by M. Mabie
My adrenaline was making me feel like I was about to fly around the room, like a bird set free from a cage.
“Are you going to let her talk to me like that?” she asked Vaughn.
“She’s not wrong, Rachelle.” His tone was neutral.
I didn’t need to hang around for what was about to go down. I’d said my piece.
I just hoped that whatever he felt for her really was long gone. For his sake.
Also, having seen her I wondered, if he’d ever wanted her, how could he possibly want me? We were polar opposites. I’d never be like her, and she was nothing like the town tomboy I was. If that was what he was looking for I’d only be a disappointment when the newness wore off.
He could do better than both of us.
I got back into my truck and headed out to my cabin.
On one hand, if he didn’t show up, at least I’d have coffee to cry into, and my work was caught up so I could just wallow out there alone.
On the other hand, I could lose everything. Including things I wasn’t sure I was even ready for. Things I’d carelessly ran away from that very morning.
How had I ever thought she was what I wanted? The look on Rachelle’s face as Hannah asked her about the house was ugly in every way possible.
The way she sneered at Hannah as she spoke. As my strong, beautiful woman stood up for me.
The way Rachelle ignorantly looked down at her, having no clue how much she lacked in comparison to Hannah.
Every single point Hannah made was true.
“I’m sorry you drove all this way, but there isn’t anything for you here,” I told her. I didn’t need to be mean or callous toward Rachelle, I simply wanted her to leave. Just the same as she’d chosen to do months before.
“You’d really choose her over me?” she asked, her tone much calmer.
“I don’t have to choose. There is no you or her. It’s just her. Only her.”
She rolled her eyes, a truly unattractive trait of hers I never did like.
Leaned in the doorway of the kitchen, looking at her standing in my living room, I didn’t hesitate. “I think you better go.”
She gave me a doe-eyed, silent plea to reconsider, and it only made me shake my head.
After the moment passed, she huffed and marched toward the door, then turned around. But, before she could open her mouth to say whatever the hell she thought she needed to, I said it for both of us. “Goodbye.”
The door hadn’t even shut before I had my phone out dialing Hannah, but the battery died and my phone dropped the call.
Shit.
I went to find a pair of shoes to throw on, but the ones I usually left by the back door were gone.
She must have worn them earlier; she did that sometimes.
Wait.
I’d only been up a few minutes, but suddenly things weren’t adding up.
If she was just getting breakfast, then why didn’t she take my Escalade?
Where were my shoes?
Had she walked home?
After pulling my running shoes on, I ran out to my SUV.
It was dead. No clicking. No nothing.
“What the fuck is with all of these dead fucking batteries!” I shouted in frustration, pounding my hand off the wheel.
I thought about charging my phone and then calling her, but that just wasn’t fast enough.
I needed to get to her now, and find out if she’d left me this morning because she was freaked out. Or if—God forbid—she decided it was all too much. If I’d pushed her too hard, too soon. I had to let her know that Rachelle was gone and never coming back.
The Astro van.
It was only a few blocks uptown to their shop, so I decided to run there, hoping the van was where I’d seen it last.
It didn’t take me long to round the corner in front of O’Fallon’s garage and the door was wide open with Dean inside.
“Hey, I’m grabbing the van real fast, my battery is dead,” I said, not really asking for permission.
“Sure. I can take you back and jump it though.” Then asked, “Where’s Mutt?”
I took a deep breath, either I was going to have to get used to people calling her that, or I would have to take out an ad in the paper saying, “Knock it the fuck off.”
“Hannah is at her cabin. That’s where I’m headed.”
“Yeah, sure, man. Keys are in her office on the wall.”
I hadn’t even thought about the keys. What would I have done if he weren’t there?
“Thanks.”
“Sure.” He waved and went back to what he was doing.
I ran inside to get the keys off the hook, then around the other side of the building and pulled the handle on the van.
The fucking door jammed.
I smashed my shoulder against it, just like Hannah did the day when her dad first loaned it to me. The handle unstuck and the door came open. It turned right over and I was headed out to her cabin, just like I had the first time.
I tore out of the parking lot and down the roads. Only to get slowed down by Wynne’s slow ass Sunday drivers. Who’s to say small towns didn’t have traffic?
The Astro van wasn’t the quickest vehicle on the road either, though, and I tapped the steering wheel like it would help things go faster.
Finally, I flew down her lane and threw it in park next to her truck before jumping out and running up the stairs. Two by two.
“Hannah? You up here?”
Nothing.
An irrational flood of worry hit me, but I knew she had to be close.
I opened the door, but she wasn’t inside. I walked around to the far side, the one closest to the water and slowed as I noticed her there on the dock, sitting on the end, looking out at the water.
I wondered if I should give her some time. Maybe she was angry, which I could handle. I could deal with her frustration. Rachelle had been awful to her and I’d pretty much just stood there.
What if she changed her mind about being with me altogether?
There was only one way to find out.
So, as I played out different scenarios in my head, I walked down to the water where she was, willing to fight for her. Willing to plead our case if I had to.
I heard her sniffle as I got near, and the mere thought of her crying squeezed at my heart.
“Hannah, are you all right?” I asked from behind her.
She swiped her cheeks and blew out a long breath.
“Did you know she was coming?” Her voice shook, but it was clear she was trying to hide her emotions.
“No.” What a terrible thing for her to think.
Then she asked, “What happened?”
“She asked me to take her back. To choose between you and her.”
Her shoulders slumped forward.
I couldn’t take it. I knelt down and sat beside her, hanging my feet off the dock with hers.
“I told her there was no choice to make. I want you.”
Her head spun to face me.
“You do?”
“Of course I do, beautiful,” I said. Even though there were no tears to be seen, all of them wiped away, I could tell by the way her eyes were red-rimmed they’d been there. “I’m in love with you. Only you.”
“Really?” She smiled and her chin quivered just enough to make me reach out and touch her.
“You have to know it. I told her to leave.”
“I was kind of a bitch.” Her eyebrows rose guiltily.
“She deserved it. Everything you said was right and I told her that. I want that to be our home. It already feels like you belong there. You’re in every room. Every step I take in that house has a memory of you in it.”
She threw her arms around me, almost reflexively.
“But there’s more we need to talk about. Something happened even before Rachelle showed up.”
As if she knew, or remembered, she pulled away and straightened, a complacent look fell upon her pretty face and her hazel eyes dulled.
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“I know. And I’m so sorry. I came down here to think, and then it really hit me. I left. I ran.” Her voice got strained again, but she swallowed it down and cleared her throat. She was trying to be stronger than the emotions she was feeling.
Again, how had I ever found a woman so brave?
“That’s what she did. You know?”
I wasn’t sure what she meant.
“Who?”
“My mom. She just left. I got up this morning and I ran away. You deserve much better. A real woman won’t freak out and leave.”
“How could you think that? You’re everything I want. Every. Single. Thing.”
“I want you too, but I can’t handle the thought of hurting you like that. Like she did my dad. Like Rachelle hurt you. I don’t think I can do this.”
She turned away from me and faced the water.
I didn’t like how it felt.
And I hated what it was beginning to sound like.
“You can do this. We can do this.”
I reached out to touch her, but she pulled away. I saw a tear fall from her eye before she knocked it into the water below.
“I just don’t think I can be what you want me to be. I tried, but some things in small towns like this really don’t ever change. I think I’m one of them.”
“You’re wrong,” I countered. How could she think that? After all of the time we’d shared. After she told me she loved me. “You said you…”
“I know what I said last night, Vaughn. But maybe I just said it because I wanted you to hear it? What do I know about love?”
My stomach tightly knotted, I couldn’t believe what she was saying.
“You’re just scared. You don’t mean that.”
She couldn’t.
“I think I need to be alone.” She pulled her feet up and rose, standing over me. “I just don’t see how this will work. You want more than I can give you right now. More than me.” Where her face had shown emotion just moments ago, there wasn’t much showing anymore.
I scratched my head and gave my hair a frustrated pull. “What can I say to make you realize…”
“Just stop,” she said, and held up her hand. “I can’t. Don’t follow me. Go home.”
Then she walked away.
It was the right thing to do. How would I ever have made him truly happy? I was my mother’s child, born to leave. If anything, that morning had proven it.
And what about my dad? I’d be another woman he loved who abandoned him.
I called him after Vaughn finally pulled away to let him know I was going to be at the cabin for a few days, and that I was taking Monday and Tuesday off.
“Are you sure you’re okay, kid? You sound a little low.”
It was unlike me to mope, and I was in the middle of Mope-a-palooza. Even though I’d tried to sound normal, he easily picked up on it.
“I’m fine. I just want to spend some time out here. Clear my head.”
Avoid seeing Vaughn and changing my mind.
It was better for everyone if I took a step back for a few days.
After promising three more times I was fine, he told me to call if I needed anything.
Vaughn had sat on the dock for a while, then a while longer in the van, before he left. I didn’t get why he’d had the Astro out there anyway. Something must have been messed up again on the Escalade, and if he was going to be in the shop, I didn’t want to see him.
I was pitiful, not even fishing the whole time I was there. I lay in bed and cried like one of the girls I always swore I’d never be.
I did love him, but I loved him enough to want something better for him. Someone better. Someone who knew how to be the woman he wanted.
I’d miss him—miss everything—but I’d been alone before. I could handle it.
The hours ticked by.
Then the days did, too.
It was going to take time for things to get back to normal. For me to go back to the same old Mutt I was before him.
He’d move on.
Hell, he moved on with me pretty fast after Rachelle. He’d surely move on even faster from what we almost had. They’d been together for years. We’d only had the summer.
I tried to rationalize it that way. It was a summer fling, and I’d have to think of it like that. A falling star that burned out fast. A summer thunderstorm here and gone before we knew it, leaving damage in its wake. A bite on the line, that as cliché as it was, got away from us both.
I ignored calls from Sunny and Dean, but finally went home on Wednesday, taking the long way around town so I didn’t have to pass his house. I guessed that was just the way I’d be going into town for a while until I was sure I could handle not pulling into his drive.
Until I was confident I could keep my selfishness at bay.
Until I didn’t think about his hair when it was messy. Or his hands and what they could do. Or the way his voice sounded commanding and tender at the same time in my ear. Or, more importantly, that he’d said he loved me, too.
I still didn’t go to work though; instead, I found myself in the shed working on lures and getting beyond caught up on orders. I made dozens to have on hand.
Then, when I was finally tired enough, I was content to fall dead asleep. Instead of lying in bed reliving the passion and time we’d shared, I climbed under the blankets and closed my puffy eyes. Sleep came fast.
It didn’t matter.
I fell asleep quickly only to be cruelly reminded of him in my dreams.
I woke up on Thursday, after surrendering to the thought of him all night, deciding I had to start moving.
Work needed me.
My dad needed me.
I needed me to start moving on. Or, honestly, move back. Things were easier when I was just Darrell’s daughter in the shop and the girl who made the fishing lures. Plain old Mutt O’Fallon.
“I saw Vaughn the other night,” my dad said one night a few weeks later.
I’d seen him too. We passed on the road and he waved. I pretended not to see him and messed with the radio in my truck. Then I got drunk and cried in my shed.
Not my finest, but I had my days.
I had days when I didn’t see him, didn’t hear his name, and didn’t sit in the Astro van. Days I couldn’t taste his lips in every sip of Newcastle I drank. Days when the radio played only songs that didn’t remind me of him. Days I didn’t think about all of the things that were still at his house and wonder if he was sick of looking at them, or if he just threw them away.
Days I didn’t wish I wasn’t someone else.
Or at least I pretended pretty well.
“Vaughn? Since when do you call him that?” I asked. If I acted like it was no big deal long enough, maybe it would become the truth.
“Van. Vaughn. Astro. Whatever. I saw him. You too cooled off a bit, huh?” He passed me a can of cheap cheerleader beer from the cooler he was sitting on.
It was becoming a nightly thing. Me. My dad. Sitting in the back of the shed drinking shitty beer.
I had a new respect for him. As I licked my self-inflicted wounds day after day, I realized just how tough he was.
Love is a bitch, even for Mutts like me.
I swung my feet off my lowered tailgate as I wondered about what to say, if I could actually talk about it, and if we had enough beer.
“Yeah, didn’t work out.” There. Short and simple.
“That’s a shame. You got on pretty good there.” His expression kept talking when he stopped. Wrinkled, brown eyes rooted around for information and his puckered mouth waited for more.
“We did, Dad. It just…” I paused.
Talking about that shit made me sound so stupid.
“…I don’t know. It was too much. He wants different things than I do.”
“Things like what?”
An adult relationship. A woman who could stick around. A lady who looked good on his arm. Someone who knew more about culture and the world than she did about open cast fishing
poles and stink bait. Someone good enough.
I took a drink from the ice-cold can.
“Just things.”
“So. Want different things. What’s that got to do with being together? Want whatever the hell you want.”
“Doesn’t work like that.”
“I know how things work—and I sure as hell know why they don’t—I’m a mechanic. It’s my job, kid.” If only it were as simple as replacing a few parts here and there and everything would work fine.
“There’s just too much shit.”
“I doubt it.”
He doubted it? What did he know?
“You know, we’ve been needing this talk for a while now. You know I’m not one for rambling on about shit. I was taught actions speak louder than words.” His right hand lifted his cap, wiped the bald spot on his head, and replaced it with a few jerky adjustments. He was nervous, but went on. “Sometimes I wish I would have said more to ya, dammit. Talked to ya.”
I tightened my ponytail and took another drink. I didn’t know what he was talking about.
My dad continued, “I figured if I was there for you, provided for you, made sure you had everything you needed, then you’d be fine.”
“I am fine.”
He stood and looked me dead in the eye.
“No. You’re not.”
Well, maybe I wasn’t at that minute, but I was okay. I wasn’t falling apart.
“You’re drunk.” That had to be the root of all of this.
“Oh, kid, I’m sober as a rock. I messed you up.”
“You did not. Sit down.” I wasn’t in the mood to deal with him. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with anything.
“I thought if I started slacking off at the garage, you’d get sick of it and finally start on your tackle shop. You didn’t say anything though. Just kept on going. You just take it and take it and take it some more. Always have. From everyone.” He sighed and added, “I think I’m selling it to Dean.”
Selling the garage? What the hell?
“Dean? Are you losing your mind? I don’t have a tackle shop!” I shouted, feeling so out of control.
“No, but you could, if you weren’t stuck there all the time. Dean wants the garage and, frankly, I’m tired of hassling with the business end. I just want to work on cars and go home.”
