Page 96 of Honeymoon Phase
“Did he not tell you?” Dakota pauses her pacing and looks at me with a frown.
Tears fill my eyes instantly. I don’t even know they’re coming, they just flood my vision, completely blinding me.
“Oh shit.” Dakota rushes down the steps and opens her arms to wrap me in a hug, but I jerk back.
“It’s fine.” I hold my hand up to stop her from approaching again. “I just maybe missed the call.”
But I know I didn’t.
No missed calls. No texts. No nothing. My husband went out for an emergency fire call and never told me. I guess Luke is pretty good at putting walls up as well.
“Don’t worry, Addison. Luke is going to be fine.”
“I’m not worried.” I wince and look down the mountain, like I’ll be able to spot where the call is, but of course, I see nothing. Just the sleepy little community of Jamestown taunting me with its beauty when all that’s going on in my mind is chaos.
“I’ll see you later, Dakota.” I turn and begin marching back up the hill.
“I’ll text you if I hear from Calder,” she calls after me.
“Don’t bother!” I pick up pace, taking off into a run toward the cabin. Only I don’t stop at the cabin, I keep going, choosing to jog the path that I’ve jogged countless times now even though I’ve already run three miles today.
The trail winds behind the three cabins that Luke pointed out to me shortly after I moved in. Apparently, Calder maintains the path so he can take his cat for walks year-round. Calder, the brother who knows how to inform his partner when he’s going on a life-threatening call. They’re not even married, and Dakota gets more information than I do.
Must be nice.
Rage simmers in my veins, the cold air shredding my lungs as fresh snow falls in fat, puffy flakes that soak my Carhartt coat. I push myself farther and farther up the mountain, going deeper into the forest than I have in all the other times I’ve run back here.
All too quickly, I run out of trail and begin trenching through the sometimes-knee-deep snow. My ankles freeze as my sneakers get soaked with each passing step, but eventually I can’t feel them, which is nice. I don’t want to feel anything. I especially don’t want to feel this ache I have in my chest over the idea that Luke... the man I care about could not come home tonight.
He might not come home because he could die in that fucking fire, and I don’t even know if I’m listed as his emergency contact to get the call.
Or... or! He might not come home by choice. He might choose to abandon me just like my own mother did.
“Hey, pumpkin. How’s my baby girl today?” my mom asks from her spot at our kitchen table.
I stare at her for a moment to see what kind of mood she’s in. She’s been really tired lately because she’s been out late so many nights. I heard her come home after midnight last night and Dad got mad ’causeshe woke him up. If she’s in one of her cranky moods, then I try to stay far far away from her usually. Maybe today she’s better.
“I’m fine, but Aaron ruined my school project about the ocean, and I was nearly finished,” I groan. I like my little brother, most of the time, but days like today he really annoys me.
“That’s family for you. Sometimes the ones we love the most disappoint us the most.” She gives me one of her big hugs, the ones that always make me feel better.
God, I haven’t thought about that conversation for years. Is that why this is upsetting me so much? Because Luke might choose that this is just too hard after all, that I’m not worth sticking around for? Just like my mom? Because God knows sometimes the ones we love the most can still manage to leave us without a backward glance and without a final hug goodbye.
Sometimes the ones we love the most disappoint us the most.
And would that crush me if Luke didn’t come home because I love him? I mean, I know I love him like a friend. But do Ilovehim, love him? That thought stops me dead in my tracks and a sob rips up my throat as I hold my stomach and try not to be sick.
Do you want our marriage to be real?
The fact that you even have to ask just proves how big of a fucking wall you still have up between us.
I fall to my knees in the snow, my hands burning in the powder as my face boils, steam billowing off me as I pant, fighting to catch my breath.
I wipe at the hot tears pouring out of me. I don’t want Luke to be like my mom. I don’t want Luke to be like my brother. I need Luke. I need him here, with me. I need him to call me. I need to stop pushing him away enough to let him call me. I have to be his emergency contact. He’s been mine for years.
But I never even told him that.
I just did it without having the conversation with him,because I didn’t want to dig into what it meant when I did it. It meant that he matters to me. He is my lifeline, my comfort, my home. Somehow, he became irreplaceable to me, and now I’m at risk of losing him and it’s too late for me to pull back to protect myself from this pain.
