Page 90 of Will to Run

“What are you doing?” I ask, scared she’s going to take me to Jaxon’s.

“I’m obviously not leaving you alone. Even if you want to, I’m pulling friend rank. We’re going to my house. Lanie and Molly are coming. And we’re going to be together. We can talk about everything that just happened. Or we can not make any mention of it and drink our faces off.”

“But I kind of want to paint,” I say. The admission shocks me. Before my mom died, that was my go-to, and since being here, that has wormed its way back into the fiber of my being. It’s a wonderful thought, and it brings a small smile to my face when it feels like the world I once knew took its final blow earlier today.

Offered as collateral. Holy shit.

Jaxon always made fun of mob things happening in Chicago, but being traded to relieve a debt sure fits that bill.

“Can we meet in the middle?” I ask her.

“What do you mean?” she responds.

“Can we go to my apartment, and Lanie and Molly can come there? I really want to paint. And drink.”

“Let’s do it.” Without question, Hazel turns the cart around and heads back to the barn, where we both jump in my car and make our way to Millstone Ave.

We aren’t inside for more than five minutes when I get a phone call from my father. Rather than let it go to voicemail, I pick up, knowing what’s coming. Hazel holds my hand in support.

“Are you trying to kill me, Elizabeth?” he barks from the other end of the phone line. Not hello. Not thanks for picking up when you haven’t in weeks. “Tripp came to get you, and some goon broke his nose? Are you stupid?”

I let him finish his rant that ends with ‘come home and marry who you’re supposed to.’

“Chicago is not my home, Richard,” I address my father by name for the first time in my life.

“Cut that shit out, you owe me…”

“I don’t owe you a single thing,” I shoot back, vibrating with anger and sadness and betrayal. I could really use a break in these adrenaline dumps. “You sold me off for loan forgiveness, and encouraged me to not finish school so I’d be dependent on him. Tripp confessed everything.”

“Give me a break. I simply got creative. You know I stopped functioning after your mother died because of your choices…”

“I didn’t kill my mother,” my voice raises as it cuts him off, “and I will no longer let you blame me.”

“Your life will be wonderful, Elizabeth.”

“Your spouse never loving you is not wonderful. Tripp never would have loved me. You don’t either. You just saw an opportunity.”

There is desperation in his voice as he tries to get me to hear him. “He’s willing to give you another chance. I spoke with him before calling you.”

“I’m unsure why you think he’s the one giving chances. I’ve decided I’m the chance giver, and bad news, I’m all out. Goodbye, Dick. Have a nice life. Or don’t. You selfish, manipulative asshole.”

I hang up the phone and do what I should have done when I left my wedding: block him. I no longer want the facade of a reminder that my father cares; he most assuredly doesn’t.

Looking at Hazel, she just hugs me, but surprisingly, no tears come. “You good?” she asks.

I nod my head before I can sort my thoughts to answer her. “A dark cloud has followed me since the night my mom died, even before he pushed Tripp on me. But I haven’t had that same darkness here. And though I can speculate a number of reasons, I think one of them is because my father isn’t in my ear, filling it with toxic thoughts and guilt. Calling him an asshole felt good. Really fucking good.”

“I’m not sure if I’m happier or prouder right now,” Hazel rubs my shoulders, and I take a deep breath, processing it all.

When the other two arrive together, Molly starts concocting the same drinks we had when they helped me move, and hands them out.

“Okay, you can tell me to fuck right off, but what happened? Tripp showed up here trying to take you back home? How delusional is that man?” Molly opens.

“I don’t even know the half of it, and I know he’s off his rocker,” Lanie agrees.

“Yup. I can’t believe it either. Obviously, I blocked Tripp soon after the wedding and set my email settings to route anything he sent to spam. I don’t know. Between being so wrapped up in everything happening here, and having Quinn take care of all the back-end stuff related to the wedding made it easy to bury my head in the sand and hope the infraction of leaving was egregious enough to just let me go. But that was wishful thinking. I should know people like Tripp Worthington don’t give up. Part of me is surprised he didn’t come earlier,” I shrug my shoulders and take a huge sip of my bourbon drink, which warms me as it goes down.

“Was this always a possibility in your head?” Hazel asks. “We should have been more vigilant, Del.”