I had to admit (just to myself) I still hated it.
“There are things that I—” I tried again.
“Don’t give a fuck.”
“I’m looking for Logan,” I blurted.
Her face twisted in a way that scared the absolute shit out of me as she moved closer to the bar, put her hand on it, and leaned deep.
“And I hope like fuck you don’t find him,” she hissed. “He moved on but before he found it in him to do that, you obliterated him.”
My heart constricted in a way I actually felt pain.
Excruciating pain.
“Christ, he was so into you, he was you,” Reb spat. “He lived for you. Every breath he took, it was for you. Then you sunk the blade in and slashed it straight through, gutting him. Honest to fuck, Pete, Tack, Arlo, Brick, Boz, none a’ us thought he’d survive. Ride off a cliff. Set himself swingin’ in the Compound. Get himself in a fight he knew he couldn’t win. He searched for it. It never came and you could smell the goddamned disappointment on him when he woke up to face another day without you in it. Every woman on this goddamned earth wants a man like that to feel like that about them and you had it and you fuckin’ tossed it away like it was garbage.”
I nearly fell off the barstool in my need to flee because I could take no more. The pain was so immense it was a wonder blood wasn’t oozing from every pore.
“Yeah, bitch,” she kept at me as she watched me move. “Get gone. Get the fuck gone. Don’t ever come back.” She lifted a hand and jabbed a finger at me. “And don’t you go lookin’ for High. He don’t need your shit in his life. Not again.”
I backed away two steps, unable to tear my eyes off her simply because I had no thoughts. It was actually a wonder I was moving.
All I could feel was the pain.
Eventually my body took flight and I got out of the bar. Into my car. I hit the button and reversed out of my spot without even looking to check if it was clear.
And I drove home.
It was late and even though I needed her, I wasn’t going to call Dottie again. I wasn’t going to call any of my other friends who knew about Logan and my inability to get over him. I wasn’t going to go home and burst into uncontrollable tears that felt like they’d choke me and keep crying until I hoped they would so it would finally be over.
I got into my house and flipped the switch illuminating the kitchen.
I locked the farm door behind me.
I walked to my marble countertop that was white with gray veins and dropped my purse on it.
And then I stood still and stared unseeing into the living room.
Reb was right. I knew it. I knew I’d destroyed Logan.
We’d met when I was eighteen, nine weeks after I graduated high school.
He’d asked me out within minutes of the first words we spoke to each other.
I’d slept with him on our first date.
Not because I was easy.
Because I knew he was everything.
And he was.
He was a dream come true. A fantasy come to life. Every clichéd hope of every girl on the planet walking, talking, touching, kissing.
Except, perhaps, rougher and owning his own bike.
He’d treated me like gold.
No, like a princess.
No, both.
I was precious. Beloved. Treasured.
He looked at me and every single time he did it, I knew he thought what he saw was so beautiful he couldn’t believe his luck.
The sex wasn’t great.
It was explosive.
And we slept entwined and woke the same way, like we needed to be connected to each other to recharge in the night so we could take on the day. Like without that, we wouldn’t be able to function.
To my parents’ dismay and his parents’ delight, we’d moved in with each other within six weeks of meeting.
We fought and every single time we did it, we ended it laughing like what we were fighting about was ridiculous because, mostly, it was.
We were together for three years that felt like fifty-three, all of them blissfully happy.
Then that time felt like three days the minute he walked away from me because I made him do it.
I looked around my kitchen with its marble countertops and butcher block island that had a vegetable sink. Its heavy, white ceramic farm sink under the window and white cupboards, the top ones with windows. Other cupboards specially designed for wine, cookbooks, spice racks. I took in the kitchen’s stainless steel appliances and six-burner, two-oven stove, the wine fridge.
Then I moved.
My boots struck against my hardwood floors that had been refinished four years ago and they still gleamed perfectly. I went to my living room with its multipaned windows at the front and on either side of the fireplace at the side.
I looked around the white walls and the brick of the fireplace (also painted white).
The sheers on the windows were white, too, and they were diaphanous. The furniture was slouchy and comfortable and all in soft taupe. The accents of toss pillows on couch, love seat, and cuddle chair as well as the vases spotted around surfaces were in muted pastels. The frames of pictures dotted on surfaces were all whitewashed or engraved mirror or intricate silver. And the pièce de résistance was a large circular peacock mirror over the fireplace.
The effect was cool and stylish, but not cold. Pretty and welcoming.
I walked down the hall with its walls filled with perfectly placed frames, all black with cream matting, holding black-and-white pictures of Dottie and her family. My parents. Grandparents. Cousins. Aunts and uncles. Friends.
I moved past the guestroom and guest bath into the extra bedroom that was a junk room. I flipped on the light, which set the ceiling fan to giving the room a gentle breeze it did not need in September.