Page 77 of Revelry
Verb
To engage in contemplation:meditate
One week.
It was all I had left before I went back to my old life.
Except, my old life wasn’t the same as I had left it, either. The truth was I didn’t really have anything to go “back” to.
Yes, I would be going back to work, back to my old circle of friends, back to my city—but the life I would make there would be different than the one I’d left behind just three months before. And now I had only seven days left to get what I needed from my little escape, to find whatever it was that I was searching for.
Maybe it was that notion that made me wake uneasy, my stomach a mess as I made a pot of coffee and held a clammy hand to my forehead. I didn’t even want cinnamon rolls, which clearly meant something was wrong. Still, I tried to push through it, filling the largest mug and grabbing my sketch book before moseying out to the front porch.
I had always been a firm believer that we, as humans, have gut instincts for a reason. Maybe it’s that we’re in tune with the universe, or maybe it’s something chemical within us—but we know when something is wrong, or when it’saboutto be wrong. It’s the reason we leave five minutes later for work one day, or call a friend we haven’t in a while, or pick up a book we’d walked by so many times before. It’s a feeling, deep within us—something we can’t ignore.
I thought the uneasiness I’d awakened to was from everything I still had yet to figure out in Seattle, or from Anderson, or from my still-lackluster sketches. But when a car I knew too well pulled into my drive, I realized my body had been warning me of something else entirely.
Every hair on my body stood on edge, electricity coursing through me, adrenaline spiked just at the proximity of him. He was still in his car, and there was plenty of space between us, but I knew that wouldn’t last long. And seeing his black Mercedes parked in my sanctuary was like spotting a lion in a coral reef. He didn’t belong here. He was a threat and yet he’d never survive long enough to be one.
He needed to leave.
Keith cut the engine, the barely-there purr surrendering to silence as he pushed his door open and climbed out. His dark eyes locked on mine and he stood with one hand on the roof and the other on the door still propped open, waiting, watching me. I swallowed, closing my sketch book and calmly laying it beside me on the bench, and then I stood.
He sighed, taking in the full sight of me, his eyes softening as he finally shut the door and crossed the space between us. I counted every step, the sound of the gravel crunching beneath his cherry-brown Sutor Mantellassi shoes a direct line to my heartbeat.
As his steps grew faster, so did my pulse, and then he was on my porch, just three feet away. The man I wasn’t supposed to love, but always would. The man who made me feel less than. The man I’d left behind. And now he was here, in the one place in my life that hadn’t been touched by him.
He was robbery in a suit.
“Wren,” he greeted, and I fought against the urge to shudder at the sound of my name on his lips. It called to me and put me on alert all at once.
I kept my eyes trained on his, and not much had changed, yet everything had. His hair was still dark and trim, clean cut and styled to perfection. He didn’t have to smile for me to know he still had the same white teeth, perfectly aligned except for the small overbite that I used to love so much. He was dressed in a beige suit, as if he’d come from the office, except his office was a dental practice, so it didn’t make sense. No, he hadn’t come from work, he’d come dressed up for me.
And here I was in the same pair of leggings and sweatshirt I’d been wearing for three days straight, hair a mess on top of my head, not a stitch of makeup on.
But I didn’t care what he thought.
He was waiting for me to speak, but I had nothing to say. I didn’t have to ask how he’d found me—my mother was the obvious answer. I didn’twantto ask why he was here. The only thing I did want was to be able to close my eyes and not see him standing there when I opened them again.
And that broke my heart.
Because he was the man I loved for a decade, the man I shared a bed with, shared a life with, and now he seemed so foreign to me. He was everything I’d been and everything I wouldn’t be again, and I realized in that moment that the war between familiar and strange would never pronounce a winner when it came to my emotions and my ex-husband. Both were present, both were strong, and neither would forfeit.
“I’m sorry I showed up unannounced,” he said, but he wasn’t sorry at all. If he was he wouldn’t have come at all. “I just... I wanted to see you. You haven’t answered any of my calls and I was worried.”
I was so confused. Everything inside me screamed for me to stay silent, to be defensive, to shield my heart, and yet a tiny voice inside seemed to speak louder than the screams. It told me to relax, to be open, to be kind. Keith was broken, just like me, and I knew he’d probably tried to talk himself out of coming multiple times. But he was here, because he was hurting, and I couldn’t be mad at that.
“It’s okay.”
That was all I could offer, and it felt somewhat like a compromise. Keith’s face lit up with the faintest smile as his eyes searched mine. “You look happy, my baby bird. This place suits you.”
The nickname that used to make me feel safe only made me want to cry now. I had no idea how to react to him, no idea what to say or how to stand. It was suddenly too hot and I picked at the neck of my sweater, peering up at the sun filtering in between the trees before I let my gaze land on him again.
“Thank you.”
He was being sweet.
It hurt worse than when he was a monster.
