest moves with each step.
He’s got a baseball cap pulled low, messy strands of light brown hair sticking out from underneath, and for a second it softens him, makes him look younger. Makes me remember. Long, sticky summers by the creek, him giving me hell while we splashed in the lake or sat under the willow trees until the mosquitoes finally chased us home. Back when everything between us was simple, before life got so damn complicated.
God, he looks unfairly good. Like every version of him I ever had a crush on grew up and doubled down.
And of course, he catches me checking him out. His lips twitch into that cocky, knowing grin, and my face goes hot because he knows. He always knows what I’m thinking.
“Oh, hey Rhett, what are you doing here?”
“Decided I'd grab some lunch while I waited for my catering order to be ready.”
