by MJ Duncan
Anna did stop to look at her one last time just before she exited the cafeteria completely, and Bryn’s heart shattered at the pain and the sadness and the hurt and the doubt she saw etched so plainly in Anna’s features. The look lasted but a second before Anna was gone, leaving Bryn’s world darker and colder than it had ever been before.
“I need you,” Bryn confessed as she collapsed into her chair, her voice so soft that the words were silent by the time they passed her lips. She drew a deep, shuddering breath as she closed her eyes and dug the heels of her palms into her eyes to force back the tears that were threatening to fall. She had always been the one who was hurt and disappointed, this was the first time she was the one responsible for it all—and the pain she felt now was exponentially worse than anything she had ever felt before.
“Brynsley?”
Bryn sighed as she looked up at her mother, who was standing in the exact spot Anna had occupied not two minutes before. Her first reaction at seeing her mother was disappointment, because there was a part of her that wished Anna had seen through her words and had come back to call her on it, but relief shoved that feeling of disappointment aside almost immediately. Because no matter how much it hurt her to know that she had hurt Anna, she was relieved that she had avoided having to try and explain who Anna was to her mother.
I’m a terrible person, she thought to herself as she nodded at her mother. For a moment, her mother’s eyes flickered with something that might have been concern, but Bryn knew better than to expect anything of the sort. “Yes, Mother? Is everything okay?”
“Fine, dear.” Victoria looked around the cafeteria. “I thought you were getting coffee?”
“I had a phone call,” Bryn said as she got to her feet. Her legs felt like lead, but they held her weight as she started for the coffee bar.
Her mother made a small noise of understanding. “I see. Is there a problem with your farm?”
Bryn bit her cheek and shook her head. “No, Mother. Nothing like that.”
“Oh,” Victoria said, though by her tone it was clear that what she really meant was, “That’s too bad”. She pursed her lips disdainfully as she studied the different packages of tea lined up beside a carafe of hot water, and shook her head as she reached for a packet of Earl Grey. “Langston Howe called not long after you left the room; he’s expecting your call to discuss how matters at the firm will be handled,” she said as she filled a paper cup with hot water.
Bryn nodded. Of course he is. You probably called him to set it all up. “Of course. I will call him back right away.”
“Excellent, dear.” Victoria ripped open the foil packet holding her tea bag and draped the string over the edge of the cup. She secured it with a plastic lid, and nodded once at Bryn. “When you have finished that, come back up to the room and we can figure out what you are going to go pick us up for dinner. I would rather starve than eat this rubbish again,” she muttered with a barely-concealed grimace as her eyes swept over the cafeteria.
“Of course, Mother. I shall be up as soon as I’ve finished speaking with Langston,” Bryn agreed woodenly as she filled the tallest cup available with a Sumatran roast.
“Perfect.” Her mother made a show of looking at her diamond-encrusted Rolex before adding, “Goodness, look at the time. I should get back up to the room in case your father wakes up.”
Bryn wished she could have been surprised at the way her mother left her standing there without another word, but it was par for the course. She had served her purpose for the time being, and was now rendered irrelevant until such time her mother required something else from her.
She paid for her coffee and her mother’s tea, since her mother had left without paying, and wandered to the opposite side of the cafeteria from where she had sat before, hoping the distance would be enough to keep her from thinking about what she had done to Anna. It did not work, of course, and she was grateful for the distraction calling the firm’s CFO provided as her call rang through.
Forty-Nine
The problem with distractions is that they are only temporary, and when Bryn finished her call with Langston—effectively leaving him in charge of the firm until her father’s return—there was nothing to keep her from thinking about what she had done. Thinking about the way she had acted. The things she had said. Dwelling on the hurt that had shown in Anna’s expression when she told her she did not belong in Boston. The disbelief that flickered in her eyes when Bryn told her she needed to leave.
Bryn folded her arms on the table and laid her head on top of them as the memory of Anna’s face just before she walked away made her stomach clench and her head spin.
What did I do?
She squeezed her eyes shut tighter and tried to convince herself that she did not have a choice, that she did the only thing she could have possibly done—but all she could see was Anna’s eyes, brimming with tears as she whispered brokenly, “I thought we had something special.”
She swallowed around a lump in her throat as another memory of Anna looking just as hurt and betrayed made its way to the forefront of her thoughts. She would never forget the way Anna had looked that night in the conference room at the winery, tears running down her cheeks as a party twirled merrily on outside the windows. Her thoughts fast-forwarded to the way Anna had looked when she had showed up on her doorstep later that evening, clearly broken-hearted with her smeared makeup and red-rimmed eyes, and Bryn choked back a sob as she wondered if that was how Anna looked now.
What did I do?
She shook her head. She knew what she had done. She had panicked. Again.
She ran her index finger around the side of her phone and debated calling Anna to apologize, but “I’m sorry” seemed entirely inadequate after what she had done and, in any case, she knew that this was not something she could fix over the phone.
But she could not chase after her like she had last time, either.
She wanted to—oh, how she wanted to—but her father was upstairs in the ICU and her mother was waiting for her to come take care of everything, and…
“God, what do I do?”
She took a deep breath and, with a trembling hand, pulled up her favorite contacts list and pressed her thumb to the screen. The hollow ringing of the call going through echoed dully in her ear.
“Kendall,” she rasped when the call was answered on the third ring.
“Bryn? What’s going on? Are you okay? Did something happen to your father?”
“My father’s fine. It’s Anna.” Bryn drew a shaky breath and let it go slowly. “I fucked up. I fucked everything up.”
“Okay,” Kendall murmured, and Bryn could practically hear the wheels in her head turning, looking for a solution to a problem she did not fully understand quite yet. “Okay. Just…what happened?”
“She was here.”
“At the hospital?”
An image of Anna standing in front of her, phone held to her ear, smiling the sweetest smile flitted across the backs of Bryn’s eyelids, and her heart clenched in her chest. “Yes.”
“Oh fuck. Did your mother see her?”
“No. I was in the cafeteria, but I…”
“Freaked?”
Bryn nodded. “Yes.”
“Kinda understandable. But, okay. What happened next?”
“You know how I get when I’m here,” Bryn muttered. “I was a bitch. She flew all the way across the country because she was worried about me, and I told her she didn’t belong here.” Her breath hitched and she shook her head. “I told her to leave. God, her face when I did that, she looked so…” She choked on a sob. “I don’t know what to do.”
Kendall was silent for a moment before she blew out a loud breath. “What do you want to do?”
She wanted to go after Anna. “I don’t know…”
“Yes, you do,” Kendall argued in a gentle tone. “What do you want, Bryn?”
“I want to fix this! But I don’t know where she is and even if I did, I can’t just…�
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“Leave?”
Bryn sighed. “Yes. My father is still in the ICU, my mother is being…”
“Her usual charming self?”
Bryn huffed a sardonic laugh and nodded. “Exactly.”
“Right,” Kendall drawled. “Look, Bryn, I don’t know what you want me to tell you here.”
“Tell me I can leave,” Bryn whispered.
“You are a grown woman with her own life to deal with, and you can absolutely leave and let your mother take care of things there.”
“I can’t, though,” Bryn argued dejectedly. “I can’t…”
“You can. Bryn, I love you, but you’ve been capitulating to your parents and their demands ever since I met you. You are not an extension of them. You are not beholden to them. You are a beautiful, brilliant, successful woman, and you don’t have to sacrifice your happiness out of obligation to them.”
Bryn wished she could believe her. “Kendall…”
“You don’t have to stay and take care of two people who have never shown you an ounce of affection in all the years I’ve known you. You don’t have to stay. You can leave. You can get on a plane, you can come home,” she stressed, and Bryn immediately pictured her precious vineyard and Anna. “You don’t have to stay.”
Bryn focused on that image in her mind of Spectrum and Anna, and a peacefulness she had not felt since her phone rang the morning before settled over her. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Kendall answered softly. “What are you going to do?”
She wanted to go home, wanted to find Anna and beg for forgiveness, but she did not know if she had the strength to actually do it. But just thinking about it was enough to get her to her feet. She ran a hand through her hair as she pondered Kendall’s question, and shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Call me if you need me.”
Bryn nodded, her throat growing tight as the echo of Anna saying that exact same thing floated across her mind. She knew that she was speaking with Kendall, that it was Kendall asking her to call, but all she could see was Anna’s face. Kendall had been her sole source of support for so long that she felt guilty for needing Anna more. But she could not deny that she did. She just did not know what do to about it. “I will,” she promised. “I’ll call you soon.”
She drew a deep, shaky breath as she slipped her phone back into her purse, and blew it out slowly as she picked up her coffee. Her thoughts cycled from Kendall’s voice telling her she could leave to Anna’s teary expression on a loop as she made her way back up to the CSICU, her stomach filling with butterflies as she imagined what it would be like to just do what she wanted and then sinking in equal time when she realized she could not.
The nurses’ station in the middle of the unit was empty when she entered, and her eyes widened in surprise when she got to her father’s door and saw that he was awake. Her mother was sitting on the edge of his bed, holding his hand while they listened to the nurse who was standing at the foot of the bed, talking animatedly with her hands. Her father looked tired but otherwise good considering the fact that he had undergone major heart surgery not even twenty-four hours before, and her mother looked relieved and happy that he was awake.
You don’t have to stay, Kendall’s voice echoed in her head.
Bryn sighed and stepped through the open door. She tipped her head in greeting as she walked further into the room, and gave her father a small smile. “It’s good to see you awake, Sir.”
The nurse took a step back and murmured, “I’ll be back in a little bit. Page me if you need anything,” before she slipped from the room.
“Did you speak with Langston?” her mother asked.
Bryn nodded. “I did.”
“How is everything at the firm?” her father asked. “We were supposed to have a meeting today with—”
“Charles Schwartz,” Bryn interrupted, not at all surprised that his first words to her were about the company and not the fact that he was in the ICU or that she had made the trip back east. “Langston said that the meeting went well, and that he expects Mr. Schwartz to transfer his portfolio over by the end of next week.”
“Good,” her father said with a small smile. “Good.”
“I was just telling your father before the nurse came in that you were going to take over while he recovered,” her mother declared with a pointed look that dared Bryn to defy her.
Bryn bit her lip.
You don’t have to stay.
Oh, how she wanted to believe that…
You don’t have to sacrifice your happiness out of obligation to them.
Her teeth dug into the soft flesh of her lower lip as the knowledge that for every second she stood here, she was doing just that smacked her in the face. She was giving up her happiness, and for what? To try and fulfill their expectations? She knew well enough by now that that was never going to happen.
You don’t have to stay.
But if she left…
You deserve to be happy.
Her heart fluttered into her throat as she opened her mouth to reply, and she was not sure which of them was more surprised at the words that came out. “I’m afraid I need to leave immediately. Something urgent has come up at home, and since Langston has the firm under control, I need to go deal with matters there.”
“Please, Brynsley,” her mother scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. What in the world could possibly be more important than matters here?”
My happiness, Bryn thought. Pulse racing in her ears, she straightened her posture and gazed determinedly at her parents. Her hands were shaking as adrenaline pounded in her veins, and her head spun with the high of rebellion. “I will be in touch with Langston in case anything comes up at the firm, but he is more than prepared to handle things on his own.”
Her mother gaped at her. “Brynsley?”
“No.” Her father shook his head. “You are needed here.”
“That’s just it,” Bryn said with a sad shake of her head. “I’m not.” A lifetime of disappointment lifted from her shoulders as she stared at her parents and realized that she did not belong here any more than Anna did. “But I am needed back home. If you need me, you can of course call, but I don’t expect you will.” She tipped her head at each of her parents in turn and took a deep breath as she straightened. She felt like she could fly all the way back to Portland under her own power as she said, “I will call to check on your progress in a few days. I hope you feel better soon, Sir.”
Fifty
The adrenaline rush Bryn had gotten when she stood up to her parents and chose her happiness over their expectations faded the moment the woman working the ticket counter at Logan told her that the last flight to Portland had taken off a little more than an hour earlier. She had refused to accept defeat as she prodded the woman to find some way, any way to get her home as soon as possible—if she had to go through Alaska to get there sooner she would do it—but her best option ended up being a flight that left at six the next morning.
With nothing left to do but sit at the airport and wait, she was back to having too much time to do nothing but think. She remained hopeful that she would be able to patch things up with Anna while she ate a light dinner of tapas and wine at Vino Volo inside Terminal A. Her imagination concocted fanciful events that were best left to Lifetime movies, but that hope began to fade as she settled into a chair near her gate that overlooked the tarmac.
She curled her legs under her as she stared out the window, the scene outside slowly disappearing as her thoughts returned to the events of that afternoon. Instead of pavement and planes, all she saw were blue eyes filled with hurt and tears staring back at her, and the booming loudspeaker announcing arrival and departure information was drowned out by a whisper that echoed inside her mind on a heartbreaking loop.
I thought we had something special.
No matter how badly she wanted to believe that things between her and Anna were not irrevocably broken, the longer she was left to her thoughts
, the harder that belief was to maintain. She had never been good with people, and this was just more proof that she was forever destined to be alone. There was a time she had been content with having nothing beside Spectrum and her horses and Kendall, but the thought of returning to such an existence now was nearly crippling. She knew that, given time, she would adapt. She would learn to once again find satisfaction in her solitude. But contentment was not happiness, and the longer she stared at Anna’s broken-hearted reflection in the glass, the more she began to fear that she might never be happy again.
She almost broke down at one point and tried to call her, but fear stopped her thumb a scant millimeter from the screen. She was terrible with relationships and even worse with trying to put her emotions into words, and if her voice failed her, she needed to have the ability to convey with a look or a touch exactly how sorry she was. Needed to be able to get on her knees and lay herself at Anna’s mercy should it come to that.
By the time she had finally boarded the first of three planes that she would take to get back home, her stomach was a mess, she had chewed each of her fingernails down to the quick, and she debated asking the flight attendant for a mini-bottle of tequila to take the edge off before she relented to her common sense and asked for a coffee instead. Four coffees later, she was sprinting through the terminal in Minneapolis to catch her connecting flight to Salt Lake city; three coffees after that, she was tearing through the terminal in Salt Lake City to catch her flight to Portland; and by the time she touched down in Portland, her total was at nine, and her heartbeat felt like it could have easily outpaced a hummingbird’s wings.
Twenty-five hours after she had watched Anna disappear through the double-doors of the cafeteria at Mass General, Bryn drove over the river into Wellington, fueled by nothing but caffeine and a gut-twisting fear that an apology would not be enough to fix things this time. It was mid-afternoon in the Pacific Northwest, and the sun shone brightly against a blue sky that was dotted with large, white, fluffy clouds that contrasted perfectly with the dread that settled like lead in her stomach.
