She shook my phone in front of my face. “You do matter to Mathias.”
I swiped the phone away from her. “Sure, because without me, he has to figure his business out on his own. Suddenly he’s faced with hiring a new assistant. Someone he has to train to do what I can do in my sleep. Someone he can’t treat like white trash from the other side of the tracks.”
“Jeez, Honey. Mathias isn’t like that,” she scolded.
“Maybe that’s just what it feels like to me then. Maybe that’s what I heard in his words this morning. Maybe the idea that he thinks I’m not capable of getting a college degree is what broke me. I don’t know, but regardless, I can’t do it anymore. I love working at Butterfly Junction, but I can’t.” I broke off when tears filled my eyes and sorrow thickened my voice.
“I understand, Honey. You have to do what makes you happy. Mathias would like to apologize.”
“He has, Charity, eighty-some times already,” I said, holding up the phone.
She rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “In person. He wants to make it right.”
I held my hands out, palms up, and the tears made them shake more than my tremor ever did. “I don’t know that he can. My entire life has been about supporting him, and the one time he had the chance to do the same, he spits in my face. I just don’t know how much more I can take.” My heart wanted to stop beating from the agony of it all, and I pounded my chest to force the tears back.
“Your nose is bleeding.”
She handed me a tissue, and I held it to my nose. “Sorry, that always happens when I cry too much.” I leaned my head back on the couch so it would stop.
Charity waited patiently while I gathered myself, and when I sat up, the tears had stopped and so had the blood. “You’ve known Mathias for twenty years. Has he ever had anything but your best interest at heart?”
“About twelve hours ago, I would have said no, but tonight I can’t answer that question. Suddenly I’m not so sure.”
“That’s fair. He probably deserves that. All I’m saying is, you have to talk to him. You can’t leave it like this and walk away. Would it make him suffer? No doubt, which you’ll hear when you listen to the voice mails and see when you read the texts. The question is, once the anger dissipates, what’s left?”
“Sadness,” I whispered. “Soul-shattering sadness that makes you feel like you’ll never be you again. It makes you feel like you’re an empty shell and nothing is worth living for anymore. I know the answers to all these questions, Charity. You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know. I live it every day.”
“And you want him to suffer a little bit of that same soul-shattering sadness, right?”
I stood and walked to the window, staring out at the lightning over the lake. I wrapped my arms around myself and grasped my elbows. “No, because I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy. I do know this much—none of it matters. Mathias would never feel this way.”
“Why not?” she asked, walking over to me and leaning against the wall.
“Because to suffer from that same sadness, he’d have to care about me. I’m not so sure he does, not in that way.”
She raised a brow in defiance of my statement. “I’m not so sure about what you’re so sure about.” That got a smile out of me, and she returned it. “I spent the entire day with him, and I can promise you that he cares about you. I have honestly never seen anyone in that kind of shape before, Honey, and I never want to see it again. I wouldn’t let him leave the business until Gulliver got back and could drive him home. Are you going to be all right here alone tonight, or should I let Gulliver know I’m staying?”
“I’m fine,” I promised. “You don’t have to stay, but thanks for coming over. I’m glad we’re friends, Charity.”
“We’ll always be friends, even if you leave Butterfly Junction.”
“I already told Mathias I was done. That sealed my fate, I’m afraid,” I reminded her.
She took my hand and squeezed it gently. “We aren’t going to hold you to that. If you change your mind, we’ll always welcome you back.”
“Thank you, Charity, but if I’m working at Butterfly Junction, I’m still faced with Mathias every day. I don’t know if I can do that.”
“I understand, Honey, but take some time to think about it, okay? I talked to Gulliver before I left, and we’ve decided to pay you for two weeks. Whether you use it as two weeks’ notice or as a vacation is up to you.”
“Charity,” I started to say, and she held up her hand.
“No arguing. All we ask is that you talk to Mathias.”
I rubbed my forehead, the pounding in my temples worsening with every minute. “I can’t do it tonight. My head is ready to explode.”
“That’s okay. I understand you aren’t able to do it tonight. Maybe not tomorrow or the next day either, but when you’re ready, you owe it to yourself. You get to say what you want to say to him without regard for how he feels. He’s the one who hurt you, not the other way around.”
“Maybe,” I said, my mind a jumbled mess of thoughts. “Or maybe I hurt Mathias by not telling him I earned a degree behind his back.”
