Rett can’t breathe. Austin has stolen all the oxygen in the room, and she can’t breathe. Her lips part on shallow gasps. He scrutinizes her face then shakes his head at whatever he sees, whatever he thinks. She ignores his flinch when she steps into his space and wraps her fingers in the collar of his shirt.
“I’ll be back when you’re gone,” Austin mutters, ripping from her grip. “You can keep the dog. You love him more.”
“Austin—”
“Leave the ring on the counter.”
Rett says his name again, but he’s already scooping up his duffel bag. He planned this. He knew, before she even got home, that he would be leaving. Orpheus bounds around Austin’s feet, tongue lolling. He doesn’t understand, not really. He probably thinks they’re going on vacation, but he doesn’t know that—
Rett wishes they were only going to the cabin.
At the door, Austin stops, sighs. “I never wanted to hurt you, Lor. I just can’t be with someone I can’t trust. And believe it or not, I’m trying to make you happy in the only way I can.”
“I didn’t sleep with him!” she pleads from where she stands only feet behind him.Please turn around. “I don’t love him anymore.”
“You say that, but I just can’t believe you. Text me when you leave,” he says with a glance over his shoulder. His face gives away nothing but his pain.
He slams the door behind him, and Rett waits for a return that won’t come. She waits for the door to open, to have the chance to apologize and make this right. To admit that Manny was right a month ago.
Austin is gone, though. He’s gone, and she can never make it right.
She finally drops to the floor and buries her face in her hands, sobbing as Orpheus whines for his other human.
Days meld together. Rett stays curled up on the couch, watching sunrise after sunset after sunrise. Her boss had argued against her taking time off, citing a desperate need for writers, but she’d been adamant. She can’t handle human contact. Not since Austin left two weeks ago.
There are no more tears to cry, though the pain doesn’t ease. Rett barely sleeps. She barely eats. Her time is spent staring at Austin’s number in her phone, scrolling through the thousands of pictures of the two of them together—happy. Smiling. In love. Now they’re nothing together.
Memories overwhelm her as she ambles through the apartment. A life lived has disappeared in thirty minutes, but Rett can’t escape her recollections.
She leaves everything as it is.
Her cellphone beeps as it loses signal. The disconnection from the rest of the world is a welcome reprieve. Rett slows to a crawlas she inches toward the heart of town. The car bounces with each pothole she drives over. Finally turning left onto Cherry Lane, she blows out a breath.
No car sits out front, but that doesn’t matter. She attaches Orpheus’s leash to his collar, slides out of the driver’s seat, and leads him to the front door. As she expected, the door is unlocked, so she lets herself in. Everything is the same. Nothing has changed.
Nothing except her.
Rett closes the door, removes the leash, and beelines straight for her childhood bedroom. Orpheus follows eagerly, flopping to the floor once she’s sat on the edge of the bed. Her heart aches for all she’s lost, all she’s ruined. A marriage with Calum and an engagement with Austin. Both men deserved better than her.
The tears come as she curls up on her side. Orpheus whines at the first whimper then climbs onto the mattress beside her. Rett doesn’t have the heart, the strength, to reprimand him. Instead, she clings to him as she cries.
“Retta?”
Rett slowly opens her eyes and peers blearily at her mother standing in the doorway. Orpheus’s head is raised, gaze never leaving Eliza’s face, and Rett murmurs a command. He huffs but relaxes. Pushing herself to sit up, she wipes at the dried tracks on her cheeks and blows out a breath.
“He left me.”
Eliza lets out a quiet gasp, her fingers coming up to press against her lips. Rett quietly orders Orpheus off the bed, her lips twitching minutely—valiantly—fruitlessly—when he obeys with a low groan. Her mother sits in the vacated space; her hand reaches out to brush over Rett’s hair, and Rett closes her eyes.
“Did he say why he was leaving you?” Eliza asks softy, but Rett flinches as if struck.
“He found out that I was married before.”
“You’d never told him?”
Rett shakes her head. “Don’t worry, Manny already told me how dumb I am for it.” She sighs and stares at a worn spot on the floor; the carpet is threadbare, frayed, and she wonders what it means that just like the threads, she’s barely holding it together. “Said ’cause I kept the ring Calum gave me, it meant I was still in love with him. Tried tellin’ him I wasn’t, but… He didn’t believe me.”
Eliza only runs her fingers through Rett’s hair again and again, and both women sit in silence. Orpheus grumbles from the corner, hauling himself to his feet to trundle over to Rett. She leans down to scratch gently behind his ear. He has always been a wonderful dog, has always known when Rett needs affection or something to hold onto to steady her emotions. Right now, she needs that stability.
