“Then why the Hell can’t I keep a relationship?”
“I can’t say one way or the other, but… Maybe this is a good time to figure out who you really are.”
“I’m a mess,” Rett mumbles with a sardonic laugh. “I’m a failure.”
“Not a failure, Retta. Things just didn’t work out.”
Rett says nothing in return. Her dad may be wrong, but what’s the point in arguing? Matthew sighs after a moment, kisses her hair, then leaves her and Orpheus alone on the riverbank. She waits until she can no longer hear her father’s footsteps rustling through the underbrush, then turns.
The tree stands tall and imposing as it always has. She lets out a slow breath before taking one step, then another. Bark scratches at her skin when she presses a palm to the trunk; she closes her eyes at the onslaught of memories. All the times she’d scrambled up the trunk, fingernails jagged from scraping against the rough bark, followed closely by Calum. All the times she sat on the branch that overhangs the river.
She lets out a soft sob when she remembers everything she gave up so long ago but not long enough.
Calum left the door unlocked when he abandoned the town much like she had. Rett makes her way through the trailer and lets herself hurt at the sight. He had done everything for her—the sunshine yellow walls, the plush pale blue carpet, the lacy curtains over the windows. He’d painted the cupboards white, to ‘open the space’, she said when they were envisioning their future in their new home.
Photographs stare at her from the bedroom walls, prints of the time she spent with Calum. He’d hated his picture taken—he complained every time—but he never failed to smile for her. He gave her everything, and she’d thrown it away.
Rett curls up in the middle of the bed and squeezes her eyes closed. Austin… Calum…
No matter what her father said, Rett truly is a failure.
twenty-two
Calum
CALUM HEAVES A SIGH and hauls himself onto the bench seat of his truck. It’s his third day working overtime; he’s counting down the seconds until his next day off. Closing his eyes, he lets his head fall back against the headrest and inhales slowly. Just a minute, that’s all he needs. Then he’ll start up the engine and drive home.
Home. Something that used to be a one-bedroom trailer in the woods by a river, but is now a two-room apartment that haunts him with the emptiness. He still wonders at night, during that knife-thin sliver of time between awake and asleep, whether he’ll end up letting it fall into disrepair as Hank Turner had. Calum plans on never stepping foot in Oak Creek again.
Maybe he can sell the trailer with Georgie acting as mediator so he can stay away.
As it always is, the apartment is quiet but for the sounds of traffic outside, the hum of the air conditioning system, and the nearly-inaudible buzz of the refrigerator in the kitchen. Calum hangs his keys up on the hook by the door and twists the lock. He tugs off his steel-toed boots and leaves them on the rack before shuffling into the kitchen.
Only two beers remain in the fridge when he pulls open the door. He lets out a quiet groan as the cold air rushes over his face; Las Vegas summer is killer, and being accustomed to it makes it no easier. He scratches at his eyebrow then grabs a bottle from the bottom shelf. The door closes with a thump, and he turns toward the living room.
Calum doesn’t bother turning on the television. Instead, he opens the music streaming app on his phone, finds a playlist, and presses play. Screaming guitar comes from the speakers immediately. He opens the beer and swallows a large mouthful. His gaze lands on the framed photograph on the wall.
It’s the only souvenir he took from the trailer when he left. In the picture, Rett is crouching on the riverbank, watching the water ripple and swirl as it makes its way past. The sunshine washed her skin a golden tan, and her silver eyes had shined in the light. She’d been at peace then, happy. Neither of them had known that less than eight months later, they’d be married then divorced.
Rett.
Calum presses his palm against his eyes at the thought. He has been doing so well, avoiding thinking of her. Of hiding from the memories that struggled to be acknowledged. It’s no use now, though. She’s buried herself under his skin again without even trying—without even being anywhere near him. There are two thousand miles between them, and still she can affect him.
She’d said her fiancé has a future, that she and whatever-his-name-is are happy together. Their marriage is going to work, her words had implied. She had said Oak Creek was no longer home. But Calum knows better. He knows her—has since they were seventeen. He knows that no matter where she goes for how long, the town will always call for her return. It’s only a matter of time before she listens.
Time and distance can never change who she is.
Calum exhales slowly to stem the onslaught of emotions that always comes with thinking of his ex-wife. God, ex-wife. He never thought that would be a term that would apply to him. Ex-wives are for other men.
“So no kissin’ anybody else for either of us?”
He had spent seven years keeping that promise, but now it doesn’t matter.
Pushing himself to his feet, Calum heads toward the door. The silence is too damning, poking and prodding at wounds unhealed. He slips out of his apartment, locking the door behind him, then makes his way through the maze of corridors until he reaches the elevator. His upstairs neighbor stands inside, and she smiles brightly at him when he steps inside. He forces a smile in return.
Thankfully, she doesn’t try for conversation; they just ride down five stories in silence. They part ways on the sidewalk outside—she to the left, he to the right. His truck sits where he parked it not even two hours earlier; he slides in behind the steering wheel and starts up the engine. The radio starts playing almost immediately.
A song promising a fairytale love for the rest of their lives.
