It Matters To Me (The Wandering Hearts Book 2) (2 page)

“You’re unbelievable!” he breathes. “I’ve given you everything, it’s never enough, though, is it?”

My laugh sounds more like a snarl. “Wow, this is everything?” I ask, waving around at his parents’ basement.

“You know this is temporary,” Ben reminds me for the umpteenth time.

Throwing my hands up in frustration they slap my thighs as they come back down. “I’ve been hearing that for years. Maybe I was wrong, maybe you have even less to give me than I thought.”

“God, why do you have to be such a—” he stops.

“Such a what Ben?” I demand.

“Forget it,” he mutters.

“No come on, you’re doing so great, let’s not hold back now.”

“We’re really doing this?” he asks.

There’s a pulsing in my brain. I can’t think straight. I don’t even know what I’m saying as my mouth opens. “You know, I could be like Anna.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Jack screwed things up, and she went out and found her happiness.” The moment the words leave my lips I know they’ll wreck him. That’s not what I want. At least, I don’t think it is.

He stands up, his eyes are wide, his nostrils flared. If it were any other man standing in front of me, I would think he was about to strike me with those balled fists at his side, but not my Ben. He would never physically hurt me. I know he loves me, but I can’t help wondering if he loves me in the way I need him to.

Sucking in a breath of air I watch the tension in his strong shoulders relax slightly, “I have never messed around on you,” he says at last. And I know he wouldn’t. He was disgusted when he found out Jack had cheated on Annabelle right before the wedding. There’s pain in his eyes. I know I’ve gone too far.

I shake my head.

“What?” he huffs as I step backward.

Here. Now. At this moment, I know I’m making a decision that will change my life forever. I suppose I’ve known it was coming for months. I feel like my heart is being shredded inside my chest, and the only way to stop the pain is to say the words; the words that terrify me. The words, “I’m leaving.”

“Really? You’re just going to run out in the middle of a fight. Typical,” he grunts.

“No,” I shake my head. My voice is soft. There’s no more anger, only a sense of resolution. I can see he hears it too. “I’m leaving you.”

“What do you mean?” he questions, squinting at me. I want to lean in. Kiss his lips one last time. Have his strong arms wrap around me for only one last, but brief moment, so I don’t forget the feel of them, but I know I can’t.

“I can’t do this anymore,” I answer simply, turning and walking to the exit.

“Is this about the marriage thing again?” He calls after me.

I stop at the base of the steps and glance back at him. He looks sweet and innocent with his wide dark eyes. I can’t help but smile, remembering the good parts of this life we shared.

“Goodbye Ben,” I say in a near whisper as I begin climbing the creaky, dirt-stained, green shag-carpeted stairs for what I now know will be the last time.

“Fine!” He shouts, the desperation and confusion mingling with anger in his tone. “Leave! But don’t think for one minute you can just come back to me, Kenz. You walk out that door, and we’re done! I’m not playing these games anymore.”

I know he doesn’t mean his words, but I mean every bit of my actions. The spiteful part of me wants to tell him he’s won, but I say nothing. I can’t keep living my life in neutral.

Closing my eyes, I pause at the top of the steps and take a deep breath. Preparing myself for the life on the other side. The reality that once I cross that threshold onto the seventies brown linoleum tile of Ben’s parents’ kitchen floor, I’ve made the choice—the choice that I won’t be spending the rest of my life with this man. I open the basement door and close it behind me for the last time.

“Everything alright?” Ben’s mom asks. From her lips that are strained into a frown, I know she’s heard part of our argument. She’s standing at the kitchen sink, pouring a hot pot of water and noodles into a colander. As the cloud of steam envelopes her face, I watch the moisture settle in all the fine lines. She’s lived a hard life. Her face is a roadmap that reveals just how hard. She once was something special, anyone can see that, but I could always tell she lost something along the way. Something that had once made her extraordinary. I’m terrified of becoming her.

I smile, nod, “I’ll see ya later Karen.” She likes when I call her by her first name. It makes her feel young again, she once told me.

Turning to the back door, I unlock the deadbolt, the yellowed floral curtain brushing across the top of my hand. I pause, close my eyes, and take in the scents around me. There’s a mixture of cooking grease and motor oil in the air. Ben’s house has always smelled like this. It makes me smile.

I continue, leaving Ben’s house from the kitchen door. Karen says something to me, but I can’t hear her. I’m too busy moving forward into my new life. My heart is racing.
This is it.
I think. I pass by the overgrown rose bushes, down the concrete path to the chain link fence that leads to the alleyway behind Ben’s parents’ home.

We’ve been together since our sophomore year in college. This is the first night sky I’ve seen as a single woman since I was a freshman. Somehow it looks different. Perhaps the stars are brighter? Or maybe I have been too busy staring into Ben’s eyes to notice how amazing the stars are. I’m tired of being the girl that’s always waiting for life to start, floating from one meaningless job to the next—

Job. That’s right!
I remember suddenly. I was so pissed off at Ben I completely forgot about the fact that I quit my most recent mistake of a career choice as a waitress when my boss Conroy refused to give me time off to fly to England. I explained to him I had no choice, my best friend was having a baby, and there was no way I wasn’t going to be there. Conroy didn’t seem to recognize the same urgency in the situation that I did.

As I walk down the dark alley, the occasional random noise makes me jump. The excitement of my new found freedom fades slightly as I take stock of my situation.

I’m unemployed.

Life’s problems got a little easier to figure out when Anna left for England. She needed to sell her condo, the place Jack had had the affair in, the place she couldn’t stand to be anymore, and I was more than happy to live there rent free while she was finding herself halfway around the world. But all that changed. Anna’s condo is sold. Living at home is no longer an option since my mom has warned me to get a job or get out.

I’m newly single for the first time…ever.

I have no idea what I want to do with my life.

I’ve wandered a few aimless blocks when I feel the first raindrop.
Ugh, of course.
I pass the diner Ben and I frequent, pausing briefly before continuing in a sprint, trying to outrun the storm.
I’ll find another favorite diner. A new place. My own place.

A neon open sign, glowing like a beacon of hope in the night, grabs my attention.
Grady’s Diner.
I’ve never eaten there because it looks like a place that would be featured in an episode of Kitchen Nightmares, but the pounding rain has me reconsidering my stance on the establishment. I pause at the door, looking at my reflection in the glass, pushing my wet, red hair—that is plastered to my forehead—back and out of my face.

Taking a deep breath before I open the door of Grady’s, I notice a handwritten sign.

Help Wanted

Waitress

Short order cook

Apply inside

Is this fate?
I wonder briefly. Jesus, I was a terrible waitress, and I’m quite certain I’d be an even worse cook. I laugh to myself and open the door, sliding my wet self into the closest available booth. The place is surprisingly busy, and I wonder if I’ve misjudged. I move my arms across the tabletop until my sleeve catches on something. Lifting it, I realize it has settled on something sticky.
Gross!
No, I definitely did not misjudge.

“Oh, hey sweetie,” a woman with tight curls, too much makeup, and a name tag that reads Joan says walking over to my table with a rag. “Let me get that for you.”

She wipes the surface of the table, then nods to my side. “Want me to pitch that for you too?” I look over to see a crumpled, food-stained newspaper. I can see the classifieds are on top.

I place my hand on the top of the pile, careful to avoid what looks like bits of pancake. “I’ve got it, thanks.”

She tilts her head and delivers a long blink before pulling out her little pad and nub of a pencil. She chomps obnoxiously on a piece of gum as she asks, “What’ll it be?” She has an accent, but it’s not one I recognize.

A quiet place and some time to think.
I look out into the night to find the rain is coming down in sheets now. “What’s good, Joan?”

“Huh? Oh,” she snorts. “Name’s Nancy. Bastard that owns the place is too cheap to buy new name-tags. I never even met Joan.”

Hmm… I would have pegged her more as a Joan. And I’m now for sure not applying for a job here.
“How about your pie?”

“All we got left is apple,” she answers, glancing up from her pad.

“Then apple it is,” I answer thinking about the last $163.15 in my bank account. “Oh and coffee.”

She walks away without a word. I waste no time, pulling the soiled newspaper and placing it in front of me, using a napkin to wipe away the remnants of food that is still stuck to it.

A moment later Joan, Nancy, whatever her name is, is back with my coffee, pie, and a pen. She smiles at me, then glances down at the opened classified section. “Good luck, honey.”

I smile and wish maybe I had put a little more thought into what I wanted to do with my life back when I was in college— other than be married to Ben.

A business degree … I could do a lot with that. That’s what I told myself, but now that college is over, I still can’t seem to figure out where I fit into the world of business. I understand marketing, but it doesn’t excite me. The problem is, I have no idea what excites me.

At least Ben knew what he wanted to be. He had enrolled as a freshman in the engineering program and used to tell me how one day when he was designing cars, he would make so much money that he could give me the life I deserved. Knowing what you want to do apparently doesn’t matter in the end either. He graduated and the only job available was an unpaid internship. Fast forward and here we both are, miserable in every sense of the word, even if he can’t recognize it. Ben was a dreamer. It’s what attracted me to him in the first place. The Ben in his parents’ basement that I walked away from tonight doesn’t dream anymore.

Four years Ago …

“W
HO’S THAT?”
I
ASK, NUDGING
Amos in the arm. Amos wasn’t going to win any scholar awards, but he did have an unusual ability to meet and catalog in his empty skull every available campus hottie.

“Oh her, Annabelle Hart,” he answers.

I run my fingers through my hair before giving myself a quick breath check.

“Oh, watch out ladies,” Amos boasts. “The Italian Stallion is about to work his magic.”

I glare at him, “you’re not helping.”

The first thing I notice about her is her flaming red hair and her flawless skin. She’s beautiful. She demands to be looked at. The next thing I notice is how she’s dressed; oversized shirt unbuttoned and tied up on her trim yet shapely waist, just below her bra line along with a pleated mini skirt playing off unlaced boots that reach mid-calf. She wants guys to look at her. And it’s working, because I want her.

I glide across the room and approach her as if I belong there. “Annabelle?” I ask, acting as if I recognize her. This technique actually works more often than one would think.

I’m greeted by a scowl on not only her face but her friends as well. They’re obviously annoyed I’ve interrupted. “Do I know you?” The girl next to her asks.

I bite my lip. Annabelle isn’t the fiery redhead. No, she’s the raven-haired friend, and I can tell she already hates me.

I decide to go with it. “We have history together, right?” I inquire, my face bright red, fighting every impulse to go and slug Amos in the head. I should have known he was talking about the wrong girl. Annabelle is exactly his type.