Runaway Heart (A Game of Hearts #2)

by Sonya Loveday

  “But this… all of this is yours. Why not just up my pay and cover your shifts with another employee?” I asked, curious as to why he’d just give me half the pub.

  “Is that the problem then? Ye won’t take it because I’m giving it to ye?” His eyebrows drew together as he watched me.

  “I haven’t earned it. If you really want me to be half owner, I want to be able to pay for it.” I pushed the paper back toward him. I wasn’t going to be a charity case. If he really wanted me to be part owner, then I’d work for it. Pay for it.

  Charlie pulled the paper back toward him. “Ye have your wallet?”

  “Yeah.” I dug into my back pocket and pulled my wallet out.

  “Got a twenty-pound note on ye?”

  I screwed my face up at him. “Why?”

  “Do ye?” he asked again.

  I opened my wallet, fished out the twenty, and held it up. “Happy?”

  Charlie gave me a smug smile. “I will be when ye hand it over, arsehole.”

  I handed it to him, and then opened my mouth to ask him what the hell he needed my twenty for as he picked up the pen, signed the paper in front of him with a flourish, and then dropped the pen on the paper.

  He shoved himself up from the chair and pulled out his wallet, the twenty disappearing inside it.

  “Believe me, Ed, ye earned every bit of your half. Ye work more than I do, and you get paid shit for doing it. And, you’re my best mate. I trust ye. I know ye’ll take care of this place when I’m away. I’ve accepted the payment. Now, sign the paper so I can make a copy of it for ye.” Charlie pushed the paper across the table.

  He left me sitting at the table, gaping at him.

  “Sign it!” he bellowed just before he walked into his office.

  I picked up the pen, feeling more settled in my life than I’d ever felt. It was a new beginning. A fresh start for myself. Something that would ensure my life was where it needed to be for Hannah.

  I signed my name, feeling a rush of something I couldn’t explain spread through me.

  As I grabbed the paper and stood, my phone rang.

  Hannah’s name flashed across the screen.

  All was right in the world again.

  THE UNIVERSE HAS DESERTED ME.

  It had to have between the layovers and the giant snowstorm that decided it would be a good time to flourish when I was trying to make my way back home.

  Then there was the phone call.

  The one from my mother.

  The one I missed because my phone died during one of my three layovers due to my lost phone charger.

  She said she needed to talk to me. That was it. No reason why. No I love you. Just that she wanted to talk.

  It was nearly two days after I left England when I made it back to my apartment. Exhaustion took on a whole new definition, and I feared the kink in my neck from sleeping in chairs might not ever find release.

  But I promised him I’d call.

  The phone barely rang when his voice answered the phone.

  “Hannah? Is everything okay?”

  “Hey,” I breathed out in relief, feeling like I’d only just taken my first real breath since I left him.

  “Hey,” he replied, a little calmer. I heard the noise of the pub in the background begin to fade away, and I imagined him walking toward the back. Imagined his tall, lean form hunched over when the cold would surely strike him as he stepped outside for privacy.

  “I’m sorry it’s taken me so long. I’ve had the worst luck since I left. It’s like the universe is handing me my ass for walking away from you.” I attempted a laugh.

  It didn’t feel real.

  “What happened?” he asked, his voice clear and intent.

  “I ended up having three layovers, and I misplaced my phone charger somehow. Your number was in my phone, so I had no way to call you. And then there’s this huge storm that’s making traveling nearly impossible.”

  I paused to take a deep breath as I lay back against my pillow, trying to find a comfortable position that eased the ache in my neck. “I have to admit. There was a moment I thought I might not make it home.”

  “I’m sorry ye went through that, Hannah.” His voice was quiet.

  “It’s not so bad. The girls kept me company when they weren’t wasted or sleeping. But anyway, enough about me. How are you?”

  “I’m good. Really good, actually.” He inhaled, sounding far more together than I felt.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah. Charlie sold me half the pub.”

  My eyes popped open as my chest felt lighter. “No way!”

  “Yeah. Crazy, right? He’s a complete nutter, but I have to say, I’m glad for it. I didn’t realize I’d even want something like this until he handed it to me.”

  “That’s awesome, Ed. You deserve it, and you’ll be good at it so long as you don’t sell your customers that God-awful orange liqueur.” I giggled as the memories danced around in my head.

  He laughed too, and then silence filled the air between us. I heard the wispy hum of air passing through our lips as we both danced around what we really wanted to say. Around all the things we promised we wouldn’t say to each other.

  “I miss you already. Is that crazy to say?” He sounded like he might be holding his breath.

  I bit my lip. Rolled to my side, wishing it was him I was looking at and not the empty space. “No,” I admitted, feeling somewhat safe in the dimming light of the afternoon.

  He sighed heavily into the phone, his voice coming through clearer. “It’s weird thinking ye’re so far away. I had grown accustomed to being able to see ye whenever I fancied.”

  “I know.” I covered my face with my hand. Saw his lips and his eyes.

  More silence. The heavy kind of silence.

  I knew he wanted to ask me what I was thinking. If I was coming back. But I also knew he wouldn’t ask because he was that kind of person. He was the kind that gave unconditionally. The kind that would let me have the space I needed.

  I didn’t deserve him.

  “I’m glad ye called, Hannah,” he said, breaking the silence first. Trying to be strong for the both of us.

  I swallowed hard, reminding myself how to breathe normally. “I told you I would.” My voice was achingly brittle.

  “Talk soon?”

  There was a sadness in his voice… an understanding that somehow crept up in between us.

  “Absolutely,” I replied, my voice as thin as smoke. My heart crossing its fingers.

  Another moment of silence.

  “Until then, love,” he said, and then we hung up.

  THE NEW YEAR CAME AND went, and I busied myself with busing tables for a newer, crappier restaurant. The business card the lady gave me during the world cup stayed pinned to the corkboard that held all my important information.

  Along with the three messages she left asking me to come and talk with her some more.

  Messages I had yet to return.

  I didn’t want to be a face. Just a face.

  I wanted to be me, and I was working on trying to figure out just who that person was. A jammer? A waitress? A woman unafraid to love?

  January gave way to February and, before I knew it, the signs of spring were hard to miss. A budding leaf. The air warming. Tulips poking up from the occasional flowerbed. Everything was waking up, coming back to life.

  Everything but me.

  It had been almost three weeks since I last talked to Ed. Since I last heard the hurt buried beneath the questions he bombarded me with about how my life was going.

  We both knew the inevitable had finally caught up to us and, after that, the phone calls dwindled, until, one day, I just stopped calling.

  I knew he wouldn’t be the one to make the next move, and it only made it that much easier to ignore the pain ripping my heart in half. I knew it was a cop out. It was a shitty move on my part, but running was what I did best—what I was good at.

  And I really thought I was doi
ng it for all the right reasons.

  I couldn’t drag him along. Couldn’t keep talking to him, ripping our wounds open day after day, knowing I’d never be enough for him. Knowing I didn’t know how to fix myself so I could be enough for him.

  Because, no matter what, the rain still brought on the fear. The silence still made me uneasy. And the pain still lingered every time I looked in the mirror and saw my mother.

  What if I ended up like her? What if I went to Ed, and then he realized I wasn’t right for him? Realized I was weak on the inside. That I was still that scared little girl hidden under her bed every time it stormed.

  Every time he struck.

  The only way I could avoid thinking like that was by burying myself nose-deep in work. In scattered classes I rarely showed up for, because I was too busy trying to fall back asleep so I could stay inside my dreams of Ed and me inside our tiny tent.

  I couldn’t tell you how many days I spent like that. I could only count the empty takeout boxes on my kitchen counter. The number of unreturned messages I had on Facebook and on my phone from my friends and Jack. And the pile of unwashed clothing towering in the corner.

  That was how I measured my time stuck in between.

  I couldn’t pick a major. Couldn’t choose a career path I wanted to walk. I made it to the top of roller derby, and even that didn’t feel like enough. Didn’t make me feel whole.

  I just wished the thing that did, the short glimpse of it I had with Ed, didn’t have to be the one thing I was most afraid of.

  Irrevocable love.

  If it hadn’t have been for Maggie calling me, telling me she was on her way to see me, then I might not have ever come up for air again. I might have just sewn myself to the mattress and prayed for sleep to come so I could see his face again.

  I didn’t have to say anything the moment she knocked on my door and I pulled it open. She read it on my face, and we fell into each other’s arms.

  I knew I was completely gone when it didn’t take me but seconds to tell her all about Ed and how I managed to screw things up like always.

  “You didn’t tell me,” she said, sounding slightly hurt, but more concerned.

  I tucked my face in the strands of her orange hair. “I didn’t know until it was too late.”

  “Love is like that. Sneaky.”

  We both sort of laughed as I leaned back and crossed my legs on my bed.

  “Is it wrong of me to say I had the two of you pegged?”

  “Yes,” I said, wiping my eyes, and then tossing a pillow at her.

  She giggled, and then clutched the pillow to her chest, looking at me. “Why don’t you just go to him, Hannah? You love each other. What more do you need?”

  I chewed the inside of my cheek. “It’s not that simple.”

  “Yes, it is.” She wasn’t about to allow me to make the excuses I’d let myself get away with lately.

  The good friends were like that. Not giving you any slack where it wasn’t deserved. Open and honest to a fault. Real on a level where you never felt alone.

  I glanced out the window of my apartment, at the building across the street, and thought about what she said. “What if I let him all the way in, and then regret it?”

  “You have to take the chance. Otherwise, you’ll end up alone.”

  “But what if… what if… I’m not good enough?” I admitted, my voice cracking.

  “Who is?” she retaliated.

  I looked over at her.

  “Listen. We all have issues, Hannah. All of us have things in our life we aren’t proud of. Things we could do better. Ways we could be better. But that shouldn’t stop you from loving. That shouldn’t be a reason to push away a man who’s head over heels for you, because love is what makes us enough.”

  “It wasn’t for my mother,” I said, thinking about the message she left me. The one buried in a pile of messages from other people.

  Maggie was quiet, digesting all the underlying meanings to such a small statement. She knew better than anyone what I had gone through. Had been there for me every time I showed up on their doorstep.

  “She called,” I said, my voice dim.

  “And?”

  I sadly shrugged.

  “Hannah,” she dragged out, her head tilting to the side.

  I couldn’t look at her. “What?”

  “You do realize this is what’s holding you back, don’t you?” She reached for my hand. “You need to deal with that part of your life. I know it, my father knows it, and I think you know it too.”

  Something in what she said struck me wrong. “Why are you here?” I asked, feeling like I was being backed into a corner over an issue I didn’t want to face.

  “Because I’m your best friend, Hannah. The one who knows you better than most.”

  “He called, didn’t he?” I thought about the state I must have left Ed in by not calling him. Wished I hadn’t thought of it to begin with.

  “No. He didn’t.” She caught me off guard as her lip disappeared between her teeth.

  My head swiveled in her direction, blood going still.

  “She wants to see you, Hannah, and I think you should go to her. It’s been almost five years. I think what you find might surprise you.”

  “What a minute,” I said, heart threatening to beat out of my chest. “You didn’t come just to come… did you?”

  “Hannah…” she dragged out, and it was enough for me to understand.

  I stood up. Paced across my room as my heart sent rockets filled with terror through my bloodstream. “Is she all right?” I asked, scared to know her answer.

  “I don’t know,” she answered honestly, her eyes following my form back and forth. “Please, sit down, Hannah. You’re making me upset thinking you’re upset.”

  “I am upset!” I tugged at my hair. “How… how did she even know how to get in touch with you?”

  “She called my dad.”

  I stopped. Thought about the only other time she’d ever called Maggie’s dad.

  The night he hit me.

  The night I ran away.

  My hands were on my dresser, pants and shirts being tossed over my shoulder.

  “What are you doing?” She made her way over to me, panic in her voice.

  “Looking.” I slammed the drawer shut and opened another.

  She bent down with me. “For?”

  I found the square piece of paper I was looking for. “For this.”

  A crinkled, faded Polaroid—the only picture I had of the three of us.

  Even then, when I was a baby in her arms, you could see the faint bruise around her eye. The slight off-yellow color a bruise took when it was weeks old.

  A thousand feelings at once stormed my throat, cutting off my ability to breathe. What if she had been hurt? Really hurt this time? She would never reach out to Mr. Fairchild because of the shame she felt. And she never reached out to me. Not since the day I left, because she seemed to accept it. Maybe was even a little bit grateful that one of us got away from him.

  And I had just left her.

  That easily behind.

  Just as easily as he had.

  “Oh, God, Maggie. What have I done?”

  “Hannah, hang on a second—”

  “No, Maggie. I have to go to her. Have to help her. I can’t keep… I can’t keep running.”

  “Then I’m going with you.”

  My heart stopped just thinking about her being in the presence of that… that man.

  “No,” I said, gripping her arms. “You have Autumn to think about.”

  “Hannah.” She grabbed me, shaking me slightly. “I understand why you’re concerned. I really do, but you have to remember we are grown women. One little old man with a mean streak doesn’t scare me, and I’ll do everything in my power to show you the same truth.”

  She grabbed my hand and squeezed it tight, telling me so many things in her fierce gaze. And I believed her. I felt myself coming back, piece by piece, remembering my
own strength.

  Sometimes you just needed a good kick in the ass.

  I WASN’T GOING TO LIE. Pulling up outside of the house I grew up in felt like walking down a dark alley at night without any sort of weapon to defend yourself.

  Only the house seemed smaller. Sadder even.

  The siding was covered in algae. The roof almost seemed to sag from the weight of the secrets it supported over the years. My father hadn’t kept it up the way he did when I was younger. He might not have cared about the state he left his wife in, but he damn sure cared about the well-being of our home.

  But as I gazed up at it, I couldn’t tell.

  “Ready?” Maggie said as she paid the cabbie and opened the door.

  Yes and no.

  I got out behind her. Straightened my shoulders as I told myself I could do it. That I wasn’t the same little girl anymore.

  That my mother needed me more than I needed my fears.

  I took the first step. Made my way down the cracked pavement and up the creaking steps to the front door, with Maggie somewhere behind me.

  And I hesitated.

  I didn’t know if I should knock, or just walk in. It wasn’t my home. Hadn’t been for a long time. The sounds were different… the way the wind blew through the porch, whistling like a distant train. The way the sprinklers weren’t spraying like they used to at that time every day.

  But I had to face my past. Once and for all.

  I knocked and took a step back. Chewed on my fingernails, and then played with the end of my shirt until Maggie smacked my hand away.

  No one answered.

  I looked back at Maggie.

  Turned back to the door.

  My hand wrapped around the cold handle. Turned clockwise as I sucked in a huge breath.

  The smell hit me first, and it nearly buckled my knees. Cigarettes and stale air. The oil my mother used to fry his chicken in.

  And the stench of sadness.

  The smell took me back to her tears. Took me back to the moments I laid awake shaking, praying to whoever would listen that he’d stop hitting her.

  That he wouldn’t come after me next.

  You’re strong, Hannah. You can do this, I chanted, sucking down the tears and burying them deep so I could use them as fuel to face whatever was about to happen.