That Night in Nashville (Ticket to True Love)

by Savannah Kade

  She still wasn't sure what had triggered Adam to walk out the door. He'd fooled her. He'd had his hand on the knob and she'd accused him of leaving in the middle of every fight. But, this time, he’d turned around and stayed even though he was mad, even though she was yelling. Her heart had soared. He had stayed.

  But sure enough, it hadn't lasted very long. The second time, there hadn’t been a pause. No warning at all. He’d simply been out the door before she’d really even realized he was leaving.

  So here she was, just like last time. She told herself, everything was the same as it was before she'd seen Adam again. Aside from the tour that she'd gone on—which she’d done without Adam—nothing was really different from a month and a half ago.

  Yet, everything was. What had been normal now felt like a gaping hole. She and Adam had tried to be friends with benefits. They'd managed to upgrade, just a little bit, to lovers. But when they tried to be something more, once again, everything had fallen apart.

  She was still stunned that his mother had actually had cancer. After all the lies and the manipulation, Hailey had felt smart catching on that the opportune diagnosis was just something Mrs. Zucker had made up to keep Adam from leaving. That her assumption—one she’d been so certain of—had been wrong hurt her heart. She wouldn’t have asked Adam to leave his mother if she’d been sick, but Hailey had never believed it was true.

  That didn’t change anything now though. She couldn’t change the past, and she couldn’t change that Adam had gone out the door again.

  For the last time, she gritted her teeth and tried to find a way to be okay. Given that they tried this again as grown ups, and that it had blown up on them again, maybe it was best that it happened the way it did. At least that's what she told herself. As she picked up her guitar, she played a few notes and felt like crap.

  So she wrote and wrote and poured her heart out. While she cried, she sang that maybe things happened for a reason.

  32

  “Is it cancer?” Adam asked in a tone that was harsher than he intended.

  He’d walked in the front door, seen his mother, and hugged her hard. But these were his first words. He didn’t add that he wasn’t just questioning the news she’d messaged about, but her integrity as well. He let the question hang between them as he looked in her eyes and wished he could tell what she was thinking.

  She looked at him for a moment as though making a decision. Then she nodded. This time, given the stunning information he just learned from Hailey, Adam took a different tack than he would have otherwise. Certainly, a different one than he’d taken the first time. “Where's the report from the doctor?”

  He’d tried to ask it as though he simply wanted medical information rather than insinuating that he didn't believe her.

  His mother looked startled. Probably that was a reasonable reaction as this was the first time he'd asked for any paperwork. “I don't have it.”

  “Surely it's online. Maybe in an email the doctor's office sent. Let's look it up.” He probably wasn't doing a very good job of being subtle. The way his mother had responded, he’d clearly veered outside of his norm.

  “I don't know,” she said, her head pulling back as though he were advancing on her. “I don't have a way to get it. How about I call the doctor's office next week and get them to send it?”

  Not good enough, Adam thought ungraciously. It would take more than that to pull the wool over his eyes this time. He was shocked at how much his position had changed. If Hailey hadn’t told him what she had…if she hadn’t made him call Chelsea…he would have hugged his mother and worried. Now he analyzed her every move.

  She sat down on the couch and Adam took the chair, the coffee table marking the space between them. This time, he merely stared at her for a moment, trying to make his decisions. The three-hour drive had not been long enough to sort out all of his feelings.

  She began fidgeting, plucking the crocheted Afghan thrown over the back of the couch as though she were nervous. Why would she be nervous? he thought, Unless….

  “The doctor said he wants me to start chemo in two weeks.”

  “I'll go with you. I’ll keep you company while you have your treatments.” Adam immediately volunteered. So he would know she’d actually spent the time hooked up to medication this time.

  “Oh, I don't need you to do that.” She waved him away, then added, “Just drop me off and pick me up.”

  That was what he'd done the last time. He tried to remember, had she looked sicker or weaker at the end? Or did she merely spent two hours running around the hospital? The possibility bothered him deep into his core. Had he even seen the medical bills? Or had he just sent money?

  He could wait a week and go to a doctor's appointment with her. He could talk to the doctor himself. That would be enough proof, he thought, but he didn't want to wait a week or two or three.

  It only occurred to him, as he sat there in his old living room with his mother, that he'd completely walked out on Hailey. He'd been so stunned and so confused and so suddenly in need of answers from his mother that his body had merely popped up and headed off to get them.

  Shit.

  Ignoring his mother for a moment, he pulled out his phone and wrote out a short message.

  — I’m sorry. Didn't mean to just leave. Sitting with my mother getting answers.

  It wasn't much of an apology, he realized. But he wasn't sure what else to say until he actually had the answers he needed.

  What he expected was to have his mother suggest that Hailey was the liar here. But as he thought that through, he remembered Chelsea had confirmed it. She'd never gone to the ER. Their mother had taken her out for pizza.

  “Is that work?” His mother asked pointing to his phone.

  It was a prime opportunity, and he took it. “No, mom. I’m messaging Hailey.”

  His mother's eyes narrowed, but she didn’t look surprised.

  What the fuck? he thought. He hadn't seen Hailey in years. Why wouldn't his mother be shocked that he was suddenly speaking to his ex? Unless she already knew that he was seeing Hailey. If she did, well that made the sudden recurrence of her cancer way too convenient.

  Would she really do that? Would she really put her kid through a fake cancer diagnosis over a girlfriend she didn't like? Adam took a deep breath. It was time to get real answers.

  “Mom, there are several things I need to know. And I need you to answer honestly.”

  33

  “Oh my god, Adam, how could you accuse me of such a thing?” His mother was angry and startled and she was willing to let him see that.

  Apparently, she was finally beginning to feel the same way he was. “I really have cancer, I can't believe—”

  He waved a hand to cut her off. “You want to know how I could accuse you of this? Well, let's just talk about the fact that the timing is really fishy. It's been eight years since I’ve seen Hailey. But I found her and we’re together again. And suddenly, you've got the same problem that broke us up in the first place.”

  She looked appalled and even laid her hand on her chest. “You think I got cancer to break you up?”

  All Adam could do was shrug, as if to say, maybe you did.

  “How can you accuse me of such a thing?”

  Maybe it was time to answer, because he finally believed he was starting to see things more clearly. “Well, this time, Hailey didn't leave for Nashville and walk out my door. Instead, she tried again to tell me about all the times you’d confronted her. How you told her that you were never going to let us be together.”

  He stopped there, but he could see his mother processing his words. She wasn’t shocked or offended. She was calculating! Even though she held very, very, very still, he could see the twitch in her.

  Holy crap! It was true. Sure, he’d already corroborated part of the story, but some stupid part of him had held out hope there was a decent explanation. There wasn’t. His mother had actually cornered Hailey at least once and she clea
rly remembered doing it. His voice was low and thrumming with his building anger. “I can't believe you would do that to me, mom.”

  “She was never right for you.” From her expression, his mother didn’t even regret doing it. “I told you that and I told her that, too. So sue me.”

  The defensive edge to his mother's voice was something he wasn't used to hearing. Hailey had always accused Mrs. Zucker of being manipulative. Adam had never really believed her; he’d always just let the accusations roll off as though they were Hailey’s problem. Dear God, he’d wronged Hailey in so many ways.

  Hailey had been right all along. His mother cajoled, whined, and threw guilt around like she was making a Jackson Pollock painting. But this was new.

  “There's no crime in telling you or her what I thought. And I was right. She left you.” After a righteous sniff, his mother continued. Not with any apology but with full out defense of what she’d done. “You would never have that company if that girl had stayed around.”

  “No,” he said. “You are right about that. But I might have had Hailey.”

  The press of his mother's lips let him know exactly how much his mother thought his girlfriend weighed against this company. He'd always known his mother wasn't in favor of the relationship, but apparently she’d actively tried to sabotage it.

  She plucked at the Afghan again, only this time her lips pursed. “Look, just because I didn't like your girlfriend is no reason to accuse me of faking cancer.”

  “That’s true.” Adam let the words sit in the air between them for a moment. When her mouth slowly relaxed and her back lost a little of its tension, he added, “But this is: You created illnesses and family emergencies in the past in order to keep us apart. How many of those things actually happened?”

  She looked startled, but quickly got herself together and shook her head. This didn’t look quite like a blatant catch of a lie. Not the same as when he told her he knew she’d threatened Hailey. But this still wasn't right.

  Adam decided to play his card. “On Homecoming, Hailey and I had big plans. But you ended up taking Chelsea to the ER and left me with Tiffany and Rachel.”

  “So?” his mother asked, sticking to her original lie. “I can't help it when emergencies come up.” But her eyes darted side to side.

  “No, but you can help it when you completely made up that emergency.” More pieces of evidence floated down out of his memory adding force to Hailey’s story. He should have listened to her long before now. “I should have known it wasn’t real. You never complained about the medical bills afterward.”

  Her expression suddenly froze and again, it hit him: This was true. When Chelsea had told him, he’d began to believe. Only now as he faced his mother did he really begin to understand the depth of her deception.

  As though a bag of bricks had settled on top of him, he sank back into the chair, weighed down by the burden of his new knowledge. “You know, Mom, I thought Hailey's mother was bad. The way she neglected her daughter, sometimes didn't offer her food, barely managed to keep a roof over her head, that was bad. Even for all of that neglect, every time anything bad came up, all she could do is yell at Hailey about how much she did, and what a good mother she was, when clearly she wasn't. But you might be worse. You lied to me.”

  He took a deep breath but didn’t let her get a word in. Her words weren’t worth much to him now. “At least Hailey's mother was honest about her feelings. You went behind my back. You sabotaged my relationship—”

  His mother interrupted then. “I was being a good mother! I saved you!”

  “You were selfish. You wanted me to stay home and you stole the one person who really loved me.”

  “She did not love you. She was the selfish one. Not me! She was terrible for you. I could see it even if you were too young to understand.”

  “Too young? Mom, I was nineteen. I was legally an adult.” Even as he said it, Adam realized it wasn't the best argument. He backpedaled a little bit. “I do get it. Nineteen isn't the best age for making lifelong decisions, but it's beyond the legal age. I had my head on better than a lot of other kids. If nothing else, I deserved to make my own damn mistakes without having them sabotaged. Without being lied to! All those years, I thought Hailey left me because she didn't care enough to stay. But the fact was, she saw you for what you are. She tried to get me out of such an awful relationship, but she couldn't stay. And she couldn’t convince me you’d been lying to me all along.”

  He stood up then. “You did it. You broke us up and I hope you were happy. But you're not going to do it this time.”

  Adam stalked out the door ignoring his mother’s protests. She wasn’t fast enough to stop him and he no longer cared. Slamming the door behind him, he walked out on his mother for the first time in his entire life.

  How many things had she manipulated? It opened his entire life to questions he didn't know how to answer. Had he truly wanted to play baseball as a kid, or had she talked him into it? He hadn’t wanted to take the advanced science classes in school, but he could remember her guilting him into it. She’d guilted the entire family into the church she wanted to attend, and when his father suggested they switch, his mother had won the argument. Had she manipulated everything?

  Maybe she didn’t even know she was doing it, but that didn’t change that his mother had broken him and Hailey up—not Hailey. Adam didn’t know what to do with the information, but he climbed in his car and turned the key. He could see her standing in the front door, watching but no longer calling out.

  Right now, with everything storming inside him, he wouldn’t be able to figure anything out. But this conversation had made a couple of things clear. Hailey was his girlfriend now, and he wanted a real damn shot at it this time.

  As he turned the corner and pulled onto the main street, he realized he still didn't know whether or not his mother actually had cancer.

  34

  The knock at her door startled her.

  Hailey sniffled and pressed her lips together, knowing she must look like crap. Most people buzzed first from outside the main lobby door, so maybe this was someone from the building.

  “Just a minute,” she called out, hoping her voice didn't sound as watery as it did to her own ears. Ducking into the bathroom, she was for once grateful the small apartment could be dashed around quickly.

  Well, shit. Her eyes were a little red and so was the tip of her nose. The puffiness in her face made it clear that she'd been crying. Because, despite what she told herself—that she didn't care that Adam had left and that they hadn't meant anything to each other—it was becoming increasingly clear that none of those things were true.

  The other thing she realized was that she had hoped for far more this time around. The sudden loss of that hope was devastating. Hailey sniffled again, reached for her makeup, and applied a loose layer of powder over her face. It was the best she could do and still get to the door without taking up enough time that it was obvious what she'd been doing.

  Stopping herself at the last moment, she didn’t grab the knob and throw the door wide. She put her eye to the peephole, reminding herself that predators didn't buzz up. The last thing she needed was something unsafe happening right now, not when she was already well off her game.

  She'd written three horribly sad songs since Adam walked out. Two of them completely sucked. The third was okay.

  Her eyes blinked and her head jerked back with surprise as she saw that it was Adam at the door. He was fidgeting while he waited. She could tell even with the short glance and limited vision she had through the small lens. Right now, it bothered her that she knew him that well.

  But he was waiting, so she twisted the doorknob. Hailey wasn't sure she'd made a decision to open the door, her hand had just reached out and done it. She was still contemplating telling him to go away, but her body had other ideas.

  Hailey stood with one hand on her cocked hip, her other hand on the door frame, blocking him from coming in. Not that he co
uldn't bulldoze her if he chose. She guarded her heart against the threat of hope. “What do you want?”

  “I want to talk.”

  “Why do you want to talk?” She was so confused. “You leave every time.”

  “I apologized.”

  “It was a shitty apology,” she countered, her hand still on the door, still ready to close it at a moment’s notice.

  “That’s because I was in the middle of a whole bunch of other crap. You didn't reply.”

  She turned and walked away to grab her phone. “Of course not. It was a bad apology. And why would I want to talk with you? You're just going to turn around and leave when things get hard.”

  “No. I won’t leave this time.”

  Hailey’s mouth twisting into a sardonic smile. “Sure, it's nice that you say that, but I have a mega ton of experience that says otherwise.”

  As she watched, his face fell, but she didn’t move her position—not physically or mentally. “When we were together, Adam, every time we had a fight, you left. Half the time I didn't know if things were settled or not. Honestly, I was too young or too immature to put my foot down and tell you that wasn’t okay. Or maybe I just wanted to be with you more than I needed to solve whatever we’d fought about. But I'm not like that anymore. I need to know if things are going to work out. I need to know that if I'm with someone, he’ll stay until we figure things out.”

  She was talking about something she didn’t really understand. She heard about such relationships and she'd read about them, but she'd never had one of her own. Carrie called her mother every day and it had taken three years for Hailey to realize that Carrie and her mother had a good relationship. Hailey wondered how she would be able to manage something good for herself when she could barely even recognize the healthy relationships around her.