Authors: Isabell Lawless
Chapter 17
“What are you thinking about?” Andy whispered into her hair, still spooning her in bed of their woodsy cabin room.
“I'm thinking of the night I told you everything about what happened with Brian, your proposal, and what we did afterward in your bedroom.”
“Oh, yeah.” She could feel him grinning even though she couldn't see his face. She liked that she knew him well enough to know those things about him.
“That was a great night.”
His hand started rubbing small circles on the soft skin of her belly under her t-shirt, but she abruptly put her hand over his to cut it off.
“What's wrong?”
“You're asking me what's wrong?” She turned on her back to face him.
“Uhm, yeah. Did I do something here to piss you off?”
“Do something?”
“Okay, you need to stop answering me with rhetorical questions and spill it out. I'm a guy, I can't guess what's picking your brains out. ”
“Okay, here you have it. Two days ago you told me you were tired of everything that had to do with me. Remember, at home. What the hell does that mean? Do you still want to leave me? You've been angry and tense every since I came home after I met Brian in the park. I don't get it. What the hell did
I
do to piss
you
off?”
He stayed flat on his back, and placed his big hands on top of the blanket covering his bare chest.
“I don't know why I was pissed off at you before we left home. I guess... I just got so fucking tired of Brian messing up everything in our lives. He messed up your face and he messed up my work site with his threats about lack in security. Your crazy background with him didn't really collide with mine until he actually invaded my privacy too. My job. It's not just us as a couple he's after anymore. Who knows if it's gonna stop with me, or is he going to go after everyone else in my family as well and mess their lives up too? With you came Brian, and I... I don't know how to deal with him anymore.”
She pulled up her legs to her chest and hugged them tightly. Letting her chin rest on her bent knees she chewed on what looked like invisible gum and rocked slightly back and forth next to him on the bed. Neither of them saying anything. Looking everywhere in the room but at each other.
“You didn't answer my question though.”
“Which one of them? You had quite a few.”
The sarcasm in his low voice didn't go unnoticed by her.
“You know what, fuck this. Never mind.”
Ripping the blanket and sheet away from her legs she got out of the bed and started putting on her jeans and hoody she left scrambled on the bedroom chair the night before. Sitting down she pulled out a pair of fresh white socks from her bag lying open on the floor and angrily pushed her feet into her sneakers.
“Where are you going? It's only seven in the morning.”
His dark voice mumbled from the bed. Eyes watching her like a hawk.
“I'm doing you a favor here. I'm leaving you for today so I don't have to inflate anymore problems on you or your family. Just as you wished. You might think you smoothed it all over my simply regretting what you said, but you
did
say it. And it hurt.”
In the corner of her eye, she saw him sitting up in bed about to open his mouth to say something, but she didn't even want to give him a chance. With a bang of the bedroom door, she left the house. She needed to take a walk, no, a run, to get rid of all the pent-up anger and sadness building inside of her.
With sturdy steps, she walked past the car parked by the side of the house and simply kept up the angry stride down among the pines until she was met by the widening path. The road to the cabin was a single lane gravel road mixed up with pine needles and the occasional deer poo. It couldn't feel or look more outdoorsy than this.
Still angry, her arms swung violently next to her body while she kept up her fast paced steps. By keeping up this rate she would reach the little village town on the bottom of the hill in no time. A two mile hike by a furious woman could easily become the fastest miles walked in world history. '
Perhaps all athletes should be pissed about something before a race
,' she thought to herself as her legs moved her even faster down the little bend of the hill leaving the cabin out of sight. She
loved
Andy deeply, but ever since his confession she didn't
like
him.
The wind blew a cool breeze in her face making some of her blonde strands fly around in the air until she caught a few of them and roughly pulled them back behind her ears. Damn was she mad. Although this was probably not an everyday event in married people's lives when crazy exes coming back to mess up shit, she still couldn't get around the fact that Andy was tired of it all. '
What was really it? Was he tired of her as a person? Tired of their marriage? Tired of Brian?
There could be a thousand questions to figure out what
it
actually meant.
A large pick-up truck honked her back into reality as she barely noticed she just made it all the way down the hill and was about to cross main street without looking both ways. The town might be small but there always seemed to be cars and people going everywhere on the streets, hiking the ski-slopes before the snow came, catching a few fish in the lake, or taking their boats out to cruise around the marina. The town was laid back and private.
She crossed the main street, making sure no cars were there to run her over, and was left window shopping for a few blocks on the other side. Small cafe's, sporting goods stores, and an ACE Hardware were the main concepts of the town. But who could blame them, what else would survive in this woodsy environment: Macy's? Michael Kors? Not even possible.
The brisk walk somehow set her heartbeat back into a regular pace. She had to agree with all the sport fanatics out there, exercise was truly a real mood lifter. With her hands in her pockets she traveled slowly down the street, stopped at a few windows to peek in. There was one jewelry store in town which seemed reasonable since a lot of couples came up here to fall in love and get engaged. She was never a diamond kind of girl herself, but it didn't hurt to look. Shiny things were still pretty.
Bending down to ogle some pricy white diamond bracelets something caught her eye in the reflection of the window. Her heart stopped and she couldn't move. A large truck rolled by suddenly blocking the view of the other side of the street. When she turned around to look, he was gone.
'
Could that really have been Brian? She must have seen someone else
.
How could he know she was here, in the middle of nowhere? And where the hell did he go after the truck passed by?'
She thought panicky. Maybe her imagination was just running wild, being all tensed up and overly sensitive to every dark haired man with glasses. She couldn't really figure it out. Suddenly the street seemed almost deserted, as for three older ladies chatting away over coffee and croissants at one of the outdoor cafes on this side of the road.
Even though she wanted to be realistic and tell herself what she saw was just an imagination, she felt she rather wanted to be safe than sorry and started walking back down the street, the way she came. Crossing the same crosswalk over the street she headed speedily up the slender hill, not feeling as at ease with the whole situation as she hoped she would.
Not before long the sounds from the town disappeared and were replaced by the morning breeze blowing through the forest, rustling leaves and needles along the way. She picked up her pace. Her mind kept interpreting each of the sounds around her as footsteps and she noticed herself take a few unsteady jumps when the breeze blew hard enough to break a weak branch among the trees, or rustle big bunches of leaves together. She hurried up the hill. Around the last little bend she was eying the car next to cabin and was running full speed slipping glances back over her shoulder.
She threw the front door open, just to lock it behind her, and met Andy's eyes from the bar stool at the kitchen counter.
“I wasn't sure you were coming back.” He said simply. “You've been gone for some time, and since we destroyed your cell on the way up here I had no chance to reach you.”
With her hands on her hips she was still breathing hard from her sprint adventure up the hill to the cabin.
“I was just down in the village.” She mumbled out of breath. “Looking around, and then decided to come back up here. That's all.”
“Did you see mom and dad down there? They left a note here on the kitchen counter saying they were going down there for an early breakfast.”
“Nope, only three old ladies chatting away their morning over some coffee and croissants, which I wished I also should have bought now when I come to think of it. Oh, and I'm also not quite sure if I saw something or... not.”
“What do you mean?”
Casually he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the wooden top at the bar section of the kitchen. Giving her an irritated look.
“You know what, I don't think it was anything at all. And seeing how pissed you still are, I lost my interest in sharing it with you.”
With an exasperated breath she turned on her heel and walked into their bedroom where she threw herself back onto the bed. Arms stretched wide open and legs dangling over the edge. She stared up at the ceiling. Her eyes counting all the little round knots of the wooden boards held up by the strong beams. '
Andy must have built this
,' she thought, no one else mastered wood as well as he did. In more than one way. And speaking of the devil, with a few steps he appeared in the doorway of the room. Leaning with one shoulder against the door frame, his arms crossed over his chest.
“I thought about what you said earlier.” He broke the silence. “Yes, I'm pissed at you for bringing all this shit with Brian into my life, our life, and my family's life. But somehow I'm trying to be reasonable here and tell my brain that it's not your fault that Brian turned out crazy. He was probably crazy even before you met him, just hid it really well to lure you in.”
“Keep going.” She said without moving an inch out of position. Still staring up at the ceiling.
“I'm sorry I said those things to you at home before we left. I'm not tired of you. I'm tired of him.” She didn't respond. “My mind just connected you two together and somehow I got mad at you both. I come from a family who doesn't fight, or yell, or have any big insane secrets like this. I've always lived a life without drama until I met you and learned that Brian was a big piece of baggage still hanging on to your back.”
She heard him take a few more steps into the room and peeking down towards the end of the bed she saw him standing at the edge where her bent legs hung down and touched the floor.
“I'm not leaving you. I never wanted to leave you. I was just so freakin' mad that the things I meant to say just came out really wrong. Okay?” Silence filled the room around them.
“So, you still like me?”
“Of course I like you. You're my wife. I love you. Doesn't mean I can't get pissed at you from time to time. But no, I'm not leaving you, and I don't want you to leave me either. I don't want you to think like that anymore.”
She didn't dare to peek down at him again. He would probably notice her glossy eyes and she didn't want to show him she had been crying inside ever since she left the bed this morning. Not knowing if she would come back to a husband, or to a guy who she may have to call ex-husband in the near future.
All of a sudden, she felt her knees being pushed apart by his strong legs, and putting his hands on each side of her chest he leaned over until they were face to face.
Staring into those misty eyes of hers he asked. “Do you still like me?”
She didn't know why she hesitated. Maybe trying to find the right answer having him so close to her face.
“You're my husband, I love you. But sometimes it can be hard to find someone as stubborn and moody as you are, and it makes me so angry. Sometimes I don't like things you do, but I love you. That's why I left the bed this morning. I had to get out, get some fresh air, and a new perspective on the whole thing.”