“Kinks.” A ragged scoff pops out of my mouth. “We’re fucking divorced, Pops.”
“And it’s a damn shame.” He rises and heads for the door. With his hand on the knob, he pauses and eyes me over his shoulder. “We’ll be okay without the farm. But will you be okay without her?”
I don’t respond. He and I both already know the answer.
No. Without Bellamy, I won’t be okay.
I look at her painting again. The swoopy lines and pretty colors. It’s our cabin. Whether she wants to admit it or not. Even a year after leaving me, she painted us.
No cowboy in his right mind would be this fucking stupid.
I won’t let her go. Not again.
’Tis the season for bad ideas.
I trudge deeper into the glimmering forest, my boots slurping through knee-high snow, keeping the A-frame of the cabin in my sight so I don’t get turned around. The last thing I need is to get lost or eaten by a coyote.
Though Hank would probably enjoy that.
Beside me, Zelda bounces happily, her spotted fur dotted with fluffy white flakes.
I look up, blinking at the clouds. I better move fast. I have what I need to pick the perfect tree. On the sled Pops set me upwith yesterday lay gloves, a saw, rope and a tarp. I don’t need Hank Blue’s permission to venture out. We’re divorced. So there.
I ease the sled around a low stump and push through a grove of too-perfect trees. I should stop here, cut one close to the house, but I don’t want the perfect Hallmark Christmas tree. I prefer the weird ones. The unloved and unchosen. Trees with character and charm.
So I plod on.
The gray sky above suits my mood as I stew over our argument.
It doesn’t make sense. If Hank hates Christmas so much, why is he here? Why did he bring enough food to feed an army of elves? Maybe he wanted that memory. Maybe he’s like me.
Reliving that pain feels almost welcome. Familiar at least.
I hate the way he got to me. Warming my stomach and that spot between my legs. I hate what I said to him. I want to apologize, take it back, beg him to forgive me.
He may have pulled away after I lost the baby, but he was there. Hovering. Trying to help. To talk. To fix.
Me?
I shut out the one person who was there for me.
Not because our marriage couldn’t be saved or because I was unhappy. I didn’t stop loving Hank. I did it because it hurt. Everything hurt. And the only way I knew how to cope was to push.
Guilt sinks deep in my gut as I force myself to face the truth.
I thought that by leaving, I’d get over him. Get over us.
But I was fooling myself. Every Christmas—every day on this earth—spent without Hank has been blue.
Friends, my mother, my therapist told me that if I was patient, eventually, I’d wake up and find that I had moved on. That our past, the idea of us, would be a blip on the radar of my life. They were wrong.
Because I didn’t walk away not loving Hank—I left knowing I still did.
It’s why I stayed away. Avoided seeing him. Refrained from texting. Our spark never died, and that scared the hell out of me. No man had ever wound me up and turned me on like he did. My love for him hadn’t faded, not one bit.
But I left anyway. To spare him more pain. To give him the space to get over a loss that was my fault.
It doesn’t matter anymore anyway. We’re divorced. I fucked us up. And now he wants nothing to do with me.
